Happy new year! С
Новым годом! I wish everyone a very happy, healthy 2014 with lots of fun
reading, Russian and otherwise, no matter what your reading language(s). Here
are a few of my reading highlights from 2013, a year where overall reading quality
was definitely greater than reading quantity.
Favorite book by an
author I’d already read. Oleg Zaionchkovskii’s
Petrovich (previous
post) chronicles the young life of a boy known as Petrovich who comes of
age as the Soviet Union is breaking up. Riding around in a dump truck has never
sounded like so much fun.
Favorite book by an
author I’d never read. Evgenii Vodolazkin’s Laurus (previous
post) isn’t just a favorite for 2013, it’s an all-time favorite about a man
in the Middle Ages. Vodolazkin’s use of contemporary and archaic language fits
beautifully with his messages about the eternal. Translating excerpts of the
book only made me appreciate the book’s beauty more. It deserves all the praise
and awards it’s won.
Favorite book nobody
else seemed to care about. Hmm, last year I chose a book by Aleksandr
Ilichevsky for this category, too! This year it’s The Orphics (previous
post), a suspenseful, wild novel with mystical and melodramatic streaks. I
thoroughly enjoyed it.
Favorite debut
novels. Elena Sherga’s The
Underground Ship (previous
post) makes optimal use of peculiar living spaces, creating a beautiful
combination of abstraction, realism, and creepiness. I also loved Vadim
Levental’s Masha Regina, which I promise
to write about soon: it’s a wonderful character sketch of a novel about a film
director who leaves home for Leningrad at a young age…
Favorite travel. I
enjoyed all my travel this year but the Translators’ Coven at St. Antony’s
College in Oxford, England, (previous
post) was hard to beat: two days about Russian translation is pretty
much my idea of nirvana. Thank you to Oliver Ready and Robert Chandler for
organizing the coven.
What’s coming in
2014? Getting caught up on my reading is a big priority, as is finishing
some translations; more on those later. In terms of travel, I’m looking forward
to the 2014 ALTA conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin… I’m starting to think I’ve
always secretly wanted to go to Milwaukee, a place I probably first learned
about as a kid, from Laverne & Shirley.
Thank you! I send
everyone my very best wishes for 2014 and thank all of you for your visits,
comments, and notes. I enjoy hearing from you and was glad to see so many of
you during the past year. I hope to see and meet more of you—whether virtually
or in person—in 2014. For now, happy new year!
Disclosures. The usual. Previous posts that I referenced in
this post contain further disclosure information about individual books and
relationships.