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Sanatorium Arktur
Lucky Levshin! He is recovering—he is almost well. He is already strong enough to go and watch an ice hockey match or to ski. The dazzling mountain sunshine, the white snow and the crisp air gladden him again. At last he sees that Fräulein Hoffmann has been in love with him for a long time. Levshin is going to leave Arktur, to leave Davos!
And what of Inga? Young Inga Krechmar, who is slowly parting “with the only life she has….” How strongly she feels draw to Levshin! How she yearns for his love! How she longs to live—to live just a little longer, to know the joy of love, of happiness! But her will to live has long been spent and cannot be brought back. She has no strength left to combat her relentless disease, and the tragic end is near.
Stum—Arktur’s “gilding”—resigns his post at the sanatorium. The death of his young patient was more than he could bear. But was she only a patient? Inga had so vividly reminded him of his late beloved wife, had resembled her so poignantly in everything….
What of the proprietor of Arktur, perhaps the most vivid and interesting character in the story? He was so ill, and doing so badly…. What happened to poor Dr. Klebe and his sanatorium at Davos?
We shall let the author answer these questions in his short yet so comprehensive novel Sanatorium Arktur.
—from the back of the dust jacket
Library of Selected Soviet Literature
And what of Inga? Young Inga Krechmar, who is slowly parting “with the only life she has….” How strongly she feels draw to Levshin! How she yearns for his love! How she longs to live—to live just a little longer, to know the joy of love, of happiness! But her will to live has long been spent and cannot be brought back. She has no strength left to combat her relentless disease, and the tragic end is near.
Stum—Arktur’s “gilding”—resigns his post at the sanatorium. The death of his young patient was more than he could bear. But was she only a patient? Inga had so vividly reminded him of his late beloved wife, had resembled her so poignantly in everything….
What of the proprietor of Arktur, perhaps the most vivid and interesting character in the story? He was so ill, and doing so badly…. What happened to poor Dr. Klebe and his sanatorium at Davos?
We shall let the author answer these questions in his short yet so comprehensive novel Sanatorium Arktur.
—from the back of the dust jacket
Library of Selected Soviet Literature
238 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1940
2 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Konstantin Fedin
39 books6 followersKonstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin (Russian: Константин Федин) was a Soviet novelist.
Born in Saratov of humble origins, Fedin studied in Moscow and Germany and was interned there during World War I. After his release he worked as an interpreter in the first Soviet embassy in Berlin. On returning to Russia he joined the Bolsheviks and served in the Red Army; after leaving the Party in 1921 he joined the literary group called the Serapion Brothers, who supported the Revolution but wanted freedom for literature and the arts.
His first story, "The Orchard," was published in 1922, as was his play Bakunin v Drezdene (Bakunin in Dresden). His first two novels are his most important; Goroda i gody (1924; tr. as Cities and Years, 1962, "one of the first major novels in Soviet literature") and Bratya (Brothers, 1928) both deal with the problems of intellectuals at the time of the October Revolution, and include "impressions of the German bourgeois world" based on his wartime imprisonment. His later novels include Pokhishchenie Evropy (The rape of Europe, 1935), Sanatorii Arktur (The Arktur sanatorium, 1939), and the historical trilogy, Pervye radosti (First joys, 1945), Neobyknovennoe leto (An unusual summer, 1948), and Kostyor (The fire, 1961-67). He also wrote a memoir Gorky sredi nas (Gorky among us, 1943).
Edward J. Brown sums him up as follows: "Fedin, while he is probably not a great writer, did possess in a high degree the talent for communicating the atmosphere of a particular time and place. His best writing is reminiscent re-creation of his own experiences, and his memory is able to select and retain sensuous elements of long-past scenes which render their telling a rich experience."
From 1959 until his death in 1977, he served, first as a secretary, and than as chair of the Union of Soviet Writers.
Born in Saratov of humble origins, Fedin studied in Moscow and Germany and was interned there during World War I. After his release he worked as an interpreter in the first Soviet embassy in Berlin. On returning to Russia he joined the Bolsheviks and served in the Red Army; after leaving the Party in 1921 he joined the literary group called the Serapion Brothers, who supported the Revolution but wanted freedom for literature and the arts.
His first story, "The Orchard," was published in 1922, as was his play Bakunin v Drezdene (Bakunin in Dresden). His first two novels are his most important; Goroda i gody (1924; tr. as Cities and Years, 1962, "one of the first major novels in Soviet literature") and Bratya (Brothers, 1928) both deal with the problems of intellectuals at the time of the October Revolution, and include "impressions of the German bourgeois world" based on his wartime imprisonment. His later novels include Pokhishchenie Evropy (The rape of Europe, 1935), Sanatorii Arktur (The Arktur sanatorium, 1939), and the historical trilogy, Pervye radosti (First joys, 1945), Neobyknovennoe leto (An unusual summer, 1948), and Kostyor (The fire, 1961-67). He also wrote a memoir Gorky sredi nas (Gorky among us, 1943).
Edward J. Brown sums him up as follows: "Fedin, while he is probably not a great writer, did possess in a high degree the talent for communicating the atmosphere of a particular time and place. His best writing is reminiscent re-creation of his own experiences, and his memory is able to select and retain sensuous elements of long-past scenes which render their telling a rich experience."
From 1959 until his death in 1977, he served, first as a secretary, and than as chair of the Union of Soviet Writers.
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