Тайрд-Боффин Э

A. Tired-Boffin

Russian variant of A. Tired Boffin
Novella

from The Teacher of Symmetry Cycle

Преподаватель симметрии


Based on a review at the Modern Novel website, part of this story involves the devil showing photographs of the future to a man named Vanoski (an obscure author from the 1930s). So, we’ve got photos-from-the-future, but no actual time travel. However, there is time travel in another story (“Fotografiya Pushkin (1799–2099)”) from the Teacher of Symmetry Cycle. And just to pile satire on top of satire, the 16 stories in the cycle were purportedly written by an obscure Englishman named A. Tired-Boffin, and Bitov was merely the humble messenger who provided translations of these lost gems into Russian.

Also, according to Fantlab[/b] and Labirint, this is the central story of Bitov’s Teacher of Symmetry Cycle, which consists of 16 of avant-garde stories by an unknown English author, A. Tired-Boffin (1859–1937). Bitov purportedly found and translated some of these stories to Russian.
Итак, на фотографии был бесспорно я, и мое будущее лицо мне нравилось и подходило, но чем же оно тогда было так искажено?
translate So, it was undeniably me in the photograph, and I liked and suited my future face, but why was it so distorted then?
Title page of a Russian story with a sketched, black-and-white portrait of the
                author, Andrei Bitov, at the top.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Time Phenomena