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| Fez isn't about a hat. |
First, a bit on expectations: Gleb Shulpyakov’s Фес (Fez) isn’t about
cylindrical red hats with tassels, though Fez’s
part-time narrator does cover his head with a fez at one point in the book.
And Fez doesn’t seem to take place in
Fez, Morocco. But who knows? The most important exotica here—despite mentions
of specific places like Moscow and Vienna—is abstract and spiritual, a place in
the consciousness.
A summary of this short, novelesque work with a broken
narrative might start with something like this: An unnamed Moscow publisher
with business troubles takes his wife to the birth house, goes home, and somehow ends up a prisoner in a basement in an
unidentified place. A place one might think is Fez.
Those of you who watch my “Up Next” notes may have observed
that my own journey with Fez zigged
and zagged: I first found the book oddly beguiling (or beguilingly odd) then
hit a slow patch then thought Fez was
shaping up then concluded by considering it a “a somewhat disappointing
up-and-down experience.” Looking back today, I’d edit out the “somewhat.”
Fez’s allegory of
unnamed man’s journey to rebirth, which occurs roughly simultaneously with the
birth of his child, had lots of potential—he’s a prisoner, he escapes, he seems
to be in a boat with a Charon-like guy, he reflects on his life, he meets a
woman and they talk about freedom, and he comes to terms with what’s happening—but
I thought the book’s end message felt too usual, too expected, too close to hokey,
particularly because most of Fez seemed
intentionally cryptic. And Shulpyakov didn’t
win many points from me for his inclusions of dreamy states, doors leading to
new lives that avoid former emptiness and constraints, and eastern themes.
These are elements I’ve seen a lot, elements that are only interesting if a writer
gives them unexpected angles.
Shulpyakov sometimes manages to do that: he’s also a poet,
and his uses of language and imagery were the biggest positives in Fez. Small highlights included a memory
of a Soviet-era building in Minsk, self-deprecating humor, and a lovely vision
of morning lights. But there weren’t nearly enough of those moments to perk up all
the familiar material, especially since the literary devices in Fez—which contains sections with first-person
and third-person narrative, chronicle-like passages, a few pages in what
appears to be Arabic (I have no idea if it’s a logical text), and a page with
only lines of dots/periods (an excerpt: “………………………….”)—struck me as self-conscious
attempts at creating something postmodern rather than ways to add true depth,
wisdom, or intellectual excitement to the book.
My primary impression of Fez
is that I went into the book thinking
it sounded like yet another parallel reality novel, which it is on a certain
level, and came out of Fez reminded of
commenter Alex’s mention of “stories about careworn middle-aged Russian men
finding satori” in the comments about my
post on Oleg Zaionchkovskii’s Happiness
Is Possible. I think I’d recommend Fez
most to readers who have much more patience than I with the combination of spiritual
material and literary devices that Shulpyakov employs. Fez just isn’t my kind of book but, to be fair, Shulpyakov’s Web
site displays positive
critical reviews, some of which contain gargantuan spoilers.
Up Next: Alisa
Ganieva’s energetic, colorful long story Салам тебе, Далгат! (Salam Dalgat!), a nice antidote to Fez: the story presents a down-to-earth portrait
of a young man’s day in Dagestan. I’ll combine Dalgat with a brief trip report since Ganieva is in the Debut Prize
group I’ll hear speak in Cambridge,
MA, on February 22. Then a translation roundup and Roman Senchin’s Информация (The Information).
Image credit: topfer,
via stock.xchng.
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