Abram Tertz Books

Since the previous review gives the pertinent information about the origins of this book, I will give a slightly different perspective on it. I discovered this book somewhat by accident, but it was very pleasant and wonderful discovery. The title of this book is a good description--
Sinyavsky, though the main "voice", also quotes extensively from his fellow inmates, giving voice to the voiceless. Many of these quotes are brief, such as "I don't like this Schulbert, somehow. If only he could sing. But he sounds like a power saw." This is the style of the book: no passage is more than a couple pages, and usually less, giving the book the feel of perhaps walking through the camp itself and hearing both Sinyavsky (his mind in one place, his hands working) and others. And though the latter do play a large part, it should be remembered that this is Sinyavsky's book, and that his musings are ultimately what make it stand the test of time. These gems are not what you'd expect sometimes for someone in a prison camp, but are, I think, in the same Christian spirit as his fellow writer Solzhenitsyn. One more quote, this from Sinyavsky himself, and one that shows the strength of his faith:
"In principle only miracles are worth writing about--as the fairy tales knew. And if we ever decide to tell about ordinary things, we should show them in a supernatural light. The art of narrative is to see things like this."

This is a collection of one person's prison writings and it is marvelous. The book is based upon letters to his wife, Maria, fron 1966 to 1971. Andrey Sinyavesky took the pseudonym Abram Tertz. He revered Boris Pasternak as a person and then as a writer. The author had been an idealistic Communist until confronted with the arbitrary nature of Stalin's rule. Prior to his arrest in 1965 he wrote about Isaac Babel and Anna Akhmatova. After Stalin's death the figure with genuine authority was Pasternak. Sinyavsky read DR. ZHIVAGO in manuscript. There was no prudence in Pasternak. The pen name Abram Tertz was based upon an underworld ballad. A VOICE FROM THE CHORUS is not a descriptive narrative. The chorus serves as a confused demotic counterpoint. The author was arrested in 1965 and sent to a forced labor camp. (The above is derived from Max Hayward's introduction to the work.)

A sampling of Tertz's observations are as follows--
As in a train where passengers do not do useful work, the life of the inmates of a camp is filled with no productive activity. It is hard to live at the expense of the future. Art does nothing but convert matter into spirit. Art is the meeting place of the author with the subject of his love. What is erotic is exotic. How good it is that all people sleep. The text of the gospel explodes with meaning. Russian misers do not hoard money so much as weave fantasies around the money. Esenin was the last poet of the century. Mandelstam was the last poet of the intelligentsia. The art of telling a story depends upon spinning it out. A gambling man will have no compunction telling the vilest things about himself. Typical characters in typical circumstances nearly all appear there by chance. The vast amount of timber for building in the olden days corresponds to the wooden character of the Russian people. HAMLET is a variant of OEDIPUS. Coming out of prison is like making a posthumous appearance. The author emigrated with his wife and son to Paris in 1973.

In 1988 I stumbled upon this book at random at my university. I found unusual Soviet Union/Russian samizdat fiction, and this one was one of my major finds.The stories were drop-dead hilarious and just tour-de-forces of satire. I presented a book report at my college Soviet Lit class and actually generated a lot of interest in this writer among friends. (That same year, I also "discovered" Vladimir Voinovich's silly Moscow 2042, Nina Berberova's Tattered Cloak and M. Ageyev's Novel with Cocaine).

Of course, after then, the identity of Abram Tertz was disclosed as Andrei Sinyavsky, and some of his other works became available to the west (including the autobiographical Goodnight! A Novel, which was interesting though not halfway as good as Fantastic Stories).

A few random remarks: I can't remember whether Milan Kundera derived his "graphomania" concept from the story with this name in Fantastic Stories. At one point I knew the answer to this question (I was reading Kundera like mad).

Second, his self. v. authorial persona of Goodnight! A Novel certainly prefigures Phillip Roth's metafictional novels (not to mention Kundera's), not to mention The Breast.

So have you noticed that I have not told you anything about this story collection? Oops. I have totally forgotten what this book is about. I really need to reread . But rest assured that at the age of 21 I found it brilliant and inspiring, and you will too.

But rereading...and rediscovery, ahh, that is the pleasure.

This book is famous because it was written by Andrey Sinyavskiy under the pseudonym Abram Tertz, and those in the know about Russian literature are familiar with how, in September of 1965, he and Yuliy Daniel were arrested, put on a show trial for having published abroad, and sentenced to seven years of hard labour. That combined with the subject matter makes it somewhat of a minor classic, though it's not well-known among people who aren't into Russian literature.

This book takes place in the last year of Stalin's life, and centres around the Doctors' Plot. Stalin was planning a major new purge in the waning days of his life; these falsely accused doctors, the majority of whom were Jewish, were saved only because the dictator died on 5 March 1953. Though allegedly Stalin was planning to show his "generosity" by intervening at the last moment, saving them from being hanged in Red Square and sent off to Siberia instead. The term "Cosmopolitan" was a not-so-secret way of saying someone was Jewish. The doctor who is accused in this book is a Dr. Rabinovich, who illegally performed an abortion. He is being prosecuted by Vladimir Globov, father of Seryozha and husband of Marina (who is his second wife). Globov's home life is being disrupted because he finds out that Marina, who has just celebrated her thirtieth birthday, has also had an abortion (though we never find out if she's the one on whom Dr. Rabinovich operated), and his son Seryozha is cooking up some dangerous ideas against the government, ideas which are called "Trotskiyite" and bourgeois. We never find out any real specifics about the ideas Seryozha and his friend Katya are writing down; these two young people are firmly devoted to Socialism, Marxism, and Communism, and certainly don't want to overthrow the state, but it's never made clear just why Globov, Seryozha's grandmother and teachers, and Marina's lover Karlinskiy are so upset over these ideas when they're never actually gone into in very much detail. We just know they go against what the masses have been brainwashed into believing is the only way for Socialism to be practised and brought to the rest of the world. The end of the book is chilling, reminding me very much of the end of the film 'The Inner Circle.'

Besides lacking development about Seryozha and Katya's revolutionary ideas, we don't get much in the way of character development. This is more a book about ideas and the atmosphere in Russia right before Stalin's death, but more character development could have fit in too. Some of the things referenced in the book without explanation also might not be accessible to the average reader who isn't as familiar with Russian history, culture, or literature as I happen to be, and some of the page numbers on the page referencing Russian historical figures or books made in the text are off by several pages. For example, a reference to 'Dead Scowls,' where the speaker means 'Dead Souls,' is listed as being found on page 94, but it actually appears on 96.

It's not as accessible to the average Western reader as other Russian literature from around this time period, but for someone familiar with the time period and Russian history in general, it's a nice quick read.