{"product_id":"a-school-for-fools-isbn-9781590178461","title":"A School for Fools","description":"By turns lyrical and philosophical, witty and baffling, \u003ci\u003eA School for Fools\u003c\/i\u003e confounds all expectations of the novel. Here we find not one reliable narrator but two “unreliable” narrators: the young man who is a student at the “school for fools” and his double. What begins as a reverie (with frequent interruptions) comes to seem a sort of fairy-tale quest not for gold or marriage but for self-knowledge. The currents of consciousness running through the novel are passionate and profound. Memories of childhood summers at the dacha are contemporaneous with the present, the dead are alive, and the beloved is present in the wind. Here is a tale either of madness or of the life of the imagination in conversation with reason, straining at the limits of language; in the words of Vladimir Nabokov, “an enchanting, tragic, and touching book.”\"A work of genius voiced by a narrator and his double — simultaneously.  It’s a Joycean work that unravels in fits and starts, but always  beautifully....[by] one of the great living Russian writers.\" —\u003ci\u003eFlavorwire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sokolov’s \u003ci\u003eA School for Fools\u003c\/i\u003e should be considered one of the finest 20th-century Russian novels.” —Harvey Pekar, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“If Joyce had written the last chapter of \u003ci\u003eUlysses\u003c\/i\u003e in Russian it would have sounded like this.\" —Vladimir Markov \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Sokolov] develops ideas and techniques from Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Joyce, to name a few predecessors—but he uses themes like doubling, madness, and sexual obsession in a way that is his own and feels completely new. . . The hero of the book is language itself, and I’m happy to say that the previous inadequate translation has been superseded by Alexander Boguslawski’s superb one. . . You won’t be disappointed.” —Stephen Dodsen, \u003ci\u003eThe Millions\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sokolov is one of those rare novelists whose primary concern is the praise and exploration of a language rather than the development of a position. In this, he is in the line of Gogol, Lermontov, Nabokov. ‘For me, the Bible says it: The Word is God,’ Sokolov says, ‘and God is more important than life.’ ” —David Remnick, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An enchanting, tragic, and touching work.” —Vladimir Nabokov\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “[\u003ci\u003eA School for Fools\u003c\/i\u003e] will undoubtedly come to be recognized as one of the great classics of Russian prose.” —\u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “The voice is amazingly sensitive and imaginative, gloriously lucid of language and full of broad comedy and whimsical wit. For all its gloominess, this strange novel is a celebration of life.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A lyrical vision of extraordinary intensity. Sokolov is an astounding new voice.” —\u003ci\u003eChicago Daily News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A puzzling and wonderful book. The novel is an anti-authoritarian statement, a compassionate cry for understanding of those who are different, the nonconformists of any society who must find their own way.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Kansas City Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “One of the most original and talented works to emerge from the Soviet Union in many years.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eSasha Sokolov\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Canada in 1943. His father, a  high-ranking Soviet diplomat, was deported from Canada as a spy in  1946, and Sokolov grew up in the Soviet Union, where he studied  journalism at Moscow State University. He made repeated attempts to  escape from the USSR, for which he was briefly imprisoned, but after  international protests, he was finally permitted to leave the country in  1975. That same year the manuscript of \u003ci\u003eA School for Fools\u003c\/i\u003e, his  first novel, was smuggled out of the Soviet Union and published in the  West to great acclaim. The recipient of the prestigious Andrei Bely  Prize in 1981 and of the Pushkin Prize for literature in 1996, Sokolov  is the author of the novels \u003ci\u003eAstrophobia\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBetween Dog and Wolf\u003c\/i\u003e and of a book of essays, \u003ci\u003eIn the House of the Hanged\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlexander Boguslawski\u003c\/b\u003e is a professor of Russian studies at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300609380581,"sku":"NP9781590178461","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590178461.jpg?v=1767720768","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/a-school-for-fools-isbn-9781590178461","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}