Languor Management

No directions to the Solzhenitsyns

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russian literary giant and dissident, has died. Judging from the photo above (taken in 1976) , it's hard to believe he managed to hang on this long.

He wrote that while an ordinary man was obliged “not to participate in lies,” artists had greater responsibilities. “It is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie!”

Obits are everywhere, but the Times has posted a nice, long one on its site, despite the strangest transliteration of Osip Mandelshtam I have ever seen.

A shockingly blunt attack

An uncut edition of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle is finally coming out in English.

The novel, completed in 1964 and banned by Soviet officials even after Solzhenitsyn cut nine chapters, is set in a gulag where scientists and scholars have been sent for alleged subversion against the Stalinist regime.

A shortened, 580-page version of "The First Circle" came out in English in 1968 -- the text had mysteriously been leaked out of the Soviet Union -- despite objections by the author, who believed his work was being exploited for profit, and by scholars who feared that the book's release could jeopardize his safety.

[Spaceeba, E!]

Nudist zombies

In the New York Times, Henry Alford on the hazards of translating literally--a crime which I am often guilty of--and a quiz!

A clerk in a Yokohama bookshop once told John Steinbeck’s wife that yes, he had a copy of Steinbeck’s “Angry Raisins.”

Circus life

Victor Sonkin on Dina Rubina's new novel, Leonardo's Handwriting:

The novel's title stems from the unusual method which Leonardo da Vinci, apparently ambidextrous, used for encoding secret messages (the real "da Vinci code"!) that can only be read in a mirror. This, among other things, gives the book a mystical flavor, but it does not degenerate into a wacko supernatural novel. The combination of Anna's gift with realistic details of everyday life remind even the staunchest skeptic of strange things that happen now and then: a prophetic dream, an accurate prediction, a feeling of the presence of recently deceased people. Rubina's masterful novel provides a way of looking into that strange world -- not through a door or a window but through a looking glass.  

Of registers and genres

Lizok's Bookshelf on Gogol's The Overcoat:

So many readers and critics have written so much over the years about “The Overcoat,” often using social, Freudian, and other analytical prisms, that fresh insights are tough to find. Much of the debate concerns themes Nabokov eschews: class differences and big messages. Nabokov believes “The Overcoat” requires creativity from readers and even advises that readers stay away from Gogol’ if they are looking for ideas, facts, or messages.I (mostly!) agree with Nabokov because “The Overcoat” is so nuanced that it must be felt. As Nabokov notes, the story’s setting is absurd, which he defines not as funny but as pathetic and representative of the human condition in a “nightmarish, irresponsible world.” Nabokov believes Gogol’ wrote best when he avoided treating rational ideas in a logical way. With “The Overcoat,” writes Nabokov, Gogol’ “really let himself go and pottered happily on the brink of his private abyss.”

 

 

When sausage was plentiful

Russian artist  Mikhail Karasik's new book -- Great Stalinist Photographic Books -- lays bear the Soviet coffee-table books from the 1930s, "when this genre was at its artistic height" and "when sausage was plentiful."

Such coffee-table books were usually produced in costly limited editions, destined for members of the nomenklatura and libraries. Their contents could be dry, as suggested by titles such as "The Industry of Socialism" and "On Rail Transport in the Soviet Union," but the dynamic photographs and graphic design by artists including Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitzky could make even features on tractors or steel production look attractive.

From the ashes

Lizok's Bookshelf on Aleksei Slapovskii’s The Phoenix Syndrome:

At times Slapovskii’s Phoenix Syndrome, like They, reads as much like a screenplay as a Big Book prize finalist. The result, though, is an unusually tightly written novel with supporting characters who drift in and out, abundant one-liners, quick scene changes, and a happy ending.

 

There are also dark undercurrents in the book – including a criminal past – as Gosha churns through personalities with the help of Tatiana, a store clerk and single mother who takes Gosha in and begins to love him. Still, Slapovskii’s intent is to provide light, humorous reading underpinned by social commentary about post-Soviet Russian life, something as changeable as Gosha’s personality. There’s plenty of funny-but-sad material about small town politics and jealousies, Gosha’s stint as a soccer savior, and construction projects.

Slapovskii’s Phoenix Syndrome is almost as paradoxical as Gosha: it is light but satisfying, funny but sad, old-fashioned but contemporary. Though The Phoenix Syndrome may not have enough heft to be one of the most profound post-Soviet novels I’ve read, it is one of the most clear, enjoyable, and concise.

It evoked someone fleeing

Chamber Orchestra Kremlin opened a performance based on a series of poems by late Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky at Weill Recital Hall on Tuesday evening:

“There ...” (2006), a bilingual song cycle by Eskender Bekmambetov based on Brodsky’s Russian poems and Brodsky’s own English translations, received its American premiere here. The work, a sort of musical theater piece with lyrical, thick orchestral textures, was at times redolent of Shostakovich, Piazzolla and Weill. Julia Kogan, a bright-voiced Ukrainian-born soprano, sang Brodsky’s texts, including “The Fifth Anniversary” and “Stone Villages,” in both Russian and English.

Lives and memory

Lizok's Bookshelf on Orlando Figes 's The Whisperers:

Figes’s low-key approach results in a well-constructed sociopolitical history of repression in the Soviet Union that exposes the long-lasting consequences of Stalinism. The Whisperers holds tremendous value for readers interested in 20^th century Russian or Soviet history, literature, and culture.

Wordplay and dystopias

I'm really enjoying Lisa Hayden Espenschade's Russian book blog Lizok's Bookshelf. Here's a bit from her review of Tatyana Tolstaya’s novel The Slynx:

The Slynx is a novel of posts: postmodern, post-Soviet, post-apocalyptic. It describes a Russian settlement, formerly Moscow, that was bombed back to, roughly, the Stone Age. The wheel was just reinvented, candles light huts, and people barter in mice, a valuable food source. The government is repressive, and its leader claims to have written all of what we know as Russian literature. Scribes copy those texts onto birch bark.

[***]

Despite loving dystopian novels and views of the future, I found that Tolstaya’s imaginative descriptions fail to become compelling: she creates a vivid setting but skimps on characters. Instead of creating real people, she tosses out figures to represent positions. Her primary focus is on language.