The King of Time: Selected Writings of the Russian Futurian

From Library Journal
An English edition of the works of Veli mir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) is especial ly welcome now that the Russian liter ary and linguistic theorists are finally receiving due attention. Khlebnikov's essential ``Futurist'' credo was that words, even letters, are to be employed without regard to conventional usage and expected meaning. Accordingly, he experimented with new forms, meters, and use of sound and patterns. This vol ume's selection ranges from his poetry, short fiction, and essays to an excerpt from his numerological/mathematical study of destiny, as impenetrable and brilliant as Yeats's Vision , to an idio syncratic ``supersaga'' full of the puns, neologisms, and word play which the translator copes with intelligently and humorously. For most academic librar ies. Natalie C. Tyler, formerly with Univ. of Rochester Lib., N.Y.Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes
Text: English, Russian (translation)


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Khlebnikov, who died in 1922 at the age of thirty-six, is one of the great, untranslated Russian poets of this century. Hailed by his contemporaries and by later writers and scholars as the creative genius behind the Russian Futurist movement, Khlebnikov is famous more for his inaccessibility than for the excellence of what he actually produced. Even Russians are generally baffled by him.
Now, in a powerful American rendition, we are given access to the strange and beautiful world of Khlebnikos "the word's wild highwayman." Trained in the natural sciences and mathematics and by temperament an artist, Khlebnikov thought he had discovered the Laws of Time and Tables of Destiny, by which enlightened humans could live in harmony with themselves and with nature. He coined the terms "Futurian" and "Presidents of Planet Earth" for himself and his friends, and he devoted all of his short, restless life to finding a language appropriate to his vision. Experiments with words became magical paths to a reinvigorated future, and produced some of the most extraordinary poems in the Russian language.
These goals and researches were variously embodied as well in stories, plays, and visionary essays in which Khlebnikov advances architectural plans for mobile cities, a new alphabet based on universal meanings of sounds, and communication by way of vast television networks. The result is poetry of startling originality, modernity, and linguistic virtuosity--a true challenge to translators and one that has been met brilliantly here by Schmidt and Douglas.The King of Timeis a representative sampling of Khlebnikov's writings, taken from the translation of his complete works now inpreparation under the auspices of the Dia Art Foundation. It includes many pieces, among them the full text of the astounding poem-play Zangezi, never before translated. General readers will be introduced to the legendary Khlebnikov, and cognoscenti will applaud the inventiveness of the rendering.
Paul Schmidt, translator of Rimbaud and Mayakovsky among others, and Charlotte Douglas, an art historian who specializes in the Russian avant-garde, are Director and Senior Research Scholar, Khlehnikov Translation Project, Dia Art Foundation.



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