Bobbery

James Wood

Pushkin: A Biography by T.J. Binyon
HarperCollins, 731 pp, £30.00, September 2002, ISBN 0 00 215084 0

It is in some ways unfortunate that Tchaikovsky set Eugene Onegin to music, not Rossini, the composer of deep shallows. Pushkin, according to T.J. Binyon’s remarkable biography, became ‘addicted’ to Rossini while living in Odessa, where an Italian opera company was visiting, and though Binyon makes nothing of it, it rather blares at us, as writers’ tastes in music so often do (Joyce’s love of Puccini, for instance, or Auden’s dislike of Brahms).

You are not Logged In

If you have already registered login here
If you are a print subscriber using the site for the first time please register here
If you are not yet a subscriber you can subscribe here
If you are a member of a subscribing institution or University library please login here
If you have an Institutional print subscription and online access is not included, find out about our Institutional online subscriptions

Vol. 25 No. 4 · 20 February 2003 » James Wood » Bobbery (print version)
Pages 13-15 | 4863 words

Letters

From Tim Summers-Scott

In his laudatory review of T.J. Binyon's biography of Pushkin (LRB, 20 February), James Wood makes much of Binyon's enthusiasm for his subject and his attention to detail. I have not read the book but Wood mentions 'a naughty poem' of Pushkin's, 'in which he promised, today, to kiss her like a Christian, but tomorrow, if requested, to convert to Judaism just for another kiss, and even to put into her hand "That by which one can distinguish/A genuine Hebrew from the Orthodox"'. Since the poem is entitled 'Christ is Risen' one must presume the member, circumcised or not, is erect. What I would like to know is how, in the erect state, you can tell. I realise this may say less about my ignorance of Pushkin than about my ignorance of life – and it is a detail, I agree – but if the book is as strong on detail as Wood makes out I think Binyon ought to tell us.

Tim Summers-Scott
London W8

From David Pollack

Tim Summers-Scott (Letters, 6 March) admits to an 'ignorance of life' regarding erect penises. I am happy to inform him that many uncircumcised examples remain fully covered when erect.

David Pollack
Leicester

From Valentin Lyubarsky

Tim Summers-Scott (Letters, 6 March) wonders 'how, in the erect state, can you tell' whether 'the member is circumcised or not'. I suppose it is not impossible, but Pushkin's original doesn't present such a dilemma anyway. What Binyon translates, too literally, as 'to put into her hand' should have been 'to offer' or 'present', and the following lines are not so graphic as to suggest 'erect'. Also, Wood's review mistakenly places the final romantic struggle between Onegin and Tatiana in Moscow, although Binyon correctly places it in Petersburg.

Valentin Lyubarsky
Brooklyn, New York