Did you know that Andrei Bitov / Frederick Croen wrote and first published “The Wheel” in English in 1974, the same year Robert Pirsig published “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” ? Both using motorcycles as a vehicle for Zen Buddhist inspired philosophical development.
The kind of thing you can discover by searching the on-line content of published books in or out of copyright in Google Books.
Amazing.
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[Post Note Feb 2024: Never did find the actual thesis (with Croen’s 1974 translation of Bit0v’s The Wheel) nor the Russian original. All public / Google hits are references to it or to Ellen Chances reference to it. Still we know where the letter archives are in 2024. And in fact Princeton’s database does in include a PDF of the Senior Thesis. No sign of another Chances publication with that “future” title? The “notes” above refer to this passage on page 118 …
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Of translations of Bitov’s own works, his books “The Symmetry Teacher” and “Pushkin House” are published, reviewed and available. “The Wheel” and “Life in Windy Weather” are essays in his collection “Images of Life” but so far as I can see that collection doesn’t seem to be available in any form, although some of the individual essays / short-stories are?]
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