This year’s Big Book Award finalists (previous post with the
list is here)
fit neatly into three categories: three books I praise highly, three books I
enjoyed well enough to finish, and five books I couldn’t finish. Five in the “did
not finish” category might sound high, but it’s not unusual for me to finish only about half the books I
start; one of the reasons I don’t write more posts
about books is that I abandon so many without finishing. Big Book winners will
be announced on December 6. Here’s a brief summary of my reading:
Those I praise highly.
It probably comes as no surprise that Evgenii Vodolazkin’s Авиатор (The Aviator)
was my favorite in the bunch (previous
post) and is a big favorite for the year, too. The Aviator looks at the nature of time, life, and Soviet history from
an angle that I particularly like… but won’t reveal. Translating The Aviator is a treat for the emotions it
raises, its simple elegance, and the multiple settings Vodolazkin manages to
create. Alexei Ivanov’s Ненастье (Nenast’e) is a treat of an entirely different
sort (previous
post, which discusses the title) and not just because I’m not translating
it: this social novel about Afghan War veterans is suspenseful, dark, and
painful, a well-plotted novel about all kinds of relationships. It’s very good
and I’ve been pleased to see it garner so much praise among readers. I’m still reading away on Leonid Yuzefovich’s Зимняя
дорога, (The Winter Road),
one of the most enjoyable works of nonfiction I’ve read in a long time, with
Civil War figures and wonderful details about people, places, and politics.
Those I enjoyed well
enough to finish. Maria Galina’s Автохтоны (part one/part two) (Autochthons) still mystifies me more
than a bit since I’m still not exactly sure what happens (previous
post) but Galina’s dark-but-cozy combination of tasty meals, cultural
history, and a small city setting on the edge of Europe—not to mention humor
and the possibility of a character being a sylph—remain vivid in my memory. And
I do want to reread it. Using the book light again. Sasha Filipenko’s Травля (Hounding) (previous
post) also stuck with me, though for opposite reasons: there’s only
darkness, nothing cozy, in this story of a journalist who’s being hounded for
political reasons. And there are certainly no sylphs. I think I appreciated most
the account of bitterness after the 1998 default. Ludmila Ulitskaya’s Лестница Якова (Yakov’s Ladder or Jacob’s
Ladder, though I’ll use Ulitskaya’s agent’s title with “Yakov”) (previous)
is a family saga that’s told in story-like episodes and includes letters from
Ulitskaya’s own family archives. This isn’t my favorite Ulitskaya novel but the
familiarity of Ulitskaya’s style and settings made this rather long book read
easily, though I often wanted the balance to tip more toward character development
than history.
Those I just couldn’t
finish. This is the section that gives me no joy whatsoever. Vladimir
Dinets’s Песни драконов (Dragon Songs) wasn’t the fun surprise that Nature Girl here dared
to hope for. My parents live in Florida—where there seem to be alligators
everywhere—and I’ve been to crocodile country in Australia, so I thought I was
off to a decent start but somehow I just couldn’t sink my teeth into things
like descriptions of alligators “dancing,” and I just wasn’t interested in
Dinets’s personal details. Alexander Ilichevsky’s Справа налево (From Right to Left) book of essays is a mishmash that, I’m sorry
to say, didn’t grab me at all. Even sadder, though, I thought all the novels in this
category lacked narrative drive, a coherent structure, and/or the sense of a
good story. I gave Pyotr Aleshkovsky’s Крепость (The Citadel) 106 pages to show
me where it was going and, to borrow from what I wrote on Goodreads, was sorry it
couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a serious social novel about an honest
archaeologist or a melodrama with family hysterics. (The big sign I was done: I
kept finding excuses to compare recipes in 660
Curries and think about what I needed to buy at the Indian grocery store…)
Anna Matveeva’s Завидное чувство Веры Стениной (Vera Stenina’s Envy; the Russian
title is closer to Vera Stenina’s Enviable Sense but that is, indeed,
tough to sort...) was equally painful, though I read nearly 200 pages,
hoping something might develop beyond a rather utilitarian tale of one woman’s envy
(envy is visualized as a bat here) of her friend. I made it through less (about
50 pages) of Sergei Soloukh’s Рассказы о животных (Stories About Animals), the tale of
a man who travels a lot for work. I can’t say I much enjoy reading about
driving (perhaps because I don’t especially enjoy driving?) so Stories and I didn’t get off to a good
start. Though I’d hoped for a compelling novel about what causes people to lose
their humanness, particularly in times of social upheaval, alas, Stories was too muddled to tell me much.
Disclaimers: The usual. I received electronic texts of all
these books from the Big Book, for which I serve on the Literary Academy, the
award’s jury; I received a couple from the authors’ literary agents, too. Among
other things: I’m currently translating The
Aviator and have translated excerpts of some of Maria Galina’s other books.
Up Next: I think
I’ll write more summary posts: travel, books read in Russian, and books read in
English. And a full-length post on Boris Minaev’s Soft Fabric, volume one…
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