Aetherial Worlds by Tatyana Tolstaya
Translated by Anya Migdal

You’ll recall me having a grumble back at the end of June about how hopeless I am with reading challenges (although I’m happier with the concept of projects, and *have* got back on board with some during July). However, as I mentioned in my post yesterday, one event I always love to join in with is Women in Translation month; and my first book of translated female writing is a wonderful collection of short works by the amazing Tatyana Tolstaya.

Tolstaya, as her name suggests, has a fairly impressive literary lineage, including both Leo and Alexei Tolstoy. Born in Leningrad, she’s spent portions of her life living in America; and both of the countries appear as backdrops in this selection of short works. I say ‘works’ deliberately, because I think it’s a little simplistic to call what Tolstaya writes short stories. The works featured range in length from a few pages to novella length; some read as essays, some as autofiction and some as pure invention. What’s consistent, though, is the quality; as all are really excellent.

So where to start discussing this collection? Perhaps by mentioning a few favourites. The opening piece “20/20” reveals how the narrator discovered her inner vision and became an author after an eye operation to cure myopia; “Smoke and Shadows” is set in an American university and appears to start out as autofiction but then morphs into something more fantastic; and “A Young Lady in Bloom” is the story of a University student in Soviet Russia making ends meet by working as a telegram delivery girl, a job which lets her see behind the facades put up by the inhabitants.

It was June. Evenings were as bright as day, not at all menacing, but rather beautiful: Leningrad, deserted for the summer; magical streets of Petrogradky Island. On the building walls and above the entryways, mascarons of cats and mermaids, triangular female faces of resounding beauty: downcast eyes, luscious hair, daydreams. Alleyways bathed in crepuscular light, purple-hued lilac trees in the parks and gardens, and in the distance, beyond the Neva River, the spire of the Admiralty building.

Then there’s title piece, a long work which looks back at Tolstaya’s relationship with her house in America, as well as with the previous inhabitants and future tenants; “Without” meditates on how barren the modern world would be if Italy and its culture had never existed; and “The Invisible Maiden” is a beautiful extended piece where a woman narrator looks back over her life and times at the family dacha, the long hot summers, the people she knew and the changes which came. “The Square” takes a quirky look at Malevich’s famous painting, equating it with death; and “Doors and Demons” explores a visit to Paris where everything seems to go wrong…

These are just some of the riches in the book, because there isn’t a dud amongst them; in fact, it’s hard to pull out favourites because I enjoyed them all. Tolstaya has an individual, lyrical voice and beautifully captures her locations and characters. The pieces set in America were particularly striking, as she viewed that country with an outsider’s eyes. And the gorgeous atmosphere and sense of hot summer weather she pinned down in “The Invisible Maiden” was just stunning.

If you’re young lady with a braid, of an age of yearning and expectation, and it’s a white night June evening of unfading light, and no one is sleeping, and there is no death, and the sky seems full of music, it feels right to go stand on this portico, hugging a stucco-covered column, watching the sea of lilac bushes cascading down the steps, and breathing in the scent of its white misty foam, the scent of your own pure flesh, the scent of your hair. Life will deceive you later, but not just yet.

“Aetherial Worlds” was an absorbing read and I found myself completely sucked into Tolstaya’s world. There’s a sense of nostalgia running through the book, as Tolstaya meditates on her past, on lovers lost and family passed on; and indeed a world which has changed beyond recognition. In “Father” the narrator begins to dream of her missing parent as a young man; and there is the feeling of a writer taking stock of her life and remembering things which only now exist in an (a)etherial way, as phantoms of the past.

Tolstaya is an author new to me (though I *had* heard of her best known work “The Slynx”, which I believe is very different to this book). I don’t think I’m ready to tackle her dystopian novel quite yet, but her short works are obviously incredible and I believe there are plenty more available. I’m glad I discovered this book in time for #WITMonth as Tolstaya is a compelling writer whose prose and visions linger in the mind; I shall have to track down more of her short stories for next August!*

*****

* Ahem. If ever evidence was needed as to how my book collection is out of control….

After scheduling this post, I took the Tolstaya off to file it on the Russian shelves and discovered that I already own a collection of her short stories… I had *completely* forgotten this, and I’m 99.9% sure I haven’t read it. So that just shows how rubbish I am at keeping track of what I own; but, hey! I have another Tolstaya to read, so result! 😀