From Library Journal
Somewhat overshadowed in the West by famous contemporaries Akhmatova, Mandelstam, and Pasternak, noteworthy Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva is finally getting the attention she deserves. Translator/ scholar Feiler's critical biography is the second in as many years, following quickly on the heels of Viktoria Schweitzer's successful Tsetaeva (LJ 4/15/93). Feiler and Schweitzer cover the same territory-the poet's singular childhood, struggles during the Revolution, exile, and eventual return to the Soviet Union, where she committed suicide in 1941-but differ in tone. While Schweitzer is rhapsodic and inspired, Feiler is sober, clear, and direct. She places somewhat greater emphasis on Tsvetaeva's troubled relationship with her mother and offers solid readings of the poems. Public libraries already owning Schweitzer's work don't need to add Feiler's, but academic libraries should strongly consider filling out their collections with this well-crafted study.Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Book News, Inc.
A biography of the Russian poet who came of age during the revolution. Feiler shows that Tsvetaeva's work was shaped as much by inner demons as by the harsh realities of her day, and traces these demons through the drama of Tsvetaeva's life and poetry. Feiler depicts the poet in relation to her contemporaries, and follows her ultimately tragic life from pre-revolutionary Russia to pre-World War II, Berlin, Paris, and the Soviet Union under Stalin. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Born to a family of Russian intelligentsia in 1892 and coming of age in the crucible of revolution and war, Tsvetaeva has been seen as a victim of her politicized time, her life and her work marked by exile, neglect, and persecution. This book is the first to show us the poet as she discovered her life through art, shaped as much by inner demons as by the political forces and harsh realities of her day. With remarkable psychological and literary subtlety, Lily Feiler traces these demons through the tragic drama of Tsvetaeva's life and poetry. Hers is a story full of contradictions, resisting social and literary conventions but enmeshed in the politics and poetry of her time. Feiler depicts the poet in her complex relation to her contemporaries - Pasternak, Rilke, Mayakovsky, Mandelshtam, and Akhmatova. She shows us a woman embodying the values of nineteenth-century romanticism, yet radical in her poetry, supremely independent in her art, but desperate for appreciation and love, simultaneously mother and child in her complicated sexual relationships with men and women. Here we see the poet who could read her work glorifying the White Army to an audience of Red Army men, the woman who, with her husband a Soviet agent in Paris, could write a long poem about the execution of the last Tsar.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Somewhat overshadowed in the West by famous contemporaries Akhmatova, Mandelstam, and Pasternak, noteworthy Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva is finally getting the attention she deserves. Translator/ scholar Feiler's critical biography is the second in as many years, following quickly on the heels of Viktoria Schweitzer's successful Tsetaeva (LJ 4/15/93). Feiler and Schweitzer cover the same territory-the poet's singular childhood, struggles during the Revolution, exile, and eventual return to the Soviet Union, where she committed suicide in 1941-but differ in tone. While Schweitzer is rhapsodic and inspired, Feiler is sober, clear, and direct. She places somewhat greater emphasis on Tsvetaeva's troubled relationship with her mother and offers solid readings of the poems. Public libraries already owning Schweitzer's work don't need to add Feiler's, but academic libraries should strongly consider filling out their collections with this well-crafted study.-Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"

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