Sergey Kuznetsov’s Калейдоскоп (Kaleidoscope) is yet another novel that’s
nearly impossible to describe: it’s 850 pages divided into more than 30 loosely-but-closely
linked chapters that cover 1885-2013 and involve several dozen characters in
many countries. Summarizing by saying that Kaleidoscope
is about everything doesn’t say much at all. Irina Prokhorova, founder of
the NOSE Award, focused more by calling the novel “новейший сентиментализм,”
which might be as good a description as any: in a sense, Kaleidoscope is, to translate Prokhorova’s words literally, “the
newest/latest sentimentalism,” what with its accounts of various sorts of political,
social, economic, and personal upheaval that involve huge shares of pain and joy.
A kaleidoscope, after all,
involves reflectors and light to create its patterns.
The joy of Kaleidoscope
for a reader like me lies in its structure and composition. As an example, Kuznetsov
links a noirish chapter-story (echoes of Dashiel Hammett…) set in 1928 to chapters
set in Shanghai during the 1930s. Later in the book and in history, there’s a
New York master of the universe type (shades of Tom Wolfe…) who resurfaces in
Silicon (oops, no silent “e,” Lizok!) Valley and truly does end up master of
his own universe; Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters also get mentions. One
generation may die but their children pop up later.
Materials—often pieces of glass—shift inside a toy kaleidoscope,
creating changing pictures when the cylinders are twisted; in Kaleidoscope, Kuznetsov twists the
cylinder of his novel, shifting plot lines, temporal and geographical settings, and
characters to show new aspects of life and history. As I jotted down during my
reading, there’s a lot to love here because the shards always come together to
form a new picture, even when the world seems to be falling apart morally,
politically, and/or socially. I think of the book’s subtitle—расходные материалы—as something like “shifting
materials” or even “recurring materials” here, though the Russian term often
refers to things that need to be replaced, like batteries, toner cartridges, or
razor blades.
Part of the novel’s success lies in Kuznetsov’s recurring use
of the kaleidoscope metaphor, presenting a child with a kaleidoscope as a
holiday gift in the book’s first chapter and then reinforcing the theme—and teaching
the reader to read the book—by noting, for example, shards of history as well a
kaleidoscope-like key chain in a Silicon Valley scene where someone notes that, “In
a/the postmodern world we learn to find harmony not in order but in chaos.” The chapter-stories in Kaleidoscope don’t look random or chaotic for long even though they
differ greatly in terms of form and stylistics.
Another one of my notes says that Kaleidoscope “demands/prefers active reader participation to make
connections and consider influences.” I should add that I found that aspect of
the reading especially fun: Kuznetsov provides apparatus for the book that includes a list
of recurring characters and the chapters in which they appear, plus a list of “literature”
that includes books (fiction and nonfiction) and films that provided inspiration
in various forms (Kuznetsov mentions phrases and observations). This is a wonderfully
mixed lot with dozens of titles, including Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas, Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea, and of course Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. I say “of course” about the Pynchon not because
I’ve read it (I haven’t) and found shards in Kaleidoscope (which of course I couldn’t) but because more than one
Russian reader recommended Kaleidoscope
to me last fall in Moscow, calling it “Pynchon Lite.” Though the Pynchon element
may be lost on me, those other titles I listed, plus many others—including Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch,
which I read a large chunk of years ago before I forgot where I was (I should
have read linearly…) and, “of course” again, Ian Fleming’s Bond books—were not.
Reflected glimmers of those books—along with slivers
of history, including real-life characters—are part of what underpin the postmodernist
feel of Kaleidoscope and the kaleidoscope
of our lives. (Speaking of real, true history, I read up on things like the 1910 Great Flood
of Paris and Shanghai
in the 1930s and even fractals while reading Kaleidoscope…) Bits of those materials shift and recur, forming patterns
involving world wars, revolutions of all sorts, utopian ideas, and, of course,
love and partings that result from the afore-mentioned wars and revolutions, as
well as emigration.
In the end, it’s hard to express or explain why I loved Kaleidoscope so much and didn’t want it
to end—I realized in my last days of reading that I’d been waiting until late in
the evening to pick it up. I was subconsciously rationing my last pages,
postponing the inevitable end. (The end of history is here, too…) The
connectedness of Kaleidoscope’s characters
and historical threads is somehow comforting, as are the hope and creativity and love
that arise during times of upheaval. Beyond that, the book is solidly composed
and Kuznetsov finds very admirable balances when drawing his characters and
settings: within the limited pages of each chapter-story, he offers just the right
amount of detail to create vivid and simulacrumesque atmosphere and characters,
link themes and characters in chapters, and address questions about what it
means to be a human being living in the twentieth (plus or minus…) century. (I
borrowed “simulacrums” from Max Nemtsov’s review of the novel, which
also involves a disco ball…) To come back to Irina Prokhorova’s use of “sentimentalism”
in describing Kaleidoscope, I can
only say that the novel made me feel sentimental about a lot of things. On one
level, I realized how much I love postmodern literature that’s this colorful, and
beautifully organized and structured, and—corny though it may sound—able to make
me feel so sentimental, so emotional, and so curious, about the human
experience itself. That, I suppose, is what I meant when I wrote that Kaleidoscope is about everything.
Disclaimers:
The
usual, including having met Kuznetsov in person (at least once, but maybe
twice?) and on the Internet.
Up
Next: The Yasnaya Polyana Award longlist plus at least two novel(la)s by
Valery Zalotukha.
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