Last day of the Russian Short Stories and it ends with a well known author capable of sowing seeds of thought in a very limited number of pages.
The Embroidered Towel – Mikhail Bulgakov
Before becoming a writer Bulgakov was a doctor and worked through the First World War and started as a novelist covering the experiences he know about. This is a tale of a doctor in a regional town that is green around the gills and fears having to do any major surgery. A farmer comes in with his daughter who has fallen into a threshing machine and the doctor has to carry out an amputation. He never expects her to live and so is more bold than he might have been. After she has recovered she hobbles into his office on her father’s arm and hands him a towel with a cockerel embroidered onto it, something he initially refuses but then keeps until it falls apart.
The thing to note here is that the red cockerel is a warning sign of danger in Russia and the story is set in 1917 but when it appeared in print the editor changed it to 1916 so not to appear to be some sort of warning about the revolution. Those little nuggets were gleamed from the introduction to the story.
Showing posts with label Russian literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russian literature. Show all posts
Friday, January 19, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Lunchtime read: Russian Short Stories
There are so many stories in the Penguin Classics Russian Short Stories that this book will have to be completed another time. But in the last couple of posts this week the flavour will come from the period where writers were just starting to live with the reality of the Soviet system and their stories reflect that.
Quadraturin – Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
One of the stipulations of life in a communist city was that communal living was introduced with kitchens and bathrooms shared and each individual was not entitled to more than nine square metres.
Sutulin opens the door one night to a salesman who offers him a free trial product – Quadraturin – that expands his room after being applied to the walls. Sutulin manages to spread it across the floor, walls but runs out before he gets to the ceiling and then tumbles into bed. When he wakes the room has grown and keeps growing making it awkward for him and eventually he comes in from the street and his light bulb has broken and he plans to leave the room but loses his way inside and screams out in the night the scream of a dying man.
There is one passage where having got what he wanted and then it goes beyond his expectations Sutulin wishes things had been how they were in the past. The wider message seems to be about the inability for people to think for themselves or become an exception to the system.
Lalla’s Interests – Vera Inber
Another key feature of communism was the option it provided for people of all occupations to become organised and challenge their superiors through a process of organised Soviets and workers councils.
Lalla is a six year old who plays with the 11 year old lift boy in an apartment block. Her mother tries to keep her away from the bell hop because she looks down on him but one day a meeting of all children is announced under the stairs and the lift boy keeps Lalla’s mother trapped in the lift for an hour and a half so her daughter can attend the meting. When she gets back to the apartment she finds her daughter writing out a poster: Children, be careful when electing parents! The mother then receives a note from the bell hop apologising for keeping her trapped but assuring her he did it for the sake of her daughter’s interests.
It makes you wonder about the power that communism handed to people with children being able to elect parents and six year-olds voting for their own future. The message seems to be that by handing those without knowledge the chance to set the rules the system was fatally flawed.
Quadraturin – Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
One of the stipulations of life in a communist city was that communal living was introduced with kitchens and bathrooms shared and each individual was not entitled to more than nine square metres.
Sutulin opens the door one night to a salesman who offers him a free trial product – Quadraturin – that expands his room after being applied to the walls. Sutulin manages to spread it across the floor, walls but runs out before he gets to the ceiling and then tumbles into bed. When he wakes the room has grown and keeps growing making it awkward for him and eventually he comes in from the street and his light bulb has broken and he plans to leave the room but loses his way inside and screams out in the night the scream of a dying man.
There is one passage where having got what he wanted and then it goes beyond his expectations Sutulin wishes things had been how they were in the past. The wider message seems to be about the inability for people to think for themselves or become an exception to the system.
Lalla’s Interests – Vera Inber
Another key feature of communism was the option it provided for people of all occupations to become organised and challenge their superiors through a process of organised Soviets and workers councils.
Lalla is a six year old who plays with the 11 year old lift boy in an apartment block. Her mother tries to keep her away from the bell hop because she looks down on him but one day a meeting of all children is announced under the stairs and the lift boy keeps Lalla’s mother trapped in the lift for an hour and a half so her daughter can attend the meting. When she gets back to the apartment she finds her daughter writing out a poster: Children, be careful when electing parents! The mother then receives a note from the bell hop apologising for keeping her trapped but assuring her he did it for the sake of her daughter’s interests.
It makes you wonder about the power that communism handed to people with children being able to elect parents and six year-olds voting for their own future. The message seems to be that by handing those without knowledge the chance to set the rules the system was fatally flawed.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Lunchtime read: Russian Short Stories
Usually these lunchtime posts are made at my desk as I nibble a sandwich but today I am in another building at an all day meeting so this is being made a lot earlier than usual.
The Lion - Yevgeny Zamyatin
A ballet company is facing a crisis after the Lion, who has to climb onto a rock and then fall off after being speared, turns up drunk so stage hand Petya Zherebyakin offers to step in and after a quick rehearsal gets the part. He rushes off to tell a policewoman who he fancies that he is in a play. She had once mentioned that she would like to fall in love with a famous actor. But as the curtain goes up and he wanders out onto the stage he is struck by fear and as he is meant to fall from the rock he crosses himself before dropping down to the floor. This brings the house down and as the policewoman roars with laughter, along with the rest of the audience, the lion covers his eyes with his paws and cries his heart out.
More in the same vein to come tomorrow…
The Lion - Yevgeny Zamyatin
A ballet company is facing a crisis after the Lion, who has to climb onto a rock and then fall off after being speared, turns up drunk so stage hand Petya Zherebyakin offers to step in and after a quick rehearsal gets the part. He rushes off to tell a policewoman who he fancies that he is in a play. She had once mentioned that she would like to fall in love with a famous actor. But as the curtain goes up and he wanders out onto the stage he is struck by fear and as he is meant to fall from the rock he crosses himself before dropping down to the floor. This brings the house down and as the policewoman roars with laughter, along with the rest of the audience, the lion covers his eyes with his paws and cries his heart out.
More in the same vein to come tomorrow…
Monday, January 15, 2007
Lunchtime read: Russian Short Stories
Because there are still lots of stories left unread and it seems to accompany the Kafka very well I’m sticking with the Russian Short Stories this week.
God sees the truth, and waits - Leo Tolstoy
A good man, Alsyonov, tells his wife he is off to the market and she tells him she has had a dream that it will ruin him so she tells him not to go. He ignores her and meets up with a friend, stays the night with him in an inn, and then after leaving early the morning after is stopped by the police and charged with the murder of his merchant friend who has been found with his throat cut. Alsyonov is found with a bloodied knife in his bag and gets 26 years in Siberia. While there a man comes in who he knows really killed his friend and after he discovers him trying to escape but refuses to drop him in it with the governor. The prisoner begs for his forgiveness and confesses to the murder of the merchant but by the time the release papers come through Alsyonov has died.
That’s a cheery lunch time tale. More of the same probably tomorrow…
God sees the truth, and waits - Leo Tolstoy
A good man, Alsyonov, tells his wife he is off to the market and she tells him she has had a dream that it will ruin him so she tells him not to go. He ignores her and meets up with a friend, stays the night with him in an inn, and then after leaving early the morning after is stopped by the police and charged with the murder of his merchant friend who has been found with his throat cut. Alsyonov is found with a bloodied knife in his bag and gets 26 years in Siberia. While there a man comes in who he knows really killed his friend and after he discovers him trying to escape but refuses to drop him in it with the governor. The prisoner begs for his forgiveness and confesses to the murder of the merchant but by the time the release papers come through Alsyonov has died.
That’s a cheery lunch time tale. More of the same probably tomorrow…
Friday, January 12, 2007
Lunchtime read: Russian Short Stories
The beauty of reading short stories is you can read from anywhere in the book so I am working my way from the front and the back reading both a 19th century and a 20th century writer.
The Greatcoat – Nikolay Gogol
The story follows Akaky Akakiyevich a government clerk who has no ambition lives a solitary life and tries to get by without spending a great deal. His great coat starts to fall apart and the tailor upstairs refuses to patch up his old one so he buys a new one and it changes how he is perceived in the office and how he feels about himself. His colleagues throw a party to celebrate his new coat and on his way home he is robbed and loses his coat. Akaky ends up going to an influential general to seek help but instead gets shouted at. Soon after crushed by adversity Akaky dies and haunts the square where he lost his coat taking others until he finally comes across the general and strips him of his coat. The general comes home and never shouts at people in quite the same way.
Akaky would have done better to have relaxed but the coat became everything for him and the general would have done better to listen.
Excerpts from the Kolyma Tales – Varlam Shalamov
Kolyma gained the reputation of being the worst camp in Stalin’s large gulag network and a book made up of stories about the camp was how Shalamov recorded his decade there. The stories Through the Snow and Berries, which start the cycle of stories give an indication very quickly of the cold, cruelty and misery of the life of the prisoners. In Berries a guard shoots a prisoner picking berries over the demarcation line and then expresses regret that Shalamov didn’t also cross the line because he would have liked to have killed him as well.
The Greatcoat – Nikolay Gogol
The story follows Akaky Akakiyevich a government clerk who has no ambition lives a solitary life and tries to get by without spending a great deal. His great coat starts to fall apart and the tailor upstairs refuses to patch up his old one so he buys a new one and it changes how he is perceived in the office and how he feels about himself. His colleagues throw a party to celebrate his new coat and on his way home he is robbed and loses his coat. Akaky ends up going to an influential general to seek help but instead gets shouted at. Soon after crushed by adversity Akaky dies and haunts the square where he lost his coat taking others until he finally comes across the general and strips him of his coat. The general comes home and never shouts at people in quite the same way.
Akaky would have done better to have relaxed but the coat became everything for him and the general would have done better to listen.
Excerpts from the Kolyma Tales – Varlam Shalamov
Kolyma gained the reputation of being the worst camp in Stalin’s large gulag network and a book made up of stories about the camp was how Shalamov recorded his decade there. The stories Through the Snow and Berries, which start the cycle of stories give an indication very quickly of the cold, cruelty and misery of the life of the prisoners. In Berries a guard shoots a prisoner picking berries over the demarcation line and then expresses regret that Shalamov didn’t also cross the line because he would have liked to have killed him as well.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Lunchtime read: Russian Short Stories
What A Pity - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
This is a short story that on the face of it seems like it is going to be the usual thing about someone running into trouble with the authorities but it is more complex than that. A woman walks down a street and sees a three day old newspaper on display that has a piece about her father and she gets caught stealing it and let off by a sympathetic policeman. In the article a journalist trying to ingratiate themselves with the party line praises the improvements made in a valley and criticizes the Tsarist regime for not implementing them wondering if the man who dreamt up the plans knows they have been realised. The man who dreamt up the plans is in exile and if the journalist knew and the magazine editor’s knew it would never have been published. Trying to attack one old system means they have fallen foul of the current one.
This is a short story that on the face of it seems like it is going to be the usual thing about someone running into trouble with the authorities but it is more complex than that. A woman walks down a street and sees a three day old newspaper on display that has a piece about her father and she gets caught stealing it and let off by a sympathetic policeman. In the article a journalist trying to ingratiate themselves with the party line praises the improvements made in a valley and criticizes the Tsarist regime for not implementing them wondering if the man who dreamt up the plans knows they have been realised. The man who dreamt up the plans is in exile and if the journalist knew and the magazine editor’s knew it would never have been published. Trying to attack one old system means they have fallen foul of the current one.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Lunchtime read: Russian Short Stories
Sinbad the Sailor - Yury Buida
A short but powerful story about an old poor woman who is dying and gives her doctor one last instruction to go into her house and burn the thousands of copies she has made of one poem by Pushkin. She has written the poem everyday of her life and noted down the date and any major events at the bottom. The doctor obviously feels he is almost burning her soul when he burns the papers but keeps the last one, which she had given him, which is also undated. It becomes a reflection on time and mortality.
A short but powerful story about an old poor woman who is dying and gives her doctor one last instruction to go into her house and burn the thousands of copies she has made of one poem by Pushkin. She has written the poem everyday of her life and noted down the date and any major events at the bottom. The doctor obviously feels he is almost burning her soul when he burns the papers but keeps the last one, which she had given him, which is also undated. It becomes a reflection on time and mortality.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Lunchtime read: Russian Short Stories
It’s great reading short stories by various different authors because of the different voices and styles and for material that you want to read in a short space of time there is always that sense of achievement that you have finished the story before your time is up.
Highlights from a couple of Russian stories
The Fatalist – Mikhail Lermontov
Again there is a gambling theme with one man taking bets whether predestination exists or not by raising a loaded gun to his head. The gun miss-fires leading the Vulich, to boast that he has won over fate but one of those assembled, Pechorin, says that he sees death on the gamblers face. Pechorin leaves and walks home convinced that he had recognised death on his face and is woken in the early hours having been told that Vulich has been carved almost in two by a mad Cossack later on his way home with his last words being “He was right”.
The Officer’s Belt - Sergei Dovlatov
This is a modernish story, being set in the late 1960s, and focuses on the author and his experience escorting a prisoner to the asylum after he had gone mad. On the way the other solider escorting them gets drunk and beats up Dovlatov hospitalising him. He comes to the hospital and begs repentance and together they write down all of the questions and answers he should answer in court but they forget the most obvious one “tell us what happened”. So in the court room the accused starts reeling off answers unrelated to anything (I was laughing out loud at this point) and winds the judge up and gets his deserved punishment.
Highlights from a couple of Russian stories
The Fatalist – Mikhail Lermontov
Again there is a gambling theme with one man taking bets whether predestination exists or not by raising a loaded gun to his head. The gun miss-fires leading the Vulich, to boast that he has won over fate but one of those assembled, Pechorin, says that he sees death on the gamblers face. Pechorin leaves and walks home convinced that he had recognised death on his face and is woken in the early hours having been told that Vulich has been carved almost in two by a mad Cossack later on his way home with his last words being “He was right”.
The Officer’s Belt - Sergei Dovlatov
This is a modernish story, being set in the late 1960s, and focuses on the author and his experience escorting a prisoner to the asylum after he had gone mad. On the way the other solider escorting them gets drunk and beats up Dovlatov hospitalising him. He comes to the hospital and begs repentance and together they write down all of the questions and answers he should answer in court but they forget the most obvious one “tell us what happened”. So in the court room the accused starts reeling off answers unrelated to anything (I was laughing out loud at this point) and winds the judge up and gets his deserved punishment.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
The Russian angle
If you want to read just one book that sums up the different angle Russians take to telling a story then Taras Bulba is the book to choose. At the moment where a writer from another background might try to resolve the conflict between father and son Gogol has the father shoot him dead, watch his other son get tortured and then happily burn to death himself knowing that the Poles have failed to kill all of his men. I will post details of the final chunk of the book later today to illustrate this point more fully.
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