Zoo, or, Letters Not About Love (1923)

by Viktor Shklovsky

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While living in exile in Berlin, the formidable literary critic Viktor Shklovsky fell in love with Elsa Triolet. He fell into the habit of sending Elsa several letters a day, a situation she accepted under one condition: he was forbidden to write about love. Zoo, or Letters Not about Love is an epistolary novel born of this constraint, and although the brilliant and playful letters contained here cover everything from observations about contemporary German and Russian life to theories of art and literature, nonetheless every one of them is indirectly dedicated to the one topic they are all required to avoid: their author's own unrequited love.… (more)

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I kept stumbling over the most breathtaking quotes from this book and decided to buy it, even though I didn't really know what the quotes meant in the context of this story, or these letters. However, after just the introduction and explanation of what the title meant, I was hooked. The sorrow of unrequited love and as a writer to not being allowed to write about the thing that hurts the most. The sincerity in the craft of writing letters and how horribly real it all is. As a writer myself, these letters reminded me of why i fell in love with writing in the first place.

[ai:Charlotte Eriksson|7056690|Charlotte Eriksson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1367998964p2/7056690.jpg]
[a:Charlotte Eriksson|7056690|Charlotte Eriksson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1367998964p2/7056690.jpg]
Author of [b:Empty Roads & Broken Bottles; in search for The Great Perhaps|17829704|Empty Roads & Broken Bottles; in search for The Great Perhaps|Charlotte Eriksson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1366309457s/17829704.jpg|24944198] (

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theGlassChild | Dec 16, 2014 |

better than i expected. (

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ifjuly | Aug 3, 2007 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Viktor Shklovsky	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Kaempfe, Alexander	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Sheldon, Richard	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Vries, Maya de	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Vries, Maya de	Afterword	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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edition suhrkamp (130)

Russische miniaturen (9)

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The ones that got away (Love)

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Canonical title

Zoo, or, Letters Not About Love

Original title

Zoo. Письма не о любви или Третья Элоиза

Alternative titles

Original publication date

1923

People/Characters

Important places

Berlin Zoological Garden, Berlin, Germany

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Epigraph

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Last words

Disambiguation notice

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Original language

Russian

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▾Book descriptions

While living in exile in Berlin, the formidable literary critic Viktor Shklovsky fell in love with Elsa Triolet. He fell into the habit of sending Elsa several letters a day, a situation she accepted under one condition: he was forbidden to write about love. Zoo, or Letters Not about Love is an epistolary novel born of this constraint, and although the brilliant and playful letters contained here cover everything from observations about contemporary German and Russian life to theories of art and literature, nonetheless every one of them is indirectly dedicated to the one topic they are all required to avoid: their author's own unrequited love.

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