Ragweed Season Miscellany

With ragweed season in full swing here in my part of the world, I was glad to find a few bits of news to post this week rather than trying to write anything coherent about Vadim Levental’s Masha Regina. The book deserves a lot better than what I could write up between my alternating urges to sneeze (from the pollen) and snooze (from the allergy pills). So, a few bits of news and comment…

First off, what could be a better birthday present for Lev Tolstoy than his very own (online!) portal, at (where else but?) Tolstoy.ru. The site plans to offer “Весь Толстой в один клик” (“All of Tolstoy in one click”)… ninety volumes of Tolstoy online. Only a little bit is available so far—the project just got started in mid-June—though a few PDFs are up and ready for downloading. Future formats will include .fb2 and ePub. There are already sections with photos and biographical information, though the English-language version of the portal is under construction. Also: The project is apparently still looking for volunteers. Information here.

Book of the Year awards were handed out last Wednesday—coinciding with the opening of the Moscow International Book Fair—to writers including Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Alexander Arkhangelsky. Yevtushenko won Book of the Year for Поэт в России — больше, чем поэт. Десять веков русской поэзии (A Poet in Russia Is More Than a Poet. Ten Centuries of Russian Poetry), a five-volume anthology; it appears that only the first volume is out. Arkhangelsky won Prose of the Year for his novel Музей Революции (Museum of the Revolution) and the “Poet” series of books from Leninzdat won the Poetry award. A full list of winners is available on the site of the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication, which organizes the awards and the book fair. The FAPMC piece noted that this year’s entertainment included ballet… it’s always sounded to me as if Book of the Year is the book award with the most lavish floor show. (And yes, it feels odd to even write that…)

Khlebnikov's grave, Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow.

I saved the best for last! It was a pleasant surprise to find a copy of Modern Poetry in Translation in my mailbox last week… and especially pleasant to have “Khlebnikov & Birdsong” catch my eye as soon as I unwrapped the journal. “Khlebnikov & Birdsong” is a lovely clutch of pieces that begins with MPT editor Sasha Dugdale’s “Transcribing Birdsong,” an introduction that includes a chunk of an essay by Alexander Ilichevsky about Velimir Khlebnikov, bird sounds, zaum, and language. Sasha’s introduction is followed by two translations of Khlebnikov’s “Там, где жили свиристели”: Peter Daniels’s “Timelings” and Edwin Kelly’s “Waxwings.” (“From the Ends to the Beginning” includes the original and another take on the poem here.) I particularly enjoyed the momentum, rhyme, and rhythm of Peter Daniels’s version, which feels very much like the original to me in both form and content, beginning with “Where the waxwings once were living.” Perhaps best of all, it read wonderfully to me on its own even before I looked up the original.

The two waxwing poems are followed by two more translations of Khlebnikov, also with introductions: Robert Chandler’s “Night in Persia” (“Ночь в Персии”) and Edwin Kelly’s “Garden of Animals” (“Зверинец”). I’ve always had a special fascination for Khlebnikov because I’ve always had a soft spot for zaum. Khlebnikov’s famous “Заклятие смехом”/“Incantation by Laughter” is probably as a good place as any to start reading him if he’s new for you. Back to MPT: this issue (no. 2, 2013) includes loads of other poems, featuring a “Romanian Focus” section, plus reviews, including James Womack’s piece about G.S. Smith’s As I Said, a translation of Lev Loseff’s Как я сказал.

Finally, an administrative note. Those of you who subscribe to my blog feed (by e-mail or blog/feed reader) might have noticed that you received three posts last week: there was a feed problem, which I fixed, so things should now be back to normal. I’m very grateful to the reader who sent a note last week asking why the feed hadn’t been updated since July. I usually monitor the feed more closely but, well, it’s been summer... I sometimes consider setting up a Facebook page to post links to new entries—is this something that (m)any of you would find useful, as an alternative to e-mail or blog/feed reader subscriptions?

Disclaimers. I’m translating a brief excerpt of Vadim Levental’s Masha Regina. I work on projects for Read Russia, which is funded by FAPMC. And I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Peter Daniels, Robert Chandler, and Sasha Dugdale in Oxford and London this past June. A very special thanks to Sasha for the copy of Modern Poetry in Translation!

Up Next: Levental’s Masha Regina and then Oleg Zaionchkovskii’s Petrovich, a low-key novel-in-stories about a boy.

Rotten Romance & Russian Roulette: Ilichevsky’s The Orphics

Every now and again I like to wait before I write about a book because I want to see if the book holds its power and keeps eating at me. In the case of Alexander Ilichevsky’s Орфики, (The Orphics), which I finished two months ago—I vividly remember reading tense Russian roulette scenes toward the end of the novel, as half my town was shooting off fireworks on the night of July 3—the answer is Yes. Sure, some of the details have faded but the jarring effects of the second half of the book feel almost as strong now as they did when the literal and literary fireworks were going off in mid-summer.

The Orphics begins with a dacha romance narrated by a hopeful young man, Petr, about to go to the United States to study in 1991… the romance, though, is doomed from the start. (In the back of my book, I scribbled “dacha romance turned rotten by the ‘90s and the ghost of Dostoevsky.”) I’ll admit the beginning of the book was a bit of a slog for me until I had a better feel for what Ilichevsky was doing. The romance felt groundless, unlikely—young Petr falls for a general’s daughter, Vera (Faith), who’s married to an officer—and there’s a lot of talk about politics and whither Russia. And I don’t often have much patience for seemingly ungrounded romances or fiction with long swathes of talk about politics.

The back of Pashkov House

What makes all this work is that Ilichevsky sets The Orphics in a way-off-kilter world that plays on the way-off-kilter world of the real, true carnivalesque Moscow I knew in the early nineties. I think the element of extreme carnival is what I found so satisfyingly (dis)orienting about the book: I wouldn’t be too surprised, for example, if someone told me there really were Russian roulette sessions, with betting, going on in Pashkov House during the time I lived in Moscow. About the only other detail I should add to complete a basic plot summary is that our narrator plays Russian roulette to raise money for his beloved, so she can help her father after he’s accused of financial improprieties. The Orphics is, as you’ve probably already figured out, heavy on fate: there’s even a gun early on in the book, fitting since it drops strong hints about shooting and foregone conclusions.

What makes it even more absolutely clear the book shouldn’t be taken as straightforward realism is that it contains a strong mystical element—critic Nikolai Aleksandrov handily divides the book into three ingredients: ideological, mystical, and love story—that’s linked to a form of self-sacrifice that carries absurdly huge stakes. I don’t want to reveal more specifics about this piece of things because I think the mystical, occult aspect of The Orphics is the element of the book that’s most fun for the reader to tease out of Ilichevsky’s amalgam of melodrama and psychological thriller… all of which is augmented by a sleazy, noirish feeling that life is cheap. The combination worked beautifully for me—I also noted “not for the faint of heart” in the back of my book—though I have to admit the fireworks probably heightened the tension of the final Russian roulette scenes. I never knew when something would blow.

Part of what I’ve come to appreciate about Ilichevsky is his use of allusions, which saturate The Orphics, from the title to the stanzas from a poem by Alexander Blok that appear on the last page, with lots of Pashkov House (a meeting pace for Voland in Master and Margarita), plus references to Dostoevsky, Camus, bees of ancient myth, rebirth, Red Moscow perfume (again!), and lots more. Aleksandrov seems to feel put off that The Orphics feels artificial but I can’t imagine the book feeling otherwise: I can’t imagine much of anyone would or could believe what holds the world together in The Orphics if it were described in straight-up realistic fiction. (Not that I think it actually could be...) Besides, Ilichevsky’s able to place a wonderfully diabolical overlay onto the usual sociopolitical tragedies, comedies, and triumphs that came with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Another besides: what I love about fiction is that it can be easy to believe it without believing a thing.

Up Next: Vadim Levental’s Masha Regina, which I’m about to finish. (And about to translate some brief excerpts!)

Photo: Pashkov House, photo by Alvesgaspar, via Wikipedia/Creative Commons.

Ain’t We Got Fun?

I’m starting to think I wasn’t kidding last time when I wrote that I may be reading Maxim Kantor’s Красный свет (Red World/Light/???) until the winners of the Big Book Awards are announced in November: I’m stuck in a World War 2 scene in the middle of a chapter in almost the exact middle of the book. All because sometimes, in the course of human events, even a reader like me, someone who has probably read more chernukha (dark naturalism) over the years than is healthy, needs something a little lighter. Red Whatever isn’t exactly chernukha but it’s fairly heavy stuff: there’s a bit of satire, but that’s outweighed by the war, arrests, a Hitler accomplice, ineptness in today’s political opposition, and a general feeling of rot.

Kantor’s book is my third war-related book of this season and Alexander Ilichevsky’s The Orphics, which I liked quite a bit, isn’t exactly an upper, either, with a dacha romance gone bad that leads to some intense Russian roulette scenes. I like a lot of this dark stuff, particularly when there’s a twist, as there is in Ilichevsky’s book and as there is in the last of my war-oriented books, Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop (nicely translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker), which manages to combine extreme ghoulishness with absurdity. Which is to say my problem isn’t that I want all my reading to be lite or even light… but I’d love to find a little more balance for my poor bookshelves, which sometimes seem too loaded down with darkness and existential dread. I doubt acetaminophen would be of much practical use.

So why am I writing about this? Because I’d love to hear readers’ suggestions about books—particularly contemporary or twentieth-century fiction, though I’m open to anything—that are fun(ny) and smart. I’m not looking for a list of “feel-good” books or books that are mindlessly cheery, just some titles that don’t relentlessly focus on death, doom, destruction, and (here it is again) darkness. I’ve fielded reader questions about this a number of times over the years, too, from various angles, so am sure others will be happy (happy!) for your suggestions.

I realize the hard part is that tastes, perspectives, and perceptions vary: lots (okay, probably millions) of people love Ilf and Petrov, but I’m probably best described as “indifferent,” and I couldn’t stand the Strugatsky Brothers’ Monday Starts on Saturday. On the other hand, I’d put Dmitrii Danilov’s Description of a City on a list of fun books, both for Danilov’s take on language, which sometimes made me laugh out loud, and for being “very touching.” Another one: even with lots of plague, Evgeny Vodolazkin’s Laurus managed to avoid utter darkness, too, through humor and something else that’s probably best described as a form of optimism. Optimism! Danilov’s book has it, too; both these books are also Big Book finalists, something that makes me feel optimistic in other ways.

Others: I’ve enjoyed Gogol’s “Nose” many times, laughed out loud at Alexander Snegirev’s silly but sharp Vanity, and sought respite from Alexander Terekhov’s dreary, overbearing Stone Bridge in Anna Starobinets’s Sanctuary 3/9, where “I found scary fun, a nightmarish, multigenre conglomeration of human fears.” Yes, it was lots more fun reading Starobinets’s take on fears than taking two Tylenol and continuing with Terekhov. There are plenty of other writers—Dovlatov and Iskander some to mind—who also manage to combine humor with the serious stuff. And then there’s Vladimir Voinovich’s Soviet-era satire (especially The Fur Hat and Chonkin). And Valentin Kataev’s A White Sail Gleams and The Embezzlers… Yes, I have more unread Voinovich and Dovlatov and Iskander and Kataev on my shelves, but I’d love to have some new writers to try, too.

For what it’s worth, I’m now reading yet another Big Book finalist, Vadim Levental’s Masha Regina, about a girl from a small city who leaves her family for Leningrad, where she finishes high school then goes to film school and becomes famous. The book has a layer of bleakness but it also has lots of nice detail, plus some stylistic elements that appeal to me. More on that later, of course. FWIW, I resolved my immediate problem (last week) by finally picking up—it took fifteen or twenty years!—Petr Boborykin’s Китай-город, an 1882 novel named for Kitai-gorod, a neighborhood in central Moscow… it’s not exactly funny but it’s oddly lively and entertaining. Boborykin loves description of clothes, food, and, particularly, goods for sale; that’s fun in small doses so I may just read little bits every now and then and continue researching some of the old vocabulary.

Disclaimers: The usual.

Up Next: Ilichevsky’s The Orphics and Levental’s Masha Regina…