Two Biographies: Venedikt Erofeev and Lilya Brik

Ah, biographies! I read so few biographies – until the two under discussion today, I think my last was Charles J. Shields’s And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life, which I wrote about in 2011 for my other bookshelf blog – that I feel utterly incapable of explaining much about why I so enjoyed Alisa Ganieva’s book about Lilya Brik, Её Лиличество Брик на фоне Люциферова века (more on the title below) and Венедикт Ерофеев: посторонний (Venedikt Erofeev: The Outsider), written by Oleg Lekmanov, Mikhail Sverdlov, and Ilya Simanovsky (henceforth “The Troika”). Sure, I’m exaggerating: I know why I enjoyed them – the authors imposed structure, created and developed solid story arcs, and effectively combined history and human interest – but I lack the vocabulary and experience to write a nuanced critical piece about them.

Perhaps resorting to my first line of that old post about the Vonnegut book is a good start since it helps explain the attraction of the books about Brik and Erofeev:

Charles J. Shields’s And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life tells the Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., story in a way that makes Vonnegut’s life feel like a strangely everyday epic, making Vonnegut, to borrow a term from Russian literature, a hero of his time, someone emblematic of his generation.

Both The Outsider and what I’ll call Her Liliness (Ganieva’s title plays on the word “величество,” “majesty,” per the Oxford Russian dictionary, and the name Lilya, setting it against the backdrop of a Luciferian century) also describe their subjects as (anti?)heroes of their times. Brik (1891-1978) is part of the Russian avant-garde beginning in her early adulthood in the early twentieth century and Erofeev (1938-1990) is a more underground figure, expelled from multiple post-secondary institutions, and often lacking the official Soviet-era documentation one needs to prove one isn’t a camel. Brik’s life is relatively cushy, at least on a certain material level: among other things, as Vladimir Mayakovsky’s muse, she successfully asks the poet to procure gifts (including a car!) from France, and she helps other artists develop their work, too. Erofeev – there’s a reason he’s called “the outsider” – enjoys evading the Soviet system, though his dependence on alcohol complicates discussion of freedom in his life.

The Outsider and Her Liliness both work because their authors draw so effectively on material from interviews as well as other books and materials about or by their subjects. Ganieva quotes Swedish slavist Bengt Jangfeldt quite a lot (his Mayakovksy biography, for example, which was translated into English by Harry D. Watson) and nearly twenty pages of endnotes cite sources including Viktor Shklovsky, Elsa Triolet, and correspondence between Brik and Mayakovsky. The dishiness of Ganieva’s book comes largely from those sources, with, as a random example from my notes, actress Faina Ranevskaya saying that Lilya Brik told her she only wanted to be with her husband, Osip Brik, and would have given up Mayakovsky. That, combined with a score of other factors – affairs and marriages, conflicts (Shklovsky called Lilya a “дура” (fool) and “bourgeois”), rights and royalties and Mayakovsky’s work, plus allegations of working for the security services – leads Ganieva herself (who makes sure to present positive aspects of Lilya’s role in the literary community) to sum up Lilya’s whole life as “материал для сплетен,” which I noted down as “gossip fodder.” Nothing in the book feels overly lurid to me (heartless or tactless, sure) given the traumas of Stalin-era repression.

The Troika, too, assembles an impressive collection of materials showing various angles on Erofeev’s life, quoting poets, friends, literary figures, and Erofeev’s own works. Most appealing: they alternate chapters about Erofeev’s life with chapters about Moscow-Petushki, his best-known work. (Confession: I didn’t read the M-P chapters as carefully as the more biographical chapters since I read M-P some years ago. But I’m hoping, even planning, to reread the poem, perhaps in 2020, along with The Troika’s detailed analysis.) It’s hard to sort through my notes on The Outsider since I read it electronically but paging through, I find and remember, for example, mentions of Erofeev’s love of folk songs; his ability to recite seemingly endless memorized poetry; a mention that Mikhail Bakhtin compared M-P with Gogol’s Dead Souls, plus, of course, numerous comments on Erofeev’s brand of freedom. I particularly focused on quotes from poet Olga Sedakova, who so respected Erofeev’s freedom – from the whole world, not just the Soviet world, as she puts it – and who credits him for teaching her about life. And then there’s the drinking, an integral part of Erofeev’s life and work (oh, the drinks in M-P!), which to my twisted mind, somehow correlates with something Viktor Kulle notes (I’ll summarize): the main enigma (загадка) about Erofeev is that he was an “antiperfectionist” by nature but M-P is a perfectionist text.

As I look back on what I’ve written, I realize that what I haven’t mentioned is the reason these two books made such strong impression on me: they aroused my curiosity. They read like dreams because they’re written well and tell stories about people who interested me from the start. But both Ganieva and The Troika use sources and describe lives and times such that I want to explore, to read more, to understand. To read more Mayakovsky (including in James Womack’s wonderfully lively and, truly, inspiring translations), to finally read Shklovsky’s Zoo, or Letters Not About Love (written to none other than Elsa Triolet, Lilya Brik’s sister), to read Triolet’s Goncourt Prize-winning A Fine of 200 Francs, to reread Moscow-Petushki, to read Erofeev’s Записки психопата (Notes of a Psychopath), and to read some of Olga Sedakova’s work, particularly since I have a nice collection, In Praise of Poetry, which contains translated (thanks to Caroline Clark, Ksenia Golubovich, and Stephanie Sandler) poems and writings about poetry, and which Open Letter sent to me five years ago. I may be a lousy critic of biographies but I can’t think of a higher form of praise than to say these two biographies piqued my curiosity.

Up Next: Goodbye to 2019, those books in English I keep promising, Rage, and, some month or other, Mikhail Elizarov’s big, thick, carnivalesque Earth, which is about death, the funeral business, being alive, and just about everything else.

Disclaimers and Disclosures: I received an electronic copy of The Outsider from the Big Book Award: The Outsider, which won the jury’s first prize, was one of my top two picks. I received a copy of James Womack’s Mayakovsky collection from Fyfield Books/Carcanet Press. I know Alisa Ganieva a bit.

2019 Big Book Winners: Erofeev, Savely, and Volga Children

I was excited to see voting results yesterday morning for this year’s Big Book Award. The top winner was the troika of Oleg Lekmanov, Mikhail Sverdlov, and Ilya Simanovsky for their biography Венедикт Ерофеев: посторонний (Venedikt Erofeev: The Outsider). The Outsider is one of the most compelling books I’ve read this year and is one of two books that tied for my top marks. I’ll be writing about The Outsider very soon so for now will just leave you (yet again!) with a line from Oliver Ready’s review for The TLS about the book, “In fact, this is not one biography but two, for between each chapter comes an interlude devoted to Moskva- Petushki.”

Second place went to Grigory Sluzhitel’s Дни Савелия (Savely’s Days) (previous post), a favorite from last year that tied as my other top book. Guzel Yakhina took third place for Дети мои (Children of the Volga), a blend of history and fairy tale motifs in a novel about a Volga German man and his daughter.

Readers’ voting results were a bit different, with Yakhina winning, Sluzhitel’ coming in second, and Evgeny Vodolazkin taking third for his Брисбен (Brisbane), a novel about a virtuoso guitarist coming to terms with a serious medical condition.

I’ve already mentioned that I thought the 2019 Big Book finalists were a big improvement over the last several shortlists. Looking back at this year’s list (previous post), I’m reminded of how much I enjoyed some of the books that didn’t win any awards at all, especially Evgenia Nekrasova’s Kalechina-Malechina (previous post) and Alexei Sal’nikov’s Indirectly, but also parts or aspects of almost all the others. Not everything was to my taste, of course (fortunately!), but this was a year when I saw merit in every single book. I’m crossing my fingers that next year’s lists will be even better and particularly hope more women will make the shortlist. Guzel Yakhina, Linor Goralik, and Evgenia Nekrasova certainly did their part representing women this year with three very different works, but I’d love to see more recognition for some of the other women writing good books. This is particularly important given the Big Book’s relatively high visibility.

Edits: The voting results are detailed on the Год литературы site here.

Up Next: The Erofeev and Brik biographies, which I’ll write about together. Bulat Khanov’s Гнев (Rage or Fury or something similar…).

Disclaimers and Disclosures: The usual. I’m a voting member of the Literary Academy, the Big Book Award’s very big jury. I’ve translated books by two of this year’s award winners and know other authors whose books were finalists.

Lizok’s Summer Reading Plan: 2019 Big Book Finalists

The Big Book Award named twelve finalists last week and I breathed a big old sigh of relief because this year’s short list looks so much better – infinitely better – to me than last year’s*. I’ve already read several of the books, all of which were very good in their own ways; a few others are already calling out to me. The list is an interesting combination of familiar and not-so-familiar authors, though there only two – Gonorovsky and Bakharevich – were completely unfamiliar to me before the Big Book Long List. Perhaps most interesting: unless I’ve really missed the point here about something, there’s only one work of nonfiction this year, a biography of Venedikt Erofeev, which pretty much had to make the finals.

• Sukhbat Aflatuni’s Рай земной (Earthly Paradise? Heaven on Earth?) looks back at political repression during the Stalin era, apparently layering fantasy and history. (If, that is, the book’s description is to be believed!) I’m very much looking forward to this one after Aflatuni’s The Ant King.
• Olgerd Bakharevich says his Собаки Европы (The Dogs of Europe), a 768-page book is about everything, with Belarus, Europe, the world, and Minsk being some of that “everything.” He translated the book himself, rewriting it in the process.
• Evgenii Vodolazkin’s Брисбен (Brisbane) tells the story of a virtuoso guitar player who discovers he has an incurable medical condition.
• Aleksandr Gonorovsky’s Собачий лес (Dog Forest, though I’m suspecting layers of meaning here…) apparently combines a lot of genres and addresses topics including historical trauma.
• Linor Goralik’s Все, способные дышать дыхание (literally something like All Capable of Breathing a Breath, perhaps? Or maybe “Everybody”? I’m interested in figuring out how to read this title.) The brief description introducing this excerpt says the book concerns a country that’s facing a huge catastrophe and discovers that empathy can be a double-edged sword.
• The trio of Oleg Lekmanov, Mikhail Sverdlov, and Ilya Simanovsky hit the list for the biography Венедикт Ерофеев: посторонний (Venedikt Erofeev: The Outsider). Oliver Ready’s review for The TLS notes this, which makes me look forward to the book very much: “In fact, this is not one biography but two, for between each chapter comes an interlude devoted to Moskva- Petushki.”
• Evgenia Nekrasova’s Калечина-Малечина (Kalechina-Malechina) is vivid, imaginative, and edgy in its description of a schoolgirl who is bullied and often left to her own devices.
• Alexei Salnikov’s Опосредованно (Indirectly perhaps? This is what a colleague and I think might fit…) is about a woman living in the Urals who writes poetry in a world that’s almost like ours, though poems have drug-like effects. I enjoyed Indirectly very much but reading it electronically wasn’t enough so I’m going to reread it as a printed book.
• Roman Senchin’s Дождь в Париже (Rain in Paris) is about a Russian man who’s in Paris reflecting on his life in Russia.
• Grigory Sluzhitel’s Дни Савелия (Savely’s Days) (previous post) is the first-cat narrative I so enjoyed last year.
• Vyacheslav Stavetsky’s Жизнь А.Г. (The Life of A.G.) concerns a Spanish dictator.
• Guzel Yakhina’s Дети мои (Children of the Volga) blends history and fairy tale motifs in a novel about a Volga German man and his daughter.

*With one exception: I’m sorry (yet again!) to see how few books written by women hit the short list. Since I don’t know what books were nominated, it’s impossible to say what the starting material was for the first two rounds of selection but, looking at the long list, I can say that I already read Anna Nemzer’s The Round (previous post) and thought it was pretty good, couldn’t quite get into Ksenia Buksha’s Opens In though it seemed well-written and solidly structured, and still have several other longlisters written by women either on the shelf to read or on order from a generous friend willing to travel with lots of book baggage. I am looking forward to reading those books and the other finalists! [Added on 6/11/2019.]

Disclaimers and Disclosures: The usual. I’m a member of the Literary Academy, the large jury for the Big Book Award. I’ve translated works by three authors on the list, know a couple more, and have received copies of some of the books from various parties.

Up Next: Nekrasova’s Kalechina-Malechina, plus some of her shorter work. And then Alexander Pelevin’s Четверо (The Four, perhaps, though I’m still not sure), which I’m enjoying for its blend of three plotlines: futuristic space travel, a 1930s detective story set in Crimea, and a present-day description of a patient at a St. Petersburg psychiatric hospital who claims to have contact with someone from another planet. It’s lively and entertaining.

Favorite Russian Writers A to Я: Erofeev and Esenin

I’ve been struggling over the small pool of letter “E” writers for a some time, hoping more contenders for favorites would emerge from some foggy compartment of my reading memory. Увы, alas, nothing, though there are some worthy writers:

Though Venedikt Erofeev may not be as big a favorite as some of my picks for previous letters, his Москва-Петушки (Moskva-Petushki or Moscow to the End of the Line) is a Soviet-era underground classic that has cult followings in and outside Russia. I wrote a bit about this short novel in a past post. What can I say? It’s a book about life and drinking (or drinking and life?), and its motifs live on. I felt them particularly strongly when I read Vladimir Makanin’s Андеграунд, или герой нашего времени (Underground or A Hero of Our Time) (previous post), plus several theaters have adapted the novella for stage.

On the lyrical side, I’ve always had a fascination with Sergei Esenin’s poetry. I guess I probably identify with his combination of rural and urban themes. And his physical and emotional wanderings. Esenin died in 1925 but he retains a place in Russian cultural life: Russian TV ran a miniseries about him in 2005, singer Aleksandr Novikov has made several albums of songs based on his poetry, and there is a Esenin Café in Moscow. Then there is this: last month’s online auction of items related to Esenin’s last days. The lot contained the rope with which he hanged himself, a lock of hair that his mother cut off his body, and a portrait of Esenin in his coffin. The items evidently sold for a little over two million rubles, but part of me wishes this story were not true because if feels so ghoulish.

The E-List for Future Reading: I’ve long felt a little guilty for not reading Venedikt Erofeev’s play Вальпургиева ночь (Walpurgis Night). Then there is Viktor Erofeev’s Русская красавица (Russian Beauty), which has also stood unread on my shelf since the early ‘90s. I just never seem to get to it. I’m sure I’ll read more from Mikhail Elizarov after enjoying his Библиотекарь (The Librarian) (previous post) this past summer -- several story collections are available but I’m hoping for another novel.

Please let me know who I’ve have missed!

(Ras)Putin, Robski, and “Moskva-Petushki”

A few random Russian literature news notes for the end of the week:

1. Writer Valentin Rasputin received a Russian government award -- Order for Service to the Fatherland (3^rd degree) -- yesterday from Vladimir Putin. (Photo) According to the Kremlin Web site, Putin bestowed awards on 49 “outstanding Russian citizens.” Rasputin also received a special award from Big Book in November.

Putin’s speech at the Kremlin awards ceremony included this line:

Both now and in the future we must do everything we can to ensure that, along with the growth of our economic power, the people creating our national culture become household names in the rest of the world, and that Russian language and literature continue to develop as a means of interethnic and international communication.

I wonder if Putin knows about the Russian Reading Challenge…

2. One of this morning’s top news stories (!) on lenta.ru was an item claiming that Oksana Robski, author of Casual and other bestsellers, plans to sell her house. It seems that selling tons of books isn’t enough to maintain a residence in the exclusive Rublyovka part of Moscow. Selling her Bentley would evidently only fund Robski’s expenditures for six months.

Casual fictionalizes Robski’s lifestyle. The book combines genres – primarily chick lit about the upper classes and detective – and became a huge bestseller. When I told a Russian reader friend that Casual had been translated into English, she said, “You mean someone took the time?” She and I both love a good piece of pulp fiction, but Casual lacks substance, structure, and heart. Casual is most notable as a view into Russia’s nouveau riche and for spawning copycat novels, but it’s still not very compelling. Bookslut has a full review.

3. The Biblio-Globus bestseller list for last week included a bit of a surprise: an “author’s text” edition of Venedikt Erofeev’s Москва-Петушки (Moscow to the End of the Line). (This summary has spoilers.) The book was written in 1970 but forbidden in the USSR until perestroika. I always wondered what I missed in my 1990 edition…

Moskva-Petushki is a tough book to summarize, but here’s what I wrote for a Soviet literature workshop last year:

Moscow to the End of the Line is the stream-of-consciousness narrative of a man who makes his way around and out of Moscow, drinking very heavily, philosophizing at times, and never seeming to make it to see the Kremlin. The book is depressing, sad, profane, and (of course) bleak, but there’s another reason it has a cult following: it is also very funny in spots, and the narrator (who coincidently shares the author’s name) shows a lot of heart. That’s why he drinks so much. Unfortunately, heart and soul are qualities that many Soviet literary characters lack. Though difficult to follow in places, this small book is a “Hit Parade” item in a large Russian on-line library.

Moscow to the End of the Line is a great example of messy postmodernism fitting a subject perfectly. And it’s just the right length. Though Moskva-Petushki won’t please everyone, it’s a minor classic.

Books in this posting:
Oksana Robski's Casual on Amazon
Erofeev's Moscow to the End of the Line on Amazon