My Bookshelves

Since my last whiny post, things, as if by magic, have picked up. Publicity things. Interviews are being scheduled. Print, radio, and even one (or two?) on local Boston TV. And because I’m the kind of person who can’t wing it, or at least sit back and enjoy the good news for as least a couple of days, I must prepare.

What questions might I get asked at these interviews?

One question that routinely makes my mind go blank is, Who are your favorite authors? (The last time was on Friday, during a reception for graduate students.) I usually begin with “Oh, there are so many…” and then trail off, lamely, wishing I was standing in front of my bookshelves.

Determined not to let this tricky question stump me again, I will try to answer it now. In advance.

I must start with the Russians. Because, let’s face it, that’s what everyone expects. But also, jokes aside, because it’s true: that’s where literature started for me.

And that’s where it gets tricky, too. For example: how can I possibly exclude Pushkin? I read him, with pleasure, every fall; memorized his poems for school; wrote papers on The Captain’s Daughter and Dubrovsky; and as for Eugene Onegin, I always preferred Tatiana’s second letter to Eugene (in which she effectively tells him to get lost) to her first one (in which she, the innocent soul, breaks the cardinal rule of dating and confesses her love). Pushkin must have been a huge influence on me. But was he my favorite?

Next comes Lermontov, another classic. Funny how he always seems to come on the heels of Pushkin. (My high-school friend, Sveta, would disown me for saying this. Not only did she love Lermontov, she knew everything – and I mean everything – about him, every bit of his biography, every place in Moscow somehow associated with his short life.) As for me, I memorized portions of his marvelous long poems – some for school, some for fun -- and I used to adore The Hero of Our Time. Still, at the risk of incurring my friend’s wrath – if she were ever to find this blog -- I must confess that Lermontov is not as close to my heart as Pushkin.

And what about good old Turgenev? I distinctly remember claiming him as one of my favorites. I was taken with his prose poems, his novellas, and his long unrequited love for the singer Polina Viardo. I loved Fathers and Sons, too, the first time I read it. But by the time we got done with it at school – with that endless talk of its revolutionary significance – all the magic was gone from it.

The question that comes up a lot is, Tolstoy vs. Dostoevsky? (See also: Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald, and Paul McCartney vs. John Lennon. It’s the kind of question that assumes that all people can be divided into two types.) The first time I read War and Peace, I was twelve, and it was a very traumatic moment in my life. I was supposed to be in a school play about Pushkin (see above). But then I got chicken pox, and, my role being negligible, the play went on without me. I was inconsolable. Then I got my hands on War and Peace. In a manner of most Russian girls, I scanned through War and devoured Peace. But strangely, what soothed my heart the most was not the antics of Natasha Rostova, but the plight of Pier Bezukhov, his involvement with masons, and much later, his war imprisonment. It was with him, and not with the young Natasha, that I identified.

As for Dostoevskiy, he’s someone I appreciate more than love. Besides, as my father always reminds me, he was an anti-Semite.

Chekhov, on the other hand, is someone I include on my list of great influences without reservations. I especially love his plays -- all these mismatched souls, unable to connect to the ones they love. They will never get to Moscow. They will never see the sky full of diamonds, no matter how hard they try.

So who do I have on my list so far? Pushkin, Chekhov, War and Peace. Add to that some poetry by Nikolai Gumilev and Marina Tsvetaeva (plus her sister’s memoirs). Then, moving into the years of Socialism, add some Babel, and Kharms, and of course, Bulgakov, with his Master and Margarita and White Guard.

As for contemporary Russian writers, I’ve read my share of Pelevin and Sorokin, but it’s Lyudmila Petrushevskaya and her gruesome, dark, pitch-perfect satires I must go with. And lately it’s been also another Lyudmila – Ulitskaya – whose wonderful novel, Kukoskiy’s Case, has not been translated into English yet, and whose new novel I’m just about to start.

This, I believe, concludes my Russian list. Which, now that I look at it, seems woefully inadequate. Maybe it’s time to re-read much of what I have just written about here.

In any case, stay tuned for the review of my “English” bookshelves...