Food Fetishists in (Post-)Perestroika Petersburg: Nosov’s Member of the Society

Sergei Nosov’s Член общества, или Голодное время (literally something like A Member of the Society, or a Hungry Time) begins with a loaded action: our faithful first-person narrator, Oleg Zhiltsov, sells his Collected Works of F.M. Dostoevsky (thirty volumes, thirty-three books) after reading the whole damn set in three days and three nights. Yes, he’d been taking speed-reading courses in (ahem!) the spring of 1991, and all that Dostoevsky was a final project of sorts, though Oleg says he would have lost his mind had he read more. After finishing, he sleeps. Then he drinks. And a month or so later he sells the books.

Selling the Dostoevsky may pay a creditor, but a failed sale at the bookstore also proves fateful for Oleg: the unsold book is a vegetarian cookbook, Я никого не ем (literally, I Don’t Eat Anyone), that a stranger on a trolleybus (the number eight) notices. Fascinated by a stamp on the title page, he asks to borrow it. It turns out the man, one Dolmat Fomich Lunocharov, from a booklover society, says he’s into sphragistics (also known as sigillography), which, in his terms, means he loves looking at stamps in the margins of books.

Clearly, things are building here thanks to a combination of, among other things, Dostoevsky, 1991 (the year of the GKChP and, later, the dissolution of the USSR), food in a time of shortages, books, meeting a strange stranger on public transportation, marginalia (both social and bookish), and a Petersburg setting. There are even mentions of Anatolii Sobchak, whom I once took for a (brief) walk around Freeport, Maine. Perhaps what’s most important, though, is that Nosov writes like he’s in his element because he is in his element: he says in this interview that he lived much of his life near Sennaya Square, a place that both Dostoevsky and his characters often passed through and that appears in A Member of the Society. In that same interview, Nosov also notes that Oleg’s problems begin when he sells his Dostoevsky, books Nosov refers to as Oleg’s “наследие/nasledie.” (The Oxford Russian dictionary offers “heritage” and “legacy,” and I might add that there are lots of related words, too, like наследство/nasledstvo, which is “inheritance.)

Oleg may have sold his nasledie during a transitional time but Nosov sure works all his personal and literary nasledia well, incorporating housing on Sennaya Square, thoughts of axe murder, writing careers, and lots of taboos, including one that sure seems to show that pretty much everything really is permitted. Along the way, there are lots more fun, often peculiar, details: lavish dinner parties though many foods are only available by ration coupons, Oleg’s food columns, with recipes, for a publication that doesn’t really seem to exist though it does pay, a politician named Skotorezov (roots: livestock and slaughter), mention of a horrible pool player named Sergei Nosov, a secret passageway, and Oleg saying that something within him has sounded polyphonic ever since he turned in his Dostoevsky.

Lists are about all my melted, confused, and aching head can muster on this ninety-plus-degree day! I could compile many, many more of them but I’ll just conclude by saying that I found A Member of the Society a thoroughly entertaining novel with a linear plot, blend of genres (love story, a bit of picaresque, and the mystery of odd characters), Dostoevsky, and, for my taste, an ideal blend of nineties sadness and humor, something I know all too well. I’m looking forward to giving Nosov’s Curly Brackets, winner of this year’s NatsBest, a try, too.

Up Next: More books: Eugene Vodolazkin’s Solovyov and Larionov, which I’ll start translating soon, Elena Minkina-Taycher’s The Rebinder Effect, an episodic novel about several families, and the first book in my Big Book Award finalist marathon, Guzel’ Iakhina’s wonderful debut novel Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes.

New York Trip Report, Part Two, Belated: BookExpo America

It’s funny how each of my BookExpo America trips has its own feel: this year’s BEA left me with the sense of a stronger-than-ever community of translators and publishers of translations. This wasn’t because China was the market focus country this year and had a ginormous amount of space on the exhibition floor but because of conversations with translators and publishers in and around BEA. As usual, BEA hosted a series of market focus panel discussions about the business of translation, but this year also included announcements of the winners of the Best Translated Book Award as well as a succession of panels organized by the PEN American Center Translation Committee. I came away from all that convinced that recent start-up publishers—Two Lines Press, New Vessel Press, and DeepVellum Press among them—as well as lots of more established small-to-medium publishers—such as Europa Editions, Soho Press, Other Press, and Open LetterBooks—are winning lots of awards, getting reviewed, and (the big thing!) publishing books that they can sell because they know who their readers are. I could double the publisher list without even having to consult Google or my BEA lists but will just add that there’s also a bunch of several London-based publishers of varying sizes and ages—And Other Stories, Pushkin Press, and OneworldPublications, for example—that make me think this isn’t just a U.S.-based phenomenon. On to events and books!

Of course it’s ancient history now, but just for the record and just in case you missed it, the 2015 Best Translated Book Award winners are, for prose, Can Xue’s The Last Lover, translated from the Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen and published by Yale University Press, and, for poetry, Rocío Cerón’s Diorama, translated from the Spanish by Anna Rosenwong and published by Phoneme Media. Phoneme, by the way, is another pretty new press, and Diorama is their first book of poetry. For more on BTBA 2015.

I loved the PEN Translation Committee’s panels because they were brief and packed with information and tips. “Reaching the Reader: Publicizing International Literature,” with Juliet Grames, associate publisher at Soho Press, and Allison Markin Powell, a translator from the Japanese, looked at issues like the role of the translator, social media versus bookstores (summary: bookstores have it all over Twitter, thinks Grames) (okay, the italics are mine!), online reviewers with good credibility (I noted The CompleteReview, Words Without Borders, and Three Percent), and Google authenticity. Meaning: the panelists looked at online and offline aspects of publicity. “Baiting the Hook: How to Catch an Editor’s Interest” was just as good: among other things, translator Ezra Fitz reminded us that it’s okay to spoil plots when sending book synopses to an editor (why do I always forget this?!) and Corinna Barsan, an editor at Grove Atlantic, said bigger is better when it comes to sample translations, synopses, and, generally, the informational package you send to publishers. Nothing in either panel was a surprise but all the presenters touched on subjects we (or at least I) often need reminders about. I was rather late to Retranslating the Great Works of Literature: How and Why? so didn’t hear all that Robert Weil of Liveright & Co. and translators Tess Lewis and Burton Pike had to say.

Publishers offered picks at two translation “buzz” panels, too: Coach House served up Louis Carmain’s Guano, translated by Rhonda Mullins; Gray Wolf Press listed A Woman Loved, by Andreï Makine and translated by Geoffrey Strachan (this book involves a filmmaker obsessed with Catherine the Great); and Coffee House Press offered The Story of My Teeth, by Valeria Luiselli and translated by Christina MacSweeney. A special thriller and crime buzz panel dished up Soho Press’s recommendation of Fuminori Nakamura’s The Gun, translated by Allison Markin Powell, and Heda Margolius Kovály’s Innocence, translated by Alex Zucker; plus Europa Editions’ Gang of Lovers, written by Massimo Carlotto and translated by Antony Shugaar, and I Will Have Vengeance, written by Maurizio de Giovanni and translated by Anne Milano Appel.

What else? It was great to see translator and writer friend Aviya Kushner, whose The Grammar of God will be out this fall. After working with and quoting from various English and Russian translations of the Bible for my translation of Eugene Vodolazkin’s Laurus, I’m especially looking forward to Aviya’s book because it’s about the Bible, translation, and belief. For now, I always love recommending Aviya’s essay, “Kafka and the Habits of Highly Effective People,” a truly wonderful piece of writing… There aren’t a lot of Russian-English translations to add to the 2015 translation list, though I had no idea (or simply forgot?) the Theatre Communications Group publishes translations: Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard will be out this year in a translation by Robert Nelson, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky; that same trio translated Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector, released last year. As for books I picked up… I already read and enjoyed The Man Who Spoke Snakish, a novel by Andrus Kivirähk and translated from the Estonian by Christopher Moseley (Grove Atlantic), which features a stylized version of medieval Estonia, a contemporary-sounding first-person narrator from the forest, cultural clashes between meat-eating forest-dwellers and bread-eating villagers, interspecies marriage, and a charming but vicious adder named Ints. (Truth be told, I especially loved the adders in this book.) I just started Heda Margolius Kovály’s Innocence, in Alex Zucker’s translation (Soho Press), which combines Kovály’s love of American noir (she was a translator, too) with Czech realities. The very first books I picked up at BEA this time around were Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, translated by Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions), and Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation, translated by John Cullen (Other Press). Maybe Camus will come off the shelf for a reread, too.

One other note: next year’s BEA will be in Chicago and the market focus will be Poland. Hmm. I’ve never been to a BEA outside New York but Poland, hmm.

And one truly final note. I didn’t go to many events that were part of the BEA market focus program but a Chinese and American poetry reading at the Bowery Poetry Club—beautifully moderated by translator Eleanor Goodman and with readings from Lan Lan, Zhao Lihong, Edwin Frank, Canaan Morse, and Peter Gizzi—was a perfect way to have no regrets whatsoever about spending a couple hours in a dark room on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon. Bonus since I’m so clueless about translations from languages other than Russian: learning about Paper Republic, a fantastic site about Chinese literature in translation.

Disclaimers: A million for all the books—thank you to the publishers!—and contacts, plus the usual.

Up Next: A bunch of books: Eugene Vodolazkin’s Solovyov and Larionov, which I’ll start translating this summer, meaning ever sooner, Sergei Nosov’s Член общества, или Голодное время (something like Member of the Society or A Time of Hunger), the sad-but-funny story of a man’s life after selling all his Dostoevsky, and Elena Minkina-Taycher’s The Rebinder Effect, an episodic novel about several families. And then my Big Book Award finalist marathon, which I began with Guzel’ Iakhina’s Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes, which I’m enjoying very, very much and will be finishing this weekend…

New York Trip Report, Part One, Belated: Oliver Ready Wins 2015 Read Russia Prize

So much for timely trip reports about award ceremonies! That doesn’t mean I’m not still thrilled to say, more than two weeks later, that Oliver Ready received the 2015 Read Russia Prize for his translation of Vladimir Sharov’s До и во время, which Dedalus Books published with the title Before and During. I accepted the award for Oliver and am very excited for all involved: for Oliver, for Sharov, whom I met through Oliver, and for Dedalus Books.

Recognizing Oliver felt doubly appropriate because his Crime and Punishment translation was shortlisted for this year’s award, too. Given my interest in contemporary Russian literature, I’m especially happy Oliver won for the Sharov book—the decision came, by the way, through unanimous vote—both because I hope it draws attention to present-day writers and because I read and admired (previous post) Oliver’s translation.

Read Russia commended classics, too, by giving a special jury award to two new translations of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: Rosamund Bartlett’s translation was published by Oxford University Press and Marian Schwartz’s by Yale University Press. The jury’s statements on both awards are online here. I should note that this Read Russia Prize was for Russian-to-English translations only.

The Read Russia evening also included a talk from Gary Saul Morson, the man who taught me War and Peace twice: he spoke on the topic of “Because Everyone Needs a Little Russian Literature.” I’d wondered, in a previous post (about the Read Russia shortlist), if Dr. Morson took the title from a Read Russia bumper sticker. He did. My notes about his talk, alas, are even more inadequate than usual, most likely due to a combination of plain old tiredness after three days at BEA and excitement for Oliver.

I am happy to report, though, that, among other things, Dr. Morson quoted from a book by his pseudonym Alicia Chudo, noted the sense of moral urgency that Russian literature conveys, and spoke of literary characters as possible people, a formulation I like very much. Best of all, he read aloud, from translations: when I was a student, undergrad and grad, I didn’t understand why he read aloud to us, but have come to realize in recent years how much his readings helped me learn to hear the shadings of literary voices.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Alex Cigale gave me a copy of the spring/summer 2015 issue of Atlanta Review: Alex edited the issue and it includes four or five or six dozen translations of Russian poems. Alex pulled together a fantastic roster of fifty poets (Shamshad Abdullaev to Ivan Zhdanov, if taken in the Roman alphabet’s A to Z) and several dozen translators, many of whom I know and have heard read from and/or speak about their work. I’ve only read a small sliver of the issue—every time I open the journal, I get happily stuck on Alyssa Dinega Gillespie’s lush translation of a Polina Barskova poem that starts with “Sweetness of the sweetest slumber/Sweet is sweet is sweet is dream” because I love what Alyssa does with rhythm and rhyme—but I can’t wait to read more, poet by poet, translator by translator. Alex reminded me that readers can get tastes of the poems (as well as background) from the Atlanta Review Facebook group, where posts often include lots of links. If you’re looking for very short notes, there’s also Twitter!

Disclaimers: The usual, including work for Read Russia. Thank you to Alex Cigale for Atlanta Review.

Up Next: Trip report, Part Two, BookExpo America book fair and event report. And two books: Eugene Vodolazkin’s Solovyov and Larionov, which I’ll start translating this summer, meaning soon, and Sergei Nosov’s Член общества, или Голодное время (something like Member of the Society or A Time of Hunger), the sad-but-funny story of a man’s life after selling all his Dostoevsky. And then: I’m currently reading Elena Minkina-Taycher’s The Rebinder Effect, which I’m enjoying very much. Rebinder didn’t catch me on several previous tries so I’m glad I kept trying because I’m finding it very, very readable. After that, I’ll be starting my Big Book Award finalist marathon, beginning with Guzel’ Iakhina’s Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes, which I’ve already started…

2015 NatsBest Goes to Nosov

Sergei Nosov won the 2015 National Bestseller Award today for his Фигурные скобки (Curly Brackets). Curly Brackets looked like a big NatsBest favorite after racking up a record-breaking 19 points in longlist tallies. Nosov felt due for a major award after having been a finalist for several prizes in recent years, with his Франсуаза, или Путь к леднику (Françoise Or the Way to the Glacier) and Тайная жизнь петербургских памятников (The Secret Lives of Petersburg Monuments).

After enjoying Nosov’s The Rooks Have Flown (previous post) and Member of the Society or a Time of Hunger (to come), I’m looking forward to Curly Brackets, which apparently concerns a Petersburg mathematician who goes to Moscow for a microwizard (micromagician?) convention. I'll add information on voting totals for the finals when the official report appears, but will note that three books shared second place in longlist voting, with six points: Oleg Kashin’s Горби-дрим (Gorby-Dream), Anna Matveeva’s Девять девяностых (Nine from the Nineties), and Alexander Snegirev’s Вера (Vera, a name and noun that translates as Faith).

I’ve only read one of the shortlisted books, and only in part: Snegirev’s Vera, which I liked very, very much but decided I’d rather read in book form, you know, with bound paper. Then again, reformatting might solve my problem, which involves an urge to take lots of notes: I’ve been increasing my electronic reading options and capabilities so I can read thousands of pages for the Big Book Award. One of those books is Matveeva’s Nine from the Nineties, which I’m already looking forward to after reading, last year, several stories from her previous collection, which was also a Big Book finalist.

Disclaimers: The usual.

Up Next: New York trip report, covering BookExpo America and the Read Russia Award. And two books: Eugene Vodolazkin’s Solovyov and Larionov, which I’ll start translating this summer, and the afore-mentioned Sergei Nosov’s Член общества, или Голодное время (something like Member of the Society or A Time of Hunger), the sad-but-funny story of a man’s life after selling all his Dostoevsky.

The 2015 Read Russia Prize for Translations into English -- Shortlist

Ah, a week of prize news! Read Russia announced, yesterday, the shortlist for the 2015 Read Russia Prize for Russian-to-English translations. The award will be presented in New York on May 29: I’m doubly looking forward to attending because Gary Saul Morson, who taught me War and Peace twice, will be the guest speaker, with the lecture, “Because Everyone Needs a Little Russian Literature.” I’m not sure which came first, the title or the Read Russia bumper sticker, but I’ll see if I can clear that up next week.  

Be that as it may, here’s the shortlist, in alphabetical order by translator. Two finalists translated Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Oliver Ready deserves special recognition for having two books on the list, a particular achievement since one book is a classic, the other a contemporary novel. It’s a varied list all around, and the broad selection of publishers is encouraging. I’ve read two of the translations in full and both were very good. Congratulations to everyone!

• Rosamund Bartlett’s translation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; Oxford University Press.
• Peter Daniels’s translation of Vladislav Khodasevich’s Selected Poems; Overlook Press (UK: Angel Books). 
• Katherine Dovlatov’s translation of Sergei Dovlatov’s Pushkin Hills (Заповедник); Counterpoint Press (UK: Alma Classics). Katherine Dovlatov’s translation of her father’s Pushkin Hills is lots of fun: I was glad to have it on a stuffy, delayed flight last summer. Recently out in paperback. (There’s a bit more, here.)
• Jamie Rann’s translation of Anna Starobinets’s The Icarus Gland; Skyscraper Press.
• Oliver Ready’s translation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment; Penguin UK.
• Oliver Ready’s translation of Vladimir Sharov’s Before and During; Dedalus Books. With all its cultural references and dense monologues, I can only imagine that Before and During must have been very, very difficult to translate. (Particularly this well!) I wrote a bit about Before and During here.
• Marian Schwartz’s translation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; Yale University Press.

Up Next: BookExpo America (and Read Russia Award) trip report, National Bestseller Award. And two books: Eugene Vodolazkin’s Solovyov and Larionov, which I’ll start translating this summer, and Sergei Nosov’s Член общества, или Голодное время (something like Member of the Society or A Time of Hunger), the sad-but-funny story of a man’s life after selling all his Dostoevsky.

Disclaimers: The usual, including work with Read Russia and my incredible good fortune to know most of the translators on this list.