Set at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when idleness was still looked upon by Russia's serf-owning rural gentry as a plausible & worthy goal, Ivan Goncharov's " Oblomov" follows the travails of an unlikely hero, a young aristocrat incapable of making a decision. This title presents the translation the novel. ...

Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a member of Russia's dying aristocracy a man so lazy that he has given up his job in the Civil Service, neglected his books, insulted his friends & found himself in debt. Too apathetic to do anything about his problems, he lives in a grubby, crumbling apartment, waited on by Zakhar, his equally idle servant. ...

Goncharov's gentle satire on the failings of 19th-century Russian gentry & bureaucracy turns into something deeper & richer than satire, as he probes the character of a protagonist whose constitutional lethargy becomes a symbol for the malaise of the human spirit in an alienating world. ...

For nearly 300 years, oboe players have painstakingly evolved the individualized skill of reedmaking. This study of techniques for styling oboe reeds analyzes 166 examples of reeds by 80 artists from 14 countries. It also documents musicians such as Robert Bloom, Henri de Busscher, Janet Craxton, Peter Graeme, Harold Gomberg, & John Mack. ...

Documentary biography of Barney Rosset, owner of influential alternative publishing company Grove Press & editor of the literary magazine Evergreen Review. Often publishing highly controversial books that had been banned under obscenity laws including ' Lady Chatterley's Lover', ' Tropic of Cancer' & ' Naked Lunch' as well as works by Samuel Beckett, Kenzaburo Oe, Tom Stoppard, Che Guevara, & Malcolm X, Rosset was a passionate defender of free expression & endured lawsuits, death-threats, grenade attacks, government surveillance & the occupation of his premises by enraged feminists in his struggle against censorship & state control. ...

Obscure Locks offers a detailed annotation of Samuel Beckett's most enigmatic novel, Watt. It provides a page by page account of the demented details (literary, philosophical, theological, biographical & other) that went into the making of this encyclopaedic novel. ...