book of books - The Tales of Ivan Belkin

Pushkin is most well known for writing Onegin, being Russia’s most famous writer and dying after a duel. But even after Onegin, a story written like an extended poem, you want more evidence of his work and this little volume is something well worth seeking out. The stories are a joy to read and he manages to grip your interest in just a couple of pages and then never lets go until the very end.

What made reading this special was the extra interest of the version of the book, which was published in 1954, a year after Stalin’s death, by some sort of Russian literature organisation trying to promote the works of the state to a wider audience. The book, which is stapled with rusting metal, is full of illustrations and that added to the affection for the stories.

Of the stories my favourite two were The Undertaker and The Shot, brief explanations follow below:

The Undertaker
Adrian the undertaker has just moved into a new house which he is very pleased with when his neighbour a German calls on his and his daughters to join him the day after for a meal to celebrate his wedding anniversary. As they make toasts someone makes a joke at the undertaker’s expense asking him why he doesn’t raise a toast to his dead customers. He returns home in a rage and says he will not invite any of them to his house warming and would rather have all of his dead customers there. He returns home that night to find his house full of skeletons all coming in response to his invitation. He faints and then comes round to be told by his housekeeper it was all a drunken dream...or was it?

The Shot
The story evolves around an ex officer, Silvio, who spends his spare time in and around entertaining people from the regiment shooting his pistol. Silvio is an ace shot so when he is insulted by a new comer everyone expects a duel that will end in the life of the fresh entrant to the regiment. But there is no duel and then after receiving a letter Silvio gets ready to leave telling Belkin that he is going to revenge himself on someone who hit him in the face six years before. Five years pass and Belkin meets the count and his wife who are vesting their estate in his village and it turns out to be the man Silvio intended to kill but decided against it after accepting that he had made his rival fear death, which is revenge enough.

Is it worth reading?
To see how someone was playing around with language and literary conventions is fantastic and Pushkin introduces the book not as his own work but as the papers of a deceased landowner Ivan Belkin. This device allows him to produce a series of completely unconnected stories without any explanation. The locations change and the characters but what remains constant is the high quality of writing and anyone considering getting involved with the art of short story writing could learn a great deal from this collection. It has a rhythm, a tight structure and the ability to pull off twists in a limited number of pages.

Summary
More evidence if it were needed to justify Pushkin’s position in the Russian literary firmament

Lunchtime read: The Tales of Ivan Belkin

There is a rhythm to the way that Pushkin writes that reads as if it was being read out if you can sense what I mean. There is never really a moment when the pace changes except to get faster as it nears the climax of the story. The result is that these stories are all a pleasure to read.

Lady into Lassie
Two neighbouring landowners have fallen out and that situation is the norm until one landowner has his son arrive to live with him. The daughter of the other landowner is intrigued but after hearing from her maid how the young aristocrat flirts with peasant girls she goes in disguise to meet him. Illicit meetings continue but in the meantime following a horsing accident the two landowners meet and start to thaw out their friendship and in the end they agree to let their children get married. Outraged that he is going to be asked to marry someone he doesn’t love the son barges into the girls room unannounced to discover his real love is one and the same as this girl before him.

Review follows over the weekend…

Lunchtime read: The Tales of Ivan Belkin

Another lunch break and another story from Pushkin and this time it has a tragic ending very much in the Russian style with the postmaster dying with a broken heart, that manifests itself in a major drink problem.

The Postmaster
The narrator stops at a post station one night and comes cross a postmaster with a beautiful daughter and he enjoys speaking and drinking with them before hitting the road. Her goes back years later and discovers the old man living alone and he tells the traveller a story about the disappearance of his daughter. She was taken by a hussar who dragged her off to Petersburg but when the old man comes looking for her he is turned away and returns home and never sees her again. When the traveller returns for as third time he is told the old man has died of drink and then a boy takes him to his grave and tells him the story of how a woman came recently and lay on the grave for a long time. Nothing is said by the traveller knows that it was the daughter from all those years before come back to try and make peace with her father.

Last tale of Belkin tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: The Tales of Ivan Belkin

Another story from the pen of Pushkin and this time it is like a macabre fairy tale, with a great illustration (scanned in) that adds to the nightmare.

The Undertaker
Adrian the undertaker has just moved into a new house which he is very pleased with when his neighbour a German calls on his and his daughters to join him the day after for a meal to celebrate his wedding anniversary. As they make toasts someone makes a joke at the undertaker’s expense asking him why he doesn’t raise a toast to his dead customers. He returns home in a rage and says he will not invite any of them to his house warming and would rather have all of his dead customers there. He returns home that night to find his house full of skeletons all coming in response to his invitation. He faints and then comes round to be told by his housekeeper it was all a drunken dream.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: The Tales of Ivan Belkin

This story has a great twist that you don’t see coming right until the very end and is written in a gripping style that takes you from one melodrama to another.

Blizzard
A young couple are in love but the girl’s parents disapprove so they plan to elope and get married in a church nearby before lying low and hoping the parents will become reconciled to what has happened. But the night they plan to depart there is a terrible blizzard and the groom completely misses the church getting lost in the snow and then breaks links with the family and goes to fight against Napoleon and dies from his wounds after the battle of Borodino. Meanwhile the girl is heartbroken and almost dies of fever but years later falls in love with a young officer. But he tells her that he cannot get married because one night in a blizzard he walked by mistake into a church and ended up marrying a stranger…

Fantastic stuff. More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: The Tales of Ivan Belkin

There is a great introduction to this where Pushkin describes the short life of Ivan Belkin via a neighbour who describes him as being an ex solider who through a combination of laziness and weakness allow his peasants on his estate to run rings round him and he eventually dies at the age of 30 leaving just a few pages of an unfinished novel that form the basis of the stories

The Shot
The story evolves around an ex officer, Silvio, who spends his spare time in and around entertaining people from the regiment shooting his pistol. Silvio is an ace shot so when he is insulted by a new comer everyone expects a duel that will end in the life of the fresh entrant to the regiment. But there is no duel and then after receiving a letter Silvio gets ready to leave telling Belkin that he is going to revenge himself on someone who hit him in the face six years before. Five years pass and Belkin meets the count and his wife who are vesting their estate in his village and it turns out to be the man Silvio intended to kill but decided against it after accepting that he had made his rival fear death, which is revenge enough.

A cracking little story that despite the morbid content makes you appreciate just what Pushkin was doing bringing in the mannerisms and speech of solders and counts in a way that had not be done before.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Russian Short Stories

Of all the Russian short stories the Queen of Spades by Aleksandr Pushkin is probably the most famous and combines some of the favourite Russian past times – gambling, an interest in the supernatural and social position.

The condensed story
* The story starts with a bunch of friends all sharing gambling stories with one man telling of his aunts amazing story that involved her winning with three cards. One of the assembled audience, a Russo German named Hermann is transfixed by the story and starts to court the old Aunt’s ward in a bid to gain entry into the house.

* He manages to get in and confronts her but after she appears to be unwilling to help he pulls out a pistol and the old lady dies. He is visited by her as a ghost and she tells him the secret of the three cards but tells him he can only play once and must marry her ward.

* He goes and gambles and wins big with the first card, the next night does the same with the second and then on the final night he expects to draw the ace, the last card in the sequence and win but as the card is turned over it is the queen who looks like the old woman and she winks at him sending him mad into an asylum.

If there is a moral then maybe it’s quit when you are ahead or better still don’t gamble at all…