Russian Reading Month: Final Day and Update!

Well, it’s the last day of November and so Russian Reading Month draws to a close!  I have enjoyed taking part in this and I certainly won’t be stopping reading the Russians just because it will soon be December – especially as I still have to complete “In The First Circle”, which will run on well into the next month!

But I’m very pleased with the books I have read for this challenge which have been:

The Conquered City by Victor Serge

Nicolai Gogol by Nabokov

Faust by Turgenev

Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky

and over half of In The First Circle by Solzhenitsyn!

The month has also been fascinating because it’s made me think much more about the volumes I’ve read in the past, the translators and their translations and what it is I really enjoy about Russian books.  I’m also keen to re-read many of my old favourites like Ilf and Petrov. So thanks to Tuesday in Silhouette for setting this up – it’s been great fun!

As for the chunkster – it’s turning out to be a great joy. Everything I read by Solzhenitsyn raises his status as a writer in my eyes, and “In The First Circle” is no exception.  It’s a complex, well constructed and many layered work, but surprisingly easy to read and I shall look forward to reviewing it soon!

 

Freedom

 

“…you are strong only as long as you don’t deprive people of everything. For a person you’ve taken everything from is no longer in your power. He’s free all over again.”

― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, In The First Circle

Some Recent Finds – including a Russian treat!

I’ve been trying to rein myself in a little bit recently, as I had a bit of a binge in London, and also been succumbing to online purchases because of my current hobbyhorse of comparing translations of Russian books! However, I did pick up a few bargains at the weekend from the charity shops – though not, alas, from Claude Cox Books which was unaccountably shut when we went past in the rain on Saturday. I do hope this isn’t a permanent thing…

(As an aside, I *hate* bookshopping in the rain – I’m always terrified that the precious finds are going to get damp on the way home – which wasn’t helped this weekend as I left Youngest Child’s umbrella on the bus – she was *not* amused….)

Anyway – the few treats:

First up, a Molly Keane I don’t have for my Virago collection – brand new and £1.50 in the Saint Elizabeth Hospice shop, and apparently reckoned to be one of Keane’s best – yay!

Secondly, a rather lovely hardback by Jerome K. Jerome which I’ve never hear of (though I have of course read “Three Men in a Boat”). But it looked lovely and I read the first page and laughed out loud in the Oxfam Bookshop, so that was a good sign!

Finally, a pleasing find – I have been reading up on any 20th century Russian authors I might have missed, and this volume came up on a number of lists so it was must-have. Translation is by Michael Glenny who did a lot of Bulgakov (in fact, most of the old Harvill editions I have are done by him). Was most pleased to discover this book!

And another Virago which arrived in the post on Saturday:

I confess to having got a little behind with the Elizabeth Taylor read-along, having been distracted by Slavs, but I shall catch up as soon as I’ve dealt with the chunkster!

Russian Reading Month: …in which I take on a chunkster!

I’ve noticed a tendency in myself recently to read only shorter works. This isn’t something that’s always been my reading mode – I’ve happily sunk myself into massively long volumes in the past with no issue at all and with great enjoyment. But on thinking about it, I think that embarking on this blog is something to do with it. I’ve been reading shorter works so I can get a review out every day or two, and small volumes are therefore more manageable. This is Not Necessarily A Good Thing – so I have given myself a bit of a talking to and reminded myself that at the end of the day, I read for pleasure and I read what I feel like reading, and that it doesn’t matter if I don’t post for a week!

So – I take on a chunkster! The book in question is one that’s been on my TBR mountain for a couple of years in its present form and for about 35 in its original form! In case that statement causes any confusion I’ll explain – in my teens I discovered Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and after reading “One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich” I got hold of all of his books that I could – most of them in Penguins from the 1970s or thereabouts. One such was “The First Circle” and I confess to never having got very far into it.

However, a couple of years ago I discovered that this volume had been severely truncated by the author in the 1960s in an attempt to get it published by the Soviet authorities, following the success of “Ivan”. Needless to say, they wouldn’t have anything to do with it, but it was this shortened version that had been published in the West, somewhat out of Solzhenitsyn’s control. After he defected to the West, he restored the work to its original form and this version was published shortly after his death, in a version by his approved translator, Henry Willetts (under the title “In The First Circle”). I demanded a copy from family for Christmas 2010 but didn’t get very far into it – at 700+ pages I was a bit daunted.

By Verhoeff, Bert / Anefo [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

But – 700-odd pages or not, I am determined to read this. Solzhenitsyn seems to be in some ways a forgotten author which is a great shame. When I was growing up he was ubiquitous because of his political stand and his defection to the West, and his books were very highly regarded. However, I think his public persona and his politics have got in the way of perception of him as an author. I read “Cancer Ward” within the last few years and was blown away. I think he’s a remarkably good writer and I’m looking forward very much to getting sunk into “In The First Circle”.

Recent Reads/Russian Reading Month – Nicolai Gogol by Nabokov

I should confess up front that I’ve never heard of this book until I came across Tuesday in Silhouette‘s Russian Reading Month. This is one of the featured books and as it has the wonderful Nabokov writing about the equally wonderful Gogol, it definitely was a must! I’ve read a fair amount of both authors and I was interested to see what Nabokov’s take would be on the writer behind “Dead Souls”.

Of course, with Nabokov it would be foolish to expect a traditional biography or literary study – this book is very definitely not that. It’s highly subjective, opinionated and sharp – and also very funny in places. The first chapter starts with the death of Gogol and then goes on to discuss his early years. Nabokov opts to discuss Gogol in the light of what he considers his three major works – the play “The Government Inspector, the novel “Dead Souls” and the short story “The Overcoat”. He dismisses a lot of Gogol’s other work as trivial, but rates GI as “the greatest play ever written in Russian (and never surpassed since)”. The book ends up with a somewhat humourous section entitled “Commentaries” in which Nabokov discusses with his publisher whether he should provide a more traditional section with summaries of the stories and biographical detail. Clever, this section does provide the necessary details about plot (which is cross referenced in the body of the book) and there is a chronology for those in need of this kind of information.

Gogol – Public Domain via Wikipedia Commons

However, this book is a joy to read, not only because we have a classic Russian writer giving us his thoughts on another, but because Nabokov’s writing is just so good (and it’s one of the easiest to read volumes of his I’ve come across). It’s full of insight as to general reading habits, why we read, what we get from a work:

“Gogol’s play is poetry in action, and by poetry I mean the mysteries of the irrational as perceived through rational words. True poetry of that kind provokes – not laughter and not tears – but a radiant smile of perfect satisfaction, a purr of beatitude – and a writer may well be proud of himself if he can make his readers, or more exactly some of his readers, smile and purr that way.”

There is also sarcasm and plenty of biting wit – Nabokov is refreshingly opinionated:

“The old translations of Dead Souls into English are absolutely worthless and should be expelled from all public and university libraries.”

(It is worth bearing in mind that this book was first published in 1944 since when there has been, amongst others, the acclaimed Robert Maguire translation)

By Walter Mori (Mondadori Publishers) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The book is littered with gems like this totally unrelated aside – “(beautiful word, stratagem – a treasure in a cave)” and I found myself smiling and purring all the way through it. What comes out is not only the achievement of Gogol, but also Nabokov’s deep understanding and love of books and the written word. I can’t sum up better than this wonderful quote:

“…literature… appeals to that secret depth of the human soul where the shadows of other worlds pass like the shadows of nameless and soundless ships.”

Even if you know nothing about Gogol, for the quality of writing alone I would highly recommend this book.