PILNIAK, Boris, pseud. [Boris Andreevich VOGAU].
Rasplesnutoe vremia. Rasskazy [Spilled time. Stories].
Moscow and Leningrad, Gosizdat, 1927.
8vo, pp. 227, [1]; closed tear to initial colophon leaf, short closed tear to fly-title, small hole and section torn away from blank margin of final index leaf, none of these defects touching text; a good copy in the original patterned stiff paper wrappers, printed in red and black, edges worn, foot of spine chipped.
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Rasplesnutoe vremia. Rasskazy [Spilled time. Stories].
First edition of a collection of short stories previously published only in periodicals (in 1925-7); this collection represents a shift in Pilniak’s style towards social realism – most of the stories are grouped under the general heading ‘Recurring tales’.
‘In Spilled Time (1927) … Pilnyak concentrated on what in his opinion were the psychological constants of the “game of life”: birth, growth, the struggle for survival, sexual possession, death. … Nature is opposed to culture; several tales resulting from Pilnyak’s extensive travels in Europe, the Far East, and America reflect this point of view clearly. These tales, incidentally, have a strong anti-Western trait’ (Slonim, Soviet Russian Literature). ‘A Story, about how stories are created’, for example, is set in Japan.
