Languor Management

I want to live!

Katherine Shonk on Nina Lugovskaya's diary from the Soviet '30s:

"Oh, I love writing! Now I've written this, I feel calmer, as though some invisible hand has tidied up everything in my heart so that there's not a single little thing left to worry me."

Thirteen-year-old Muscovite Nina Lugovskaya wrote this passage early in the diary that she began in 1932. For the next five years, many more worries, both little and big, sent Nina to her diary, her one confidante. Only intermittently did writing seem to alleviate her frustrations and loneliness. And, as it turned out, the turmoil of adolescence was only a prelude to greater troubles.

Prayer

I thank you, Father,
That in life’s commotion
I am neither a deputy nor a publisher,
Also that I do not sit in prison.

I thank you, All Mighty,
That I have not lost my tongue,
That I, as a beggar, accept my fate
And have gotten used to every nasty thing.

I thank you, Uniter,
That I have not been swept up in the Third Duma
From the bottom of this blessed heart of mine,
I thank you one hundred times.

I thank you, My God,
That at that mortal hour—the thunder-storm of fools—
My rotting flesh
Will eventually expel my spirit.

So here then, I ask silently:
Allow me to disappear into a black haze—
Me, I've seen hell on earth,
Paradise would be really boring.

1907

--Sasha Chernyi (translated from Russian by me)

Unlikely judges of literary talent

This year, Russia's National Bestseller Prize went to Ilya Boyashov's for his novel The Way of Muri. Boyashov, a relative unknown beat out heavyweights Dmitry Bykov, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, and Vladimir Sorokin. 

The Way of Muri is a story of a Bosnian cat forced to leave his cozy world when the civil war breaks out in Yugoslavia. On the quest for a lost rug and bowl of milk, he traverses Europe and eventually arrives in St. Petersburg. His trip is mirrored by the journeys of other characters, including a sperm whale and a sheikh with a flair for flying. Boyashov's voice is distinct, the story gripping and sentimental in the good sense of the word.

Censored Satire

In the monk’s carriage,

I saw a star flash on his cassock…

But what I thought of it

I will never tell you!

I left and came across Schwartz

And he high-tailed it out of there...

Ah, what I whispered on the road,

That I dare not tell you!

I went up to a coed I know.

Tired from all this business,

I drank boiled water,

Argued, and quickly became tipsy.

Masha! Give me your hand...

Life—pleasure, suffering—it’s nothing!

But I have quietly succumbed to it...

What for? I’m not gonna tell you!

1908

--Sasha Chernyi (Translated from Russian by me)

A lonely profession

Emerging Writers Network has posted an E-Panel of Literary Translations as part of Reading the World 2007.

In my opinion, translators doesn’t necessarily have to have a total spoken command of the language(s) they translate from, but they do need to know the written language very well, to read a lot in that language, and to make constant efforts to extend and update their vocabulary, knowledge of idioms, etc. -- Howard Curtis

This is independent publishing

Oh, Lord. This is almost exactly the situation I find myself in!

The novel in question, Fires, was written in the late winter and early spring of 2003. I was 19 when I started it, 20 when I finished. It was published by Iowa City’s Impetus Press in December of 2006. Wait, no, make that January 2007. Except that copies of the book being shipped from the printer (in Canada) were held at the border for a while by U.S. customs, so it wasn’t actually available to customers until February 2007. But according to Powells.com, the publication date was March 2007. Barnesandnoble.com says April 2007. And at parties, acquaintances ask me, “Is your book coming out soon?” This is independent publishing.

[Via Maud Newton]

I've had a lot of jobs

Anna Malpas reviews Eduard Bagirov's debut novel, Gastarbeiter, for the Moscow Times. Note: "Gastarbeiter" is a German tern used in the CIS states for migrant workers.

The novel is 80 percent autobiography, Bagirov said in an interview last week, smoking in the publisher's loft-style office. Like the book's hero, Yevgeny, the author was born in Turkmenistan to a Russian mother and Azeri father, and came to Moscow at the age of 21 to find work. Both Bagirov and his fictional hero earn their first cash from selling cheap plastic back-massagers and then graduate to working in real estate, transport and construction.

"I've had a lot of jobs," Bagirov said, laughing. "I used to unload sacks at Kazansky train station. Then there were more intellectual jobs: I opened a real estate agency, a transport agency -- I worked with passenger buses. I worked as the art director of a club. I was a casting director at a model agency. I've done everything."

Arriving in Moscow with no higher education, relatives or registration documents, Bagirov had to sleep rough at some points, he said. He also had the problem of being a convicted criminal who had served time in prison before his move to the capital -- as did the book's hero. The author didn't want to specify what he was convicted for, saying only that it wasn't a serious offense.

I, too, always yell, but can't prove a thing

The Violin — A Little Bit Nervous

The violin got all worked up, imploring
then suddenly burst into sobs,
so child-like
that the drum couldn't stand it:
"All right, all right, all right!"
But then he got tired,
couldn't wait till the violin ended,
slipped out on the burning Kuznetsky
and took flight.
The orchestra looked on, chilly,
while the violin wept itself out
without reason
or rhyme,
and only somewhere,
a cymbal, silly,
kept clashing:
"What is it,
what's all the racket about?"
And when the helicon,
brass-faced,
sweaty,
hollered:
"Crazy!
Crybaby!
Be still!"
I staggered,
on to my feet getting,
and lumbered over the horror-stuck music stands,
yelling,
"Good God"
why, I myself couldn't tell;
then dashed, my arms round the wooden neck to fling:
"You know what, violin,
we're awfully alike;
I too
always yell,
but can't prove a thing!"
The musicains commented,
contemptuously smiling:
"Look at him-
come to his wooden-bride-
tee-hee!"
But I don't care-
I'm a good guy-
"You know, what, violin,
let's live together,
eh?".

— V.V. Mayakovsky

A spineless intellectual

A spineless Russian intellectual is interred in Germany at the start of World War I, in Konstantin Fedin's "Cities and Years." After the war, he fails to find his place in Revolutionary society. He betrays his love and helps a counterrevolutionary escape Soviet justice....

[Via Sovlit.com]

Cats (1913)

Today, this is one of my favorite paintings. It's by Natalia Goncharova, a Cubo-Futurist painter. Her great aunt was Natalia Pushkina, wife of Alexander Pushkin...THE Alexander Pushkin.