"Soviet Deadpan" and Absurdity

As a self-taught observer of the absurd – my training comes from trips to the DMV, trying to converse with Russian bureaucrats, and reading about politics – it feels strange to read analysis of Daniil Kharms’s absurdist writing. Deciding what, exactly, made Kharms “weird” or absurdist feels like an inherently absurd act.

That’s not to say that “Soviet Deadpan,” George Sauders’s essay about Daniil Kharms in today’s “New York Times Book Review,” isn’t worth reading. It is! Saunders appreciates the energy and paradox of Kharms’s stories, and touches on the borders between Kharms’s narratives and what he calls “traditional stories.”

Russian literature has a long tradition of absurdity. One classic 19^th century example is Nikolai Gogol’s “Нос” (“The Nose”), the tale of a man who wakes up without his nose, only to find the nose on the street, now man-sized, dressed in a nice uniform, and exiting a carriage. Gary Saul Morson’s article “’Absolute nonsense’ – Gogol’s Tales” from The New Criterion provides a wonderfully readable introduction to Gogol’s world.

Mikhail Bulgakov’s Собачье сердце (Heart of a Dog) is another favorite that combines absurdity with fantasy as it shows, among other things, what happens when a man’s organs are transplanted into a stray dog. (For one thing, he becomes head of cat control…)

Sergei Dovlatov takes a very different angle on absurdity in Soviet life and journalism in the book I’m reading now, Компромисс (The Compromise). So far The Compromise is nominally realistic – none of Bulgakov’s talking animals or Gogol’s walking body parts – as it addresses the meaning of truth in the USSR. I’m not worried if using “realistic” to describe absurdity sounds paradoxical: that’s what absurdity is all about.

An earlier Lizok's Bookshelf piece on Kharms: “The Charms of Kharms”

Edit, 13 December: For more on Kharms, check out "It's Kharms week, here" on Languor Management, a blog that also includes author Kevin Kinsella's poetry translations.

Mentioned in this posting:
Daniil Kharms book on Amazon
Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog on Amazon
Dovlatov's The Compromise

Russian Reading Challenge 2008

Are there four Russian novels, plays, story collections, or other books that you've always meant to read but never found time for? I'm sure there are! 2008 is your year.

The Russian Reading Challenge 2008 blog encourages visitors to read four Russian-related books between January 1 and December 31, 2008. The best part about the challenge format is that nobody will be alone -- dozens of participants should mean lots of discussion.

I'm going to use the Challenge as a way to assuage my guilt about missing these classics for too long:

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Бесы (The Possessed)

Nikolai Gogol’s Ревизор (Inspector General) plus stories I haven’t read in Вечера на хуторе близ Диканьки (Village Evenings near Dikanka -- not the video game!) and Миргород (Mirgorod)

Vasilii Grossman’s Жизнь и судьба (Life and Fate)

Andrei Platonov’s Котлован (Foundation Pit) or, as a backup, Ювенильное море (Juvenile Sea)

For now I'm reading and enjoying Sergei Dovlatov's Компромисс (The Compromise), a very funny-but-sad autobiographical novel about working as a journalist in Soviet Estonia. A friend lent me four volumes of Dovlatov -- t0 be sure I'd find something I liked! -- and I may be reading it all cover-to-cover if everything is this good.

2007 Russian Booker Goes to Ilichevskii

Aleksandr Ilichevskii (Alexander Ilichevsky) won the 2007 Russian Booker prize for his novel Matisse, acing out Liudmila Ulitskaya’s Даниэль Штайн, переводчик (Daniel Stein, Translator), which won the Big Book prize in late November. Ilichevskii received $20,000 for his efforts.

Ulitskaya is, by far, the best known of the six finalists, and this analytical piece in the English Moscow News, by Vladimir Kozlov, summarizes the Booker’s “identity crisis.” I'm sure the Booker's focus on works by relatively obscure writers is one reason you shouldn't expect (m)any of the finalists to be translated soon: usually only two or three of a year’s finalists seem to appear in English. The inaugural prize was awarded in 1992.

The remaining 2007 finalists, each of whom received $2,000 for being named to the Booker short list, are:

Andrei Dmitriev for Бухта радости (Bay of Hope)

Igor Sakhnovskii for Человек, который знал всё (The Man Who Knew Everything)

Aleks Tarn for Бог не играет в кости (God Doesn’t Play Dice)

Iurii Maletskii for Конец иглы (The Point of the Needle)

I’ve only read works by Ulitskaya and Dmitriev. Some of my thoughts on Ulitskaya’s books are on this page.

Dmitriev’s writing can be quite dense, laden with literary and religious references and symbolism, but the three novellas that I read differed so much in style that I’d be afraid to generalize anything about his writing. This Iowa State page includes excellent analysis. Dmitriev’s (A Turn in the River), the most difficult of the three novellas that I read, was a Booker finalist in 1996.

Edit, January 8, 2008: Here is an English-language summary of Ulitskaya's Daniel Shtein.

A Bright Spot or a Dark Cloud?: Andrei Gelasimov’s “Zhanna”

Are you an optimist or pessimist? If you’re not sure, try reading Andrei Gelasimov’s short story “Жанна” – “Zhanna” transliterated but “Joan” in this translation.

One Russian site hosting the story includes comments from readers and Gelasimov himself, who writes that people find either optimism and light or darkness and Satanism in the story. Gelasimov concludes that it’s not the story that causes the polarization but readers themselves, who interpret the story’s problems from their own perspectives.

A first-person narration about a teenage mother’s life with her disabled son does indeed sound quite gloomy, but Gelasimov infuses both his heroine and his story with a subtle sense of hope.

“Zhanna” is written in a stripped-down style that doesn’t overload the reader’s senses with superfluous emotion, imagery, or pop culture references: Gelasimov includes just enough of these details to unify the narrative. Zhanna tells her story as an actual teenage girl might, jumping between doctor appointments, her mother’s dreams of France, childhood memories, and her son’s difficulties. Her life and troubles feel quite real and, though I don’t often like a flat-sounding narrative voice, this one fits the character.

This English translation by Alexei Bayer captures the mood and simplicity of the Russian original quite nicely. Though I find the choice of “Joan” instead of “Zhanna” for the narrator’s name somewhat curious, I suspect “Joan” makes the story feel more universal to non-Russian readers. Incidentally, the story mentions a song about a stewardess: it is “Стюардесса по имени Жанна” (“A Stewardess Named Zhanna”), Vladimir Presniakov’s irritatingly catchy perestroika-era pop hit. (Bonus link! Presniakov singing the song on YouTube.)

I wish I could list other works by Gelasimov that have been translated into English, but I don’t know of any. I enjoyed Gelasimov’s novel Год обмана (The Year of the Lie) very much, particularly a section of diary entries that were published separately as “Нежный возраст” (“The Sensitive Age”). The novel blends genres – coming of age, action – with humor and observations about life and lies, creating a satisfying and touching picture of one contemporary Russian family’s quirky life. On Proza.ru, Gelasimov recommends The Year of the Lie as a fun text and “Zhanna” for its sincerity. I concur.

A Related Reading. Thematically, “Zhanna” reminded me a bit of a novella by Liudmila Petrushevskaia, Время ночь (The Time: Night), a first-person narrative about three generations of dysfunctional family problems. Both stories have also been read in theaters as solo shows. Although I recommend The Time: Night as a look at societal breakdown in the late Soviet period, it takes a hysterical tone and feels claustrophobic, contrasting with Zhanna’s even tone and emptying apartment. Both narrators feel authentic, but I’d much rather spend a day with Zhanna’s quiet struggle than Anna’s shouting.

"Times" Article -- Russian Culture as Putin's Final Frontier

Russian culture made the front page of today’s New York Times with Michael Kimmelman’s detailed and thoughtful analysis of the precarious position of freedom of expression.

Kimmelman includes quotes from two Russian writers, Viktor Erofeev and Vladimir Sorokin. Both writers have been accused of writing “pornography” in works that included content – sex, swearing, and the like – that would have been censored under the Soviet regime. Shrill labels, of course, politicize and polarize literary criticism and draw debate away from literary merit. Both writers speak out regularly against the constraints of the Putin era.

It appears that Russian writers may still write and publish what they want. As literary critic Andrei Nemzer commented in a roundtable discussion published in Искусство кино (The Art of Cinema), “собака лает, ветер уносит” – basically, “the dog barks, the wind carries,” a line from Denis Fonvizin’s play Недоросль (The Minor). Most literary barking dissipates quickly because of small print runs for books read only by the intelligentsia.

One can only hope that book publishers will not be pressured to stop supporting controversial authors who, like Sorokin, dare to write what they wish and speak out against Putin. I’m not sure that would be politically expedient for Putin, anyway, because the Sorokins and Erofeevs are so easy for a pseudo-moralistic regime and its apologists to demonize. This English-language piece on Sorokin's Web site mentions that and other ironies of the campaign against them.

Putin’s regime has shrewdly focused on creating new patriotic motifs for the masses through television, often using miniseries as a platform. Many series build on old pride in the military victory of World War 2.

A 2007 40-episode (!) series on Stalin, though, responds to demand from a segment of society for a portrait of Stalin as a wise, just, and moral leader, writes critic Semyon Ekshtut in The Art of Cinema. Ekshtut refuses to debate the filmmakers’ concept in the article, writing that polemics are useless. Unfortunately, I’m afraid he’s correct.

Also... Russian speakers/readers wishing to learn more about Russian debate on government control and the arts might want to listen to or read the December 1, 2007, edition of the "Культурный шок" ("Culture Shock") radio show on Эхо Москвы (Echo of Moscow). The guests are Andrei Erofeev of the Tretiakov Gallery and literary critic Andrei Nemzer.

For images and more background, watch “A Photographer’s Journal: Putin’s Russia,” a multimedia presentation in today’s Times. Photographer James Hill’s narration to this three-minute feature provides cultural and historical context for his black and white images.