Sunday, May 12, 2013

A Jumble: Two Books, One Coven, and Six Literary Award Finalists

I took a break last week after a rather bloody incident involving a grater, a chunk of Pineland sharp cheddar cheese, and a middle finger. Now that I’m back to full typing capacity, despite an occasional twinge in the finger, here’s a jumble of a post to get me caught up…

I’ll admit that last week I was more than happy to procrastinate writing about Sergei Nosov’s Грачи улетели (The Rooks Have Flown/Left/Gone): in keeping with the jumble theme, The Rooks is a nearly indescribable jumble of characters, places, and motifs. Nosov tells the story of three old friends—a teacher, a typewriter repairman and watchman, and a former flyswatter salesman and would-be artist(e)—in three non-chronological sections. Much of the book is set in St. Petersburg, which lends itself to some nice passages about changing names and times. And references to Dostoevsky. And peeing off a bridge.

I thought The Rooks worked particularly well when Nosov examined contemporary art—one of his characters makes a wonderful trip to the Hermitage and stares in the abyss of Malevich’s glassed-in Black Square—and the fine lines between art and life. The section set in Germany, where the flyswatter salesman and would-be artist lives for a time and hosts the other two for a painful visit, felt less successful because it felt, simply, too long. Despite some structural misgivings, Nosov won me over with atmosphere, love for St. Petersburg, and a tone that avoids the cloying and preciousness thanks, in large part, to tart commentary on contemporary art and culture. The epilogue contains developments that brought varying degrees of surprise and showed how little we may know our friends and literary characters. It also cemented my interpretation of the book’s title as a reference to fall, playing off the name of Aleksei Savrasov’s painting of rooks that have returned in spring.


Iurii Trifonov’s Обмен (The Exchange) is a lovely jumble, too, a long story about family that blends past and present, private and public: Trifonov focuses on Viktor Dmitriev, whose wife Lena wants to arrange an apartment exchange so they (and their daughter) can live with Dmitriev’s mother, Ksenia, who is horribly ill. The description of The Exchange in Neil Cornwall and Nicole Christian’s Reference Guide to Russian Literature is so good and detailed (even if it’s cut off!) that I’ll just focus on impressions. I think what struck me most about The Exchange was the grayness of Dmitriev’s Soviet-era existence: his daily routine, his past affair with a co-worker he thinks would have made a better wife than Lena, and, of course, disappointment. Everything is beautifully observed and described though I find this sort of quiet—or perhaps muted and repressed?—desperation even sadder than the harsher chernukha of the post-Soviet era. I mean that as a statement of respect rather than a criticism. Particularly since I have to think there’s a reason Trifonov chose to include that cesspool.

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Oxford from the air... must get up early enough to see city before coven...
On another note, I’m very excited about Translators’ Coven: Fresh Approaches to Literary Translation from Russian, a weekend workshop I’ll be attending at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, next month. I’ll be chairing a roundtable discussion about publishing and translations, and speaking on a panel about translating dialogue in drama. The week after the workshop, there will be a series of events about poetry translation at Pushkin House in London. A huge thank you to Oliver Ready and Robert Chandler for organizing all this. It’s a wonderful chance to learn and get caught up with London-based colleagues. I can’t wait!

Speaking of which… Pushkin House launched a new book award, the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize, “to further public understanding of the Russian-speaking world, by encouraging and rewarding the very best non-fiction writing on Russia, and promoting serious discussion on the issues raised.” I’m always vowing (and, generally, failing) to read more (okay, any!) book-length nonfiction that complements my fiction reading, so the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize short list, which covers a wonderfully broad assortment of topics, is a convenient place to start looking for candidates:
  • Anne Applebaum: The Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956
  • Masha Gessen: Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
  • Thane Gustafson: Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Fortune in Russia
  • Donald J. Raleigh: Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia’s Post War Generation
  • Karl Schlögel: Moscow, 1937
  • Douglas Smith: Former People: The Last Days of Russia’s Aristocracy
FYI: Languagehat has posted about Soviet Baby Boomers and Moscow, 1937. Moscow, 1937 sounds particularly fun…

Reading Levels for Non-Native Readers of Russian: Medium for both the Nosov and Trifonov books.

Writer Names in Russian: Сергей Носов and Юрий Трифонов.

Up Next: A novella (or two?) by Victor Pelevin.

Image Credit: Oxford City Birdseye from SirMetal, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

The Big Book 2013 Long List

This year’s Big Book Award long list, which came out last week, looks like a good one: beyond the four books I’ve already read and enjoyed very much, there are a couple books I wish I’d bought in Moscow, plus a nice clump of titles I’m interested in. There are 36 books on the list, meaning it’s a bit way too long to include everybody here. But here are some notes:

Four books I’ve already read and loved, with English-language titles linking to previous posts:

Three more books—in addition to 2013 NatsBest shortlister Laurus—have already won or been shortlisted for other major prizes:
  • Maxim Kantor: Красный свет (Red Light, though “свет” can also mean “world,” so I suspect dual meaning here). A novel with lots of twentieth-century history. NatsBest short list.
  • Aleksei Motorov: Юные годы медбрата Паровозова (Male Nurse Parovozov’s Young Years). Autobiographical fiction that won the readers’ prize in the 2013 NOSE award.
  • Aleksandr Terekhov: Немцы (Germans). Won the 2012 NatsBest. On the shelf for ages!
The two books I regret not buying when I was in Moscow… though only mildly because both are available online, in slightly condensed journal versions:
Books by writers I’ve read and enjoyed in the past:
In a column posted to Izvestiia after the short list came out, critic Liza Novikova noted four books of “documentary prose”:
That’s only sixteen books… I’ve heard or read about several more, particularly Denis Gutsko’s Бета-самец (Beta-Male), Denis Dragunskii’s Архитектор и монах (maybe The Architect and the Monk), and Igor’ Sakhnovskii’s Oстрое чувство субботы (A Keen Feeling of Saturday: Eight First-Person Stories), but that still leaves nearly half the list.

A few other books are available online:
  • Elena Makarova: Фридл (Friedl, which a reader tells me is a diminutive for names such as Friedrich and Friederike... the character in the book is a woman but it doesn’t appear that her full name is in the text.). The online “title page” says this is a documentary novel, and the first page clearly shows a World War 2 setting.
  • Andrei Volos: Возвращение в Панчруд (excerpts) (Return to Panjrud). Volos, who is originally from Dushanbe, often writes about Central Asia. His agent’s site says this novel is about a poet in the Middle Ages.
  • Nikolai Klimontovich: Степанов и Князь (Stepanov and the Prince).
  • Anton Ponizovskii: Обращение в слух (For the Ears? I get the feeling of something intended to be heard…). The quick description from the publisher: a novel about Russia and the Russian soul. The book’s Web site doesn’t explain much more, though the journal intro says the novel includes actual interviews.
Disclaimers: The usual, for all sorts of commercial and collegial reasons.

Up Next: Sergei Nosov’s Грачи улетели (The Rooks Have Flown/Gone/Departed/Totally Left Town). One of you wrote and asked why I didn’t use “flown” in the translated title for this book… The Rooks Have Flown certainly sounds better than my versions! I think I was stuck because the title of the Savrasov painting referenced here is often translated as The Rooks Have Returned or The Rooks Have Come Back. I’m still figuring out how I think the title fits the book, which has something of a shock ending.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Plague and Apocalypse: Vodolazkin’s Laurus

Evgenii Vodolazkin’s Лавр (Laurus) combines lots of elements I enjoy in my fiction: a long-ago setting in the fifteenth century, guilt feelings, a focus on one ever-changing character, fear of apocalypse, curiously varied language, and, yes, even the bubonic plague. Best of all, to borrow from what one of you said about Laurus in an online conversation, the book is addictive. It just reads and reads and reads, drawing the reader through four “books,” sections that describe four stages—four separate lives, really—within the title character’s time(s) on earth, resulting in a simple structure that creates something akin to a life of a saint. 

What’s a bit complicated for my purposes here is that the title character is known by several names, frequently Arseny, so I’ll call him that, too. So many thematic elements thread through Laurus that I think I’ll approach the book through a few themes I particularly enjoyed rather than trying to explain who’s who and what happens… the result is a messy mishmash, but pretty much anything would feel awkward to me because Laurus feels so elegantly balanced and indescribably intimate.

The Plague and the Apocalypse. Why do the bubonic plague and the apocalypse fascinate me in fiction? I don’t know but I suspect it’s because they infect novels with existentialism via the threat of imminent death. Aloneness fits with them, too: Laurus includes children orphaned because of the plague. (Even Forever Amber, BTW, endeared itself to me forever because of the plague, and I’m not alone!) In Laurus, Arseny learns herbal healing from his grandfather, Christopher, and treats plague patients in neighboring villages, earning such a reputation that he’s commandeered by a prince. As for apocalypse, there are calculations for the end of the world. Death is ubiquitous, particularly since Arseny often lives, basically, on top of cemeteries. Also: the unchristened dead are scapegoats for all sorts of calamities.

Time and Reinvention. One of the most wonderfully jarring aspects of Laurus is the language Vodolazkin uses. I feel almost as if I should write “languages” since Vodolazkin mixes archaisms with contemporary language—dropping in thoroughly modern slang and bits of anachronistic historical and geographical information—to strangely good effect. Though it’s surprising to find a sentence that mentions that a monastery is located on the future Komsomol Square of Pskov, the out-of-time toponym reinforces Arseny’s thoughts that he lives outside of time. As Arseny tells his dead girlfriend, Justina, “…события не всегда протекают во временипорой они протекают сами по себе. Вынутые из времени.” (“…events don’t always flow in time… now and then they flow on their own. Pulled out of time.”). 

Time cycles around and around in Laurus as seasons and lives, with Arseny living through four “books” that cover phases that almost amount to four lives where he is, roughly, healer, holy fool, pilgrim, and monk. Toward the end, Arseny lives in a cave and loses track of years, though he still knows when it’s Sunday. He looks forward to being freed from time and decides the only word he needs to discuss time is однажды, a sort of “once” or “one day” word that reinforces the time when something happens, such as “Однажды он понял, что этого указания вполне достаточно.” (“One day he realized that this indicator was quite enough/all he needed.”) Vodolazkin also includes references to Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, adding another layer to the reader’s perceptions of the temporal setting of Laurus. Also: years are occasionally given in both Anno Mundi and Anno Domini, establishing parallel calendars.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/%D0%A1%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B0_%D0%98%D0%BE%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B8.JPG
Cathedral of St. John, Pskov.
And Lots More “Alsos”… Arseny’s friendships with Foma, a holy fool who saves Arseny more than once by explaining away Arseny’s erratic-seeming behavior (during his holy fool period), and with Ambrogio, an Italian who comes to Pskov and ends up as Arseny’s traveling companion for a trip to Jerusalem that includes travel through the Alps and a horrendous hurricane at sea… mystical scenes with a wolf… an assortment of apparent miracles… the importance of literacy and words, which can be fatal, as well as the greater and deeper importance of their meanings, something reinforced through Arseny’s many silences and Christopher’s written instructions about herbal medicine, documentation Foma tells Arseny he no longer needs because he treats patients by taking their sins onto himself… a multi-pronged “also”: the tremendous immediacy of Arseny’s relationships with God, himself, his sins, Justina, and nature… the occasional feeling of a Bruegel painting… lots of marginalia reading “ha ha” or “!!” and then, yes, tears at the end of the book even though I knew how it would end… and so on and so on… To sum up: Laurus’s closeness, which never felt claustrophobic, left me with the feeling I’d experienced a strange combination of medieval timelessness, agelessness, life, and death, all of which works inexplicably well thanks to Vodolazkin’s mélange of words.

Level for non-native readers of Russian: From average to very difficult, depending on what sentence you’re reading.

Disclaimers: The usual; I have multiple connections to this book.

Up Next: The Big Book long list will be out on Wednesday. Then Sergei Nosov’s very enjoyable Грачи улетели, which I guess I’ll call The Rooks Have Left or The Rooks Are Gone, to play on the title of Alexei Savrasov’s painting in which the rooks have returned. Then maybe some short stories that have unexpectedly come my way…

Photo Credit: Левкий, via Wikipedia, Creative Commons.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

NatsBest’s 2013 Short List & The Poet Prize


If you’ve been looking for a chance to become a patron of the literary arts—make that the Russian literary arts—your chance has arrived… if, that is, you’d like to sponsor the Russian National Bestseller Award so the 2013 short list can yield a winner. That’s right: NatsBest narrowed its rather long long list into a short list yesterday but is looking for a sponsor to fund the prize. The NatsBest Web site says it will announce details for the 2013 “small jury” and finale if/when a sponsor turns up. Ouch.

So, with the hope that things work out, here’s the 2013 short list, which (of course!) contains a couple titles that are difficult to translate. I’ve included the points that the first jury awarded to each short-listed book.

  • Maxim Kantor: Красный свет (Red Light, though “свет can also mean “world,” so I suspect there’s some dual meaning here), 10 points. Kantor said in an interview last year (here) that the book is big, with three storylines (Russian, German, and British), and about twentieth-century history, including revolutions and wars. 
  • Evgenii Vodolazkin: Лавр (Laurus), 7 points. The only book on the list that I’ve read; I’ve drafted a post that I’ll finish soon. It’s especially hard to write because I loved the book… 
  • Il’dar Abuziarov: Мутабор (Mutabor, the Latin first-person singular future passive indicative of mūtō, according to Wiktionary, related to mutate and indicating change or transformation. “Mutabor” is used as a magic word in some stories, including Wilhelm Hauff’s “Caliph Stork.”), 6 points. This book is described as an intellectual chess detective novel, though Abuziarov sees it more as a political thriller. Either way, there’s a booktrailer
  • Sof’ia Kupriashina: Видоискательница (hmm, this title plays on the word for viewfinder, putting it in the feminine; it seems to lend itself to voyeuristic storytelling …), 6 points. This book is a short story collection. Kupriashina’s stories apparently often focus largely on society’s margins. But these stories aren’t, according to Kommersant’s Weekend commentator, chernukha. 
  • Olga Pogodina-Kuzmina: Власть мертвых (The Power of the Dead), 5 points. One NatsBest reader-reviewer, Mitya Samoilov, borrowed from the futurists and called this book a slap in the face of (the) public taste.  
  • Figl’-Migl’/Figgle-Miggle: Волки и медведи (Wolves and Bears), 5 points. A Petersburg novel.

Файл:Евтушенко Е. Автограф Харьков 20.04.1989 на книге где он соавтор. Выборы нардепов.jpgAs for the poetry award, Lenta.ru reported yesterday that Yevgeny Yevtushenko won the Poet Prize. The Poet Prize is joint effort of the Society for Encouragement of Russian Poetry and Unified Energy Systems; this year’s award is a tidily funded $50,000. Lenta has more on the award here, in a commentary by poet Dmitrii Kuz’min, and Svobodnaya pressa has a piece by Vladimir Novikov here.


Disclosures: The usual.

Up Next: Vodolazkin’s Laurus, which I liked so much. And then Sergei Nosov’s very, very enjoyable Грачи улетели, which I guess I’ll call The Rooks Are Gone, to play on the title of Alexei Savrasov’s painting in which the rooks have returned.

Image: Yevtushenko’s signature, via Wikipedia.

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Fear of Flying: Savelyev’s Tereshkova Flies to Mars

Igor Savelyev’s short novel Терешкова летит на Марс (Mission to Mars in Amanda Love Darragh’s upcoming translation from Glas) takes a dim view of the generation that was in its early twenties during the final moments of December 31, 2006, when Mission to Mars opens. The first sentence in the book is “Путин замолчал.”—“Putin fell silent.” Now that Putin has finished his New Year’s Eve address, there are shots of the Kremlin, then the Russian anthem plays and “2007” flashes on the TV screen.

Mission to Mars focuses on Pasha, an unfocused, unmotivated guy whose very focused, very motivated girlfriend, Natasha, has just moved from provincial Russia to Pittsburgh. Pasha’s the guy who chose the vaguely named “social-humanitarian” department of the pedagogical institute for his higher education: the department is best known for a deficit of males and low admission standards. Pasha’s two best friends are a guy from another city who moved away from some juvenile crime problems and an aspiring writer.

Pasha manages to find himself a job at the airline ARTavia, where Max, a distant relative, works. The airline focuses on вип-клиенты, VIP clients, flying them to Moscow (and only Moscow!) on planes that are all business class. The best part of ARTavia, however, is that it promises no crashes: Max says their liners just can’t, won’t, wouldn’t crash. Ever. ARTavia even holds regular meetings with clients to pound that into their heads like a mantra. Almost literally: it’s interesting to see how Savelyev portrays corporate promises and loyal clients almost like a cult. Pasha, however, learns certain truths about ARTavia and, with a little help from his afore-mentioned friends—and Olga, a young woman whose wealthy parents signed her up for ARTavia—reveals it to the public.

Their handiwork is, as might be expected, not very handy. And things end up badly, very, very badly, between Pasha and Olga, whose company Pasha had been enjoying in Natasha’s absence. It’s not enough to call Pasha’s behavior loutish and disappointing: his absolute lack of feeling and mercy made his rating dive from relatively harmless directionlessness and dumbheadery to real, multileveled cruelty. (I don’t want to say too much, particularly because the book is coming out in translation.)

File:RIAN archive 612748 Valentina Tereshkova.jpg
Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova
Savelyev consistently portrays Pasha as someone who respects people who are goal-oriented—e.g. Natasha, who’s primarily a distant presence—but Pasha just is what he is, writes Savelyev, complete with failures, ups, and downs. It doesn’t make for a very hopeful picture. It’s telling that the figure in the book with the biggest goals isn’t a fictional character: she’s cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova who, despite being 70 years old, says she’d like to fly to Mars. Tereshkova, by the way, really did say that in an interview with a reporter, even answering a question about UFOs by saying she hasn’t seen any but might if she were to fly to Mars.

Mission to Mars reads fairly easily and Savelyev does a nice job placing his characters within a social, personal, and mental stagnation that feels constructed specially for an aimless, hopeless character like Pasha. And his friends. Details like an escalator lady in Moscow and a reference to Twin Peaks add another layer to Pasha’s reality and unreality. The novel is funny at times but it’s also very bleak, so I felt myself wincing more than once at quietly sad details of lives and life… and the feeling of being trapped, something Savelyev describes with substantial success.

Up Next: Evgenii Vodolazkin’s Laurus, which I’m still enjoying.

Disclaimers: I’ve met, briefly, Igor Savelyev several times at book fairs and events and am working on translations for publisher Glas.

Photo of Valentina Tereshkova in 1969, from RIA Novosti, Creative Commons.