Full name: The Symmetry Teacher: A Novel

Author: Andrei Bitov Year: 1992 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Fiction Culture: Russia Purchase/reserch links: Amazon Goodreads ISBNs: 9780374273514 0374273510

One of Russia's finest novelists and an heir to the literature of Gogol, Bulgakov, and Nabokov, Andrei Bitov has been widely hailed as a progenitor of the postmodern novel. The Teacher of Symmetry is his love letter to the art of storytelling. Layered with playful games between writer and reader, this delightful, challenging work explores the relationship between an author and his creations, and the sacrifices that a writer may make out of ardor for his art. Bitov tells us that The Teacher of Symmetry is the "echo" of a British novel that he once read and is now trying to reconstruct through the moth holes of memory and the fog of a foreign tongue. As the book proceeds, we encounter a series of curious episodes: A man meets the devil on a park bench and the devil shows him photographs of the fall of Troy, Shakespeare's legs, and a terrible event that will take place in his future. A king who reigns over all possible worlds and uses his power to remove stars from the sky turns out to be the compiler of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Villagers squabble over a self-proclaimed space alien, and a literary society decides that it will accept only new members whose works are unwritten. Through it all, Bitov proceeds with the wit and mastery of a fabulist in perfect command of his fables. Similar books: Pushkin House by Andrei Bitov Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin The Clay Machine-Gun by Victor Pelevin The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald Let's Put the Future Behind Us by Jack Womack A Captive of the Caucasus by Andrei Bitov Between Dog and Wolf by Sasha Sokolov The Fur Hat by Vladimir Voinovich Once Upon the River Love by Andrei Makine A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov The Life of Insects by Victor Pelevin Farewell to Matyora by Valentin Rasputin The President's Last Love by Andrey Kurkov The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov A Week Like Any Other by Natalya Baranskaya The Silver Dove by Andrei Bely Honey for the Bears by Anthony Burgess Nihilist Girl by Sofya Kovalevskaya Ground Up by Michael Idov The Commissariat of Enlightenment by Ken Kalfus