This novel "explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century. An absent-minded professor and a glamorous yet bumbling spy struggle over a powerful secret formula in this tale filled with eccentric personalities, wild dialogue, improbable sounds, bristling images and vivid colors. In The Moscow Eccentric, Andrei Bely challenges readers not only with his ideas, but by presenting them in a what he called an 'epic poem in prose format.' Built on a rhythmic backbone of metered prose that supports a wondrous array of literary devices, both poetic and prosaic, Bely's language play is breathtaking. He is as brilliant on a huge canvas depicting spectacular swaths of city life as he is in detailing the patterns of snow on a small stretch of sidewalk. He surprises and thrills readers with constant tonal and stylistic variation, moving effortlessly from lyrical descriptions of nature to slapstick physical and verbal parody of Russia's social milieu."--Cover.
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