The Vortex That Unites Us is a study of totality in Russian literature, from the foundation of the modern Russian state to the present day. Considering a diversity of texts that have in common chiefly their prominence in the Russian literary canon, Jacob Emery examines the persistent ambition in Russian literature to gather the whole world into an artwork. Emery reveals how the diversity of totalizing figures in the Russian canon-often in alliance with ideologies like the totalitarian state or enlightenment reason-strive for the frontiers of space and time in order to guarantee the coherence of the globe and the continuity of history. He expores subjects like romantic metaphors of supernatural possession; Tolstoy's conception of art as a vector of emotional contagion; the panoramic ambitions of the avant-garde to grasp the globe in a new poetic medium; efforts of Soviet utopians to harmonize the whole of social life along aesthetic lines; Mandelstam's evocation of writing as a transcendental authority that guarantees a grandiose historical rhythm even when manifested as authoritarian repression; and the mass market of cultural commodities in which the exiled Vladimir Nabokov found success with his novel Lolita. The Vortex That Unites Us reveals a common thread in the disparate works it explores, bringing into a single horizon a variety of typically siloed texts and aesthetic approaches. In all these cases, the medium of totality is the body, inspired by artistic vision and compelled by aesthetic response.

About the Author

Jacob Emery is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Associate Professor of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at Indiana University. He is the author of Alternative Kinships and, together with his sister, the novel A Clockwork River.

Reviews

Indeed, while the aesthetic visions analyzed in the book aim for closure, Emery dwells in their details and ambiguities, offering terrific insights into numerous texts.

* The Russian Review *

Thought-provoking and erudite, Emery's core contention that Russian culture is a continuum of totalizing aesthetic and ideological tendencies is persuasive.

* Times Literary Supplement *

thought-provoking.erudite.Emery's core contention that Russian culture is a continuum of totalizing aesthetic and ideological tendencies is persuasive.

* TLS *

Emery looks at five fabulously diverse "versions" of the unifying impulse directed at living bodies: possession, epidemic, panorama, orchestra, and market. Each has its own appetite, exemplary authors, and treasure box of metaphors. Equal time is allotted to prose and poetry.

* Los Angeles Review of Books *



Book Information
ISBN 9781501769382
Author Jacob Emery
Format Hardback
Page Count 228
Imprint Northern Illinois University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 24mm