SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL (SEEJ)
“The novel is set in the mid-20′s and, like Olesha’s Envy, depicts one of the period’s common themes — the dilemma of the high intelligentsia who, in principle, welcome the revolution but are dismayed by the reality of the Soviet regime with its rejection of the cultural glories of the past and free thought. Vaginov’s satirical novel follows the history of a circle of intellectuals who are submersed in aesthetic and philosophical contemplatiion of the classical world. Indeed, they see their position vis-a-vis the Bolshevik regime as that of kulturtragerswho will keep the flame alive, just as their classical predeccessors did in the crude new world of Christianity. Their fates range from comic to tragic.”
“The novel’s style is that of high Modernism. The fictive narrator-author steps out of the tale, comments on his story in separate interludes, and ends by taking all of his characters out for a drink. Vaginov’s aesthetic philosophy is summed up in a passage he assigns to his fictional stand-in, The Unknown Poet. ‘No one suspects,’ he says, ‘that this book has come into being from the juxtaposition of words. This is not to deny that every artist experiences a certain something in childhood that impinges upon him from the outside. We are already dealing here with a fundamental antinomy or contradiction. The artist is confronted by a something which has its source in a realm beyond language, yet it is only by marshalling words and juxtaposing them that he fashions his soul and comes to know it. That’s how it was in my youth, when I came to know the world by juxtaposing words. A whole world sprang up for me then out of the depths of language.’”
“The body of readily available material for English-speaking courses in Russian Modernism is quite slender. Sher’s first-rate translation of Vaginov’s most important novel is a worthy addition. The novel is short, quite readable, deals with an important theme, and gives a marvelous picture of mid-1920′s Leningrad. It might well serve as a launching point for a discussion of the Bakhtin group.”
Reviewer: Professor D. Barton Johnson, University of California at Santa Barbara
