Dmitry Bykov
translation: Elaine Feinstein
pp 439
ISBN: 978-1-84688-126-8
AlmaBooks 24/02/11
There is a tradition in Russia, as there is in America, of the brick-shaped novel. Although life is short and most of us have a limited amount of time to spare wandering through the pages of another world, writers such as Dmitry Bykov believe that we should abdicate weeks of our own reality in favour of his fantasy of the near future. An impoverished Russia, permanently at civil war between the northern Varangians, who claim descent from the Aryan founders of Russia, and the southern Kaganate, made up of Khazars and Jews driven out of Moscow. These base their right to Russia on the skills that they believe once brought prosperity to a land now derelict. In the middle, the peasantry takes comfort in superstition and folklore. As it is set in the near-future, the history of modern Russia, Soviet crimes and the massacres of the Second World War hang over it throughout. Russia’s economy is destroyed. The world has turned to a new fuel, Phlogiston, and is no longer buying oil. The country is marginalised, and has turned to war, the only productive activity apart from oil sales its rulers can organise. War brings no tangible results, partly because Russian officers exterminate more of their own men than the enemies can.
As the story opens, Gromov, a Varangian officer, battles to recapture the village of Degunino before nightfall, chiefly to prevent his leave being shortened. Meanwhile, a nervous Private Voronov has fallen into the hands of an old KGB sadist, amusing himself before arranging his execution the next morning. An army priest, Ploskorylov, struggles to align his work with the enormously detailed army rulebook:
“ What’s wrong? You think I tricked you into a test? I love you, you idiot!” Gurov said with a short staccato laugh, flapping an arm at him and noisily kissing his cheek.
“In a church...” Ploskorylov gasped, barely able to breathe.
“Forgive me Father, I’ve sinned, Gurov grinned. ‘Right, fuck off, Priest, I’m going to inspect our troops.’
It certainly does read as a satire, and one about bureaucracy and procedural red tape as much as anything. We are not expected to love the Varangians, whether they are poltroons, sadists or book-punchers, although there is an air of melancholy drifting through the story which carries us with it. And grim though it may be, it is funny, too.
The soldiers find some light relief in the arms of the peasant women, who have to be equally welcoming to all warring factions as they pass through. In fact, only the peasantry in general have a sympathetic light cast on them. Although this has been described as the Catch-22 for modern Russia there is no central character as likeable as Yossarian; it is so well-populated that there is hardly enough room for one man to be central to the whole epic. The strangest thing about this tale is its overall tone of being set in the late nineteenth century, and it sticks there despite the soldiers’ occasional use of mobile phones and casual references to 20th century phenomena like TV serials and ‘Night of the Living Dead’.
Does the original Russian title, the abbreviaton Zhd, mean Yidzhivye dushi (living souls), in acknowledgment of Gogol's epic Dead Souls (1841), which inspired Bykov's book, or yid? Apparently the English translation removed a lot of the original references to yids but ‘yd’ pops up a few times: Major Volokhov, once a historian, wishes to marry his lover, Zhenka, who lives in the Kaganate , but she refuses because she is a “Yd”. Volokhov’s friend Everstein is also a Yd. We have to judge for ourselves. Certainly, his characters have it in for the Jews (Zhydy), but plenty of them also hate the Russians; and he has pointed out that he does in fact have it in for everyone. Bykov is a big name on the Russian literary scene. His novels (five, plus a biography of Pasternak) have won the two most prestigious prizes and he is a well-known poet and TV face. Half-Jewish, he answers accusations of anti-semitism by pointing out that he attacks Russian nationalism too. His enormously inclusive book - the translation is long, but the original is even longer - caused a furore in Russia when published in 2006. Blending a ‘novel of ideas’ with a dark urban fairy-tale and lyric satire not unlike Raymond Queneau (‘The Sunday of Life’), he leads his characters to an inevitable collision maybe like the one they came from before the book opened. The survivors say, “Let’s go,” holding hands as they move on. Not necessarily going to a rosy future.
As the story opens, Gromov, a Varangian officer, battles to recapture the village of Degunino before nightfall, chiefly to prevent his leave being shortened. Meanwhile, a nervous Private Voronov has fallen into the hands of an old KGB sadist, amusing himself before arranging his execution the next morning. An army priest, Ploskorylov, struggles to align his work with the enormously detailed army rulebook:
“ What’s wrong? You think I tricked you into a test? I love you, you idiot!” Gurov said with a short staccato laugh, flapping an arm at him and noisily kissing his cheek.
“In a church...” Ploskorylov gasped, barely able to breathe.
“Forgive me Father, I’ve sinned, Gurov grinned. ‘Right, fuck off, Priest, I’m going to inspect our troops.’
It certainly does read as a satire, and one about bureaucracy and procedural red tape as much as anything. We are not expected to love the Varangians, whether they are poltroons, sadists or book-punchers, although there is an air of melancholy drifting through the story which carries us with it. And grim though it may be, it is funny, too.
The soldiers find some light relief in the arms of the peasant women, who have to be equally welcoming to all warring factions as they pass through. In fact, only the peasantry in general have a sympathetic light cast on them. Although this has been described as the Catch-22 for modern Russia there is no central character as likeable as Yossarian; it is so well-populated that there is hardly enough room for one man to be central to the whole epic. The strangest thing about this tale is its overall tone of being set in the late nineteenth century, and it sticks there despite the soldiers’ occasional use of mobile phones and casual references to 20th century phenomena like TV serials and ‘Night of the Living Dead’.
Does the original Russian title, the abbreviaton Zhd, mean Yidzhivye dushi (living souls), in acknowledgment of Gogol's epic Dead Souls (1841), which inspired Bykov's book, or yid? Apparently the English translation removed a lot of the original references to yids but ‘yd’ pops up a few times: Major Volokhov, once a historian, wishes to marry his lover, Zhenka, who lives in the Kaganate , but she refuses because she is a “Yd”. Volokhov’s friend Everstein is also a Yd. We have to judge for ourselves. Certainly, his characters have it in for the Jews (Zhydy), but plenty of them also hate the Russians; and he has pointed out that he does in fact have it in for everyone. Bykov is a big name on the Russian literary scene. His novels (five, plus a biography of Pasternak) have won the two most prestigious prizes and he is a well-known poet and TV face. Half-Jewish, he answers accusations of anti-semitism by pointing out that he attacks Russian nationalism too. His enormously inclusive book - the translation is long, but the original is even longer - caused a furore in Russia when published in 2006. Blending a ‘novel of ideas’ with a dark urban fairy-tale and lyric satire not unlike Raymond Queneau (‘The Sunday of Life’), he leads his characters to an inevitable collision maybe like the one they came from before the book opened. The survivors say, “Let’s go,” holding hands as they move on. Not necessarily going to a rosy future.
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