About Novel with Cocaine
A Dostoevskian psychological novel of ideas, Novel with Cocaine explores the interaction between psychology, philosophy, and ideology in its frank portrayal of an adolescent’s cocaine addiction. The story relates the formative experiences of Vadim at school and with women before he turns to drug abuse and the philosophical reflections to which it gives rise. Although Ageyev makes little explicit reference to the Revolution, the novel’s obsession with addictive forms of thinking finds resonance in the historical background, in which “our inborn feelings of humanity and justice” provoke “the cruelties and satanic transgressions committed in its name.
- Complete Title: Novel with Cocaine (European Classics)
- Format: Paperback
- Language: English
- Number of Pages: 204
- Publication Time: October 28, 1998
- Publisher: Northwestern University Press
- ISBN: 0810117096
- ISBN13: 9780810117099
About M. Ageyev
M. Ageyev
M. Ageyev is believed to be the nom-de-plume of Mark Lazarevich Levi. His best-known work, Novel With Cocaine was published in 1934 in the Parisian émigré publication, Numbers. Nikita Struve has alleged it to be the work of another Russian author employing a pen name, Vladimir Nabokov; this idea was debunked by Nabokov’s son Dmitry in his preface to The Enchanter.
Levi’s life is shrouded in mystery and conjecture. He returned to the U.S.S.R. in 1942 and spent the rest of his life in Yerevan, where he died on August 5, 1973.
Reviews Novel with Cocaine
Vit Babenco
Russian title of the novel can also be translated to English as Romance with Cocaine and somehow this variant appeals to me more.Novel with Cocaine is factually a diary of a cad:…female charms, the…
Glenn Russell
I suspect there’s good reason why little is known of Russian author Marc Levi who used M. Ageyev as a nom-de-plume – he wanted it that way. Novel with Cocaine (alternate title: A Romance with Cocaine)…
E. G.
Introduction, by Michael Henry Heim–Novel with Cocaine…
MJ Nicholls
This book has the dubious honour of being the 400th book I’ve read over the last two years, the first being John Barth’s appalling Coming Soon!!! (whose three exclamation marks speak of a desperat…
knig
The gall of Nabokov scorning this novel as ‘disgusting’(which it is, but that’s beside the point. Pot? Kettle?). Disgusting, degenerate, harrowing, eternally haunting: Agayev has the uncanny abi…
Joshua Nomen-Mutatio
Soundtrack:
Baths – Maximalist
Spent two days a week shoving rather pricey quantities of oft-jagged euphoria up their snout, the nearest conduit to the terrible/beautiful master, the hub of experie…
J.M. Hushour
“Isn’t the human soul somewhat like a swing, which, once given a push in the direction of humanity, is ipso facto predisposed to return in the direction of bestiality?”The title narcotic only shows up…
Rhys
An exceptional novel, pungent, powerful, dark and intense, and also psychologically very astute and acute. The mysterious and pseudonymous Ageyev (who only recently has been identified as an obscure p…
Lizzy
You cannot argue with a book called Novel with Cocaine. I feel a little weird giving it a rating… it’s kind of like if you saw an old Russian man have a seizure under a bench in a decrepit public pa…