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The novel recounts the story of the sadist schoolteacher
Peredonov in an unnamed Russian provincial town. A second plotline presents the idyllic love of the boy Sasha Pylnikov and the girl Ludmila Rutilova. Peredonov lives in constant hatred of the world around him and of life itself, and he believes
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that everyone constantly hates him. Throughout the novel
Peredonov struggles to be promoted to governmental inspector of his province, starts becoming paranoid, and hallucinates a mysterious little demon Nedotykomka. He finally commits murder in a state of insanity.
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for an entire generation... He torments his students, derives erotic satisfaction from watching them kneel to pray, and systematically befouls his apartment before leaving it as part of his generalized spite against the
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The novel may be read as a satire on
Russian provincial life, but Sologub's intention was to paint life itself as an evil creation of God. The grotesque Russian town and the world of
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The book puts on display a
Freudian treasure chest of perversions with subtlety and credibility. The name of the novel's hero, Peredonov, became a symbol of calculating
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allowed
Sologub to combine his Symbolist tendencies and the tradition of Russian Realism in which he engaged throughout his earlier novels, a style similar to
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trans. Samuel D. Cioran (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1983) (with an appendix and critical articles, ed. Murl Barker).
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wrote in 1925, "Peredonov has become the most famous and memorable character of
Russian fiction since
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374:"A History of Russian Literature, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Dostoyevsky (1881)"
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trans. Ronald Wilks (New York: Penguin, 1994) (Penguin
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The realistic and satirical depiction of
Russian provincial life and the
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1905 symbolist novel by
Russian writer Fyodor Sologub
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trans. Andrew Field (New York: Random House, 1962).
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395:Mirsky, D. S. (23 January 1927).
372:Mirsky, D. S. (23 January 1927).
341:A History of Russian Symbolism
328:(Vintage Books, 1970), p. 495.
246:(London: Martin Secker, 1916).
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31:The Petty Demon Russian Cover
338:Peterson, Ronald E. (1993).
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150:Literary significance
326:The Icon and the Axe
234:English translations
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