Journal archive

Abstract: It is difficult to exaggerate the breadth and depth of Mary-Kay Wilmers’ contribution to national and international culture. Since 1992, she has been the editor of the London Review of Books. Her book The Eitingons: A Twentieth-Century Story (2009) came out in London and New York, in Moscow, in Paris. In Human Relations and Other Difficulties (2018) her long essays (reviews) were collected – from Listener, New Yorker, the LRB. This article presents her works in a literary context, gives her stylistic portrait through analysis of dominant features of her language personality. The first part of the article is devoted to The Eitingons. The research of her remarkable family evolved into a beautifully written book where the narrator is the most intriguing character. Historical indefiniteness did not embarrass the author, moreover, her penetration and postmodern approach turned the enigmas of history into a fascinating account where ambivalence and paradoxes helped to portray the mystery of life. The first Russian translation let you feel the difficulties of transforming into a different language her highly delicate and sophisticated approach, her lightness, ambivalence, intimate intonation. In the second part, devoted to Human Relations, special attention is paid to her works on obituaries, advertising encyclopedia, language of the novel reviewing, ‘difficult women.’ Close reading demonstrates the author’s functional, balanced, considerate, courageous, challenging, critical, convivial approach. Right priorities, admirable style, wisdom, charm on page are characteristics of Mary-Kay Wilmers’ ‘modest unemphatic originality’. The third part touches upon the books devoted to her.