The Time: Night
The cover of the 2000 Northwestern University Press edition. This image is under copyright and may not be reused without the explicit permission of Northwestern University Press.
|
|
| Author | Lyudmila Petrushevskaya |
|---|---|
| Translator | Sally Laird |
| Country | Russia |
| Language | Russian/English |
| Genre | Fiction |
|
Publication date
|
1992 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 155 |
The Time: Night (Russian: Время ночь) is a novella by Russian author Lyudmila Petrushevskaya. It was originally published in Russian in the literary journal Novy Mir in 1992 and translated into English by Sally Laird in 1994. In 1992 it was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize.
The Time: Night follows the struggles of the matriarchal Anna Andrionova as she holds together an emotionally unstable and financially decrepit family in early . Writing in first-person, Petrushevskaya presents the novella as a manuscript Anna's family finds after her death, and into which she poured the frustration and sheer power of her parenthood. Anna's struggles throughout to reconcile her intense love for her family with their parasitic lifestyles. The opening pages introduce Anna's daughter, Alyona, through a brief stolen segment of her diary, unveiling her chronic promiscuity and destructive incompetence. Alyona's rambunctious toddler, Tima, for whom Anna shows riveting affection aion, accompanies his grandmother during his mother's escapades. Anna's ex-convict son Andrei makes intermittent appearances at her communal apartment, looking for food and booze money. As the manuscript progresses, Petrushevskaya reveals the pitiful and terminal condition of Anna's mother in a mental hospital, and another illegitimate child of Alyona's. The narrative concludes with Alyona fleeing the apartment with her children in the night, after the death of Anna's mother.
Story Telling-The protagonist, Anna Anrianovna, takes great pride in identifying herself as a storyteller and poet. Anna presents her tale as the story of her daughter, Alyona, and to some extent her son and grandchildren. She even sometimes goes so far as to write in her own version of Alyona's voice. Though she presents her tale as the story of her children's lives, as the novel progresses, it becomes apparent that the story is not about Anna's children, but about Anna herself and the way she relates them.
Motherhood- Three generations of motherhood are present in the novel. The relationship most thoroughly explored is the one between Anna and her daughter Alyona. This relationship as depicted by Anna seems tumultuous and fraught with drama. However, as the novel progresses, the reader sees that Anna’s portrayal of her relationship with her daughter is accurate only in so far as it is a reflection of her relationship with her own mother. The novel ends on a redemptive note in which Anna shows that she is willing to forfeit everything- perhaps even her sanity- for her aging mother, and Alyona finds the strength to break away from the domineering Anna in order to be a better mother to her own children.
...
Wikipedia