Saturday, October 16, 2010

Three Years of Russian Book Blogging

I love putting together posts for my blog’s birthday! It’s fun marking the passage of time – it’s hard to believe I’ve already been blogging for three full years – and it’s always interesting to look at statistics about what visitors seek and read.

It’s you, the readers who visit the Bookshelf, who make blogging so rewarding. I didn’t have many expectations when I started blogging three years ago, but I certainly didn’t think I’d meet so many of you in person and by e-mail. I love the solitariness of my reading and writing, but I also love the fellowship that so often grows around books. A big thanks to all of you for your comments, messages, and ideas.

Geography. Not much has changed in Bookshelf geography since last year: by country, the largest number of visits comes from the United States, but many of you are in the U.K., Russia, Canada, and Italy. The top city is London, which makes me look forward to the 2011 London Book Fair even more.

Popular Posts & Search Terms. My “Overcoat” post is still the most popular on the blog, followed by my list of pre-revolutionary Top 10 Greatest Hits. Next: Dostoevsky’s The Possessed/Devils, Pushkin’s Belkin Tales, and Ulitskaya’s Daniel Stein. The giant surprise for this year is at number 7: my post mentioning the New York Times article about Elena Chizhova. Variants on Chizhova’s name are among the top searches for the past year, too. I wish I could say I enjoyed her Booker-winning Время женщин (A Time of Women) more than I did. The combination of “Prussian Bride” and “Buida” comes up consistently, too. Buida’s books never seem to be available when I look for them; I may need to order something up through interlibrary loan one of these days.

Odd Recent Search Terms. Scanning through the search terms that bring people to the Bookshelf often provides decent entertainment. The mysterious combination of “Zinik” and “Sorokin,” which used to come up regularly, has disappeared and there haven’t been many truly strange combos lately but here are a few that got me imagining or wanting to answer:

  • Vladimir Sorokin my email. Is someone treating Google as a seer that knows why Sorokin hasn’t answered an e-mail message?
  • How enjoying is reading Russian. People ask me this all the time. It’s easy to say I enjoy my Russian reading but I have difficulty explaining what, exactly, is so much fun. I’m sure part of the enjoyment of reading Russian comes from the fact that I read Russian slower than I read English. For me, reading Russian takes more concentration and attention than reading English, making Russian reading a far more intense experience. (This Googler probably landed on this page.)
  • Gogol read. Yes, please do read Gogol! I particularly recommend two short stories as starters: the afore-mentioned “Overcoat” and “The Nose.”
  • 600 Pages of Dostoevsky. I can’t read this querier’s mind but want to think the person sought a recommendation of 600 especially interesting pages of Dostoevsky. Well! Six hundred pages eliminates most of the big books, (if they’re printed in legible type and/or sold without a magnifying glass), though some translations of Crime and Punishment weigh in with page counts just under 600. Not a bad option, of course, though my personal choice would be selected short novels and stories. There’s lots to choose from: the “Grand Inquisitor” section of The Brothers K., Notes from the Underground, The Gambler, White Nights, House of the Dead, and the derivative but important Double… There are plenty of other Dostoevsky short novels and long stories I keep promising myself I’ll read.

On that note, I’ll leave and say another huge thank you – огромное спасибо – to all of you for your visits, encouragement, and reading suggestions over the last three years!

Up next: Yuzefovich’s Казароза (Kazaroza), which has been growing on my since I finished it, and then Ilichevskii’s Матисс (Matisse), which only really started to grab me after about 170 pages...

Cupcake photo: nazreth, via stock.xchng.

16 comments:

  1. Congratulations, and may you blog for many more years! I agree that "reading Russian takes more concentration and attention than reading English, making Russian reading a far more intense experience"; I was just thinking about this the other day. I don't skim in English, but I think it zips by too quickly and easily (unless I'm reading aloud, which is one reason I enjoy reading novels to my wife at night).

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  2. Thank you, Languagehat! English often seems to zip by too quickly for me, too. I like reading English-language books on the treadmill: I'm not quite sure how this happens, but the monotony of the walking seems to slow my reading pace and force more focus than when I read in a chair.

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  3. Dear Lisa, happy birthday then and thank you, thank you for you enjoyable and informative blog. Very often it occurs that I'm reading the same book that you're talking about and it's so interesting to see another point of view, sometimes very similar (Ulickaja, Jusefovic that I've translated in Italian, just to mention the last), sometimes different (I can't force me to love Sorokin for istance). But I still wonder: how much you manage to read!!!? Molodetz!!! By the way; Have you already read Marian Petrosjan's book? Wonderful, I think.

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  4. Thank you for your comment, Candida! It's nice to hear that our reading often coincides, and I'm glad to hear your recommendation of Petrosyan. I have not yet read the book; I should look for it.

    I sometimes feel that I don't have enough time to read as much as I'd like to, so it's always nice to hear that people think I read a lot!

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  5. Lisa, congratulations and thank you for sharing such an enjoyable read about Russian literature. To me it's an invaluable resource. Having Russian as my first language makes reading in it more immersive and somehow, I "feel" what is written more deeply, the colors are more vivid and sounds and smells are louder, even if speed of reading is the same in either language. Not sure if that makes any sense.

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  6. Thank you, Steve! Yes, what you wrote makes sense. Russian feels more vivid to me, too... I think part of the reason is the language itself and part of it is the extra time I spend to read it!

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  7. Congratulations! Every literature should have a site as good as this one.

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  8. That is very kind of you, Amateur Reader, thank you!

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  9. Oops, my last message left your blog. Here it is again: S dnem rozhdeniya! Thank you for this wonderful blog that keeps me linked to contemporary Russian literature. If it wasn't for you, I'd still be stuck in the 19th century. I wish I could get you ptiche moloko as token of my appreciation.

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  10. Thank you so much, my reading: I'm glad to hear the blog has helped modernize your life. And thank you for the virtual ptiche moloko... this is a great case where it's the thought that counts instead of the calories!

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  11. Congratulations!!! :-) I think reading in another language probably always takes more time- at least for me!

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  12. Thank you, Marie! I think so, too. (At least for myself!) One of my Russian major friends used to like to talk about giving every word individual attention.

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  13. Congratulations. And really do keep it up. I love this blog. You have more than achieved your mission, you've gone beyond it in fact. A wonderful example of blogging the literature of one nation. Bravo!

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  14. Thanks so much, Kinna, I'm glad you enjoy it!

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  15. Congratulations! Keep writing about Russian literature)

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  16. Thank you very much, L... There is no end in sight!

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