REVIEW
OF 'TWELVE STORIES OF RUSSIA: A NOVEL, I GUESS'
Publication: The Moscow Times
Title: (Not) Making Sense of Russia
Date: September 7, 2001
Author: Dan Nehmad
Website: Link
My mother was never big on the
idea of
my moving to Russia. Just before I left she was seized by a
desperate
faith in last-ditch efforts to stop me from leaving, and she
began to
pepper me with apparently casual, deprecating remarks.
In one instance she related the
response of a friend's son upon learning that I was going to
Russia to
work for a newspaper. The clearheaded, pre-professional son,
no doubt
squinting with all the distaste my mother showed as she retold
the
story, replied: "Why would anybody want to do that?"
His question has come back to
haunt me
on occasion -- usually when the mysteriously well-coordinated
inconveniences of life in Russia achieve some kind of critical
mass.
Why am I here? Such self-questioning can corrode the will and
muddle
the brain.
But anyone who has lived in
Russia
knows that the remedy for this confusion is simply to stop
asking that
kind of question. Once you start to abandon the habit of
reason, the
absurdity of Russia becomes more agreeable. Abandon it
completely,
write down what you see, and you are left with, well, a novel,
I
guess. This is what A.J. Perry has done.
Twelve Stories of Russia: A
Novel, I
Guess is a compilation of the mostly comical experiences of a
young
American, James, who comes to Russia in 1991 on a whim to
teach
English and ends up staying for six and a half years. The book
is
composed of about a dozen of James's strange encounters with
Russian
culture. The author has written no preface and provides no
biographical information, but his well-documented knowledge of
Russia's cultural idiosyncrasies suggests that the work is at
least
semiautobiographical.
This kind of clash-of-cultures
realism
is certainly nothing new, especially between the United States
and
Russia. But Perry has the ability to write without analyzing
his
experiences or calling attention to himself. He finds the
humor in
what's going on around him. "With time," James narrates,
"Irina and I became closer. She stopped referring to me in the
plural. She bummed my cigarettes. She told me about her failed
loves
and successful abortions. At times, she even let me get a word
in
edgewise."
There is admittedly little that
weaves
the book's disparate scenes into a coherent whole. James moves
in and
out of friendships and romances, consumes a great deal of
vodka and
struggles over his relationship with a mother who left him.
What gives
the work some semblance of cohesiveness -- that is, what moves
it
along and allows it to end -- is an attempt to understand
Russia
without actually trying. Inspired by a cryptic German he meets
on his
first flight to Moscow, James is looking for 11 words that
will allow
him to "understand a people and its culture." The German
advises him on how to do this: "Live for all of these words,
but
do not seek them; in time they will come themselves." So most
of
what we read is James living life, waiting for words.
This passive goal allows the
book to
shine with humor and casual bits of cultural insight without
being too
pedantically conscious of it. At the same time, the inevitable
consequence of this laid-back style is that we are never
completely
engaged intellectually. Even though James reaches an end to
his
11-word quest, he never tells us what the words are. Since we
are not
involved in it, the search is only nominal. It seems like an
overlay
for writing that would otherwise have little in the way of
justification for its aimlessness.
Perry acknowledges this
uncertainty of
purpose in his halfhearted title. It's a novel, he guesses, if
the
reader is willing to buy that. Some may not. Perry often
lingers
around an issue as if he is about to contend with it
critically, but
he never really does. The raw material is there for the
contemplating,
but do not expect the book to push you to it.
A wavering syntax is another
sign of
just how completely Perry has cast off the burden of making
sense of
things. His opening paragraph begins: "At last I can say that
Russia is neither here nor there, but less hopeless than
inevitable." But the broadness of the theme -- hopeless,
inevitable, Russia -- draws us in with the hope of finding
something
profound.
This heady introduction
launches James
into 448 pages of marveling at a number of questions that
fascinate
him: how "here" can so suddenly become "there;"
how one can both love and hate Russia; and how belonging and
culture
can be reduced to the color of one's passport. He summons up
grand
questions like these, but never digs in. Soon the rationalist
in us
starts to wonder: Is his critical restraint really an
admission that
the absurd is beyond reconciliation? Or is he simply afraid to
pursue
these questions?
Though Perry does not directly
confront
this complexity, he succeeds in evoking it with great force
through
the juxtaposition of unrelated events. Happy, tragic,
frustrating and,
most of all, drunken experiences are mixed up. Subplots are
woven
together and called up selectively throughout the book in
order to
complicate emotions. The wit of "Twelve Stories" is just as
much in the juxtaposition of ideas as it is in the writing,
and so the
book is neither a novel nor a series of short stories as much
as it is
a thoughtful collage.
Perry's prose is now truncated
and
simple, now flowing and irrational. He keeps details and
concise
explanation to a minimum. "My life in Russia: love, democracy,
irony, logic, danger, marriage," he writes, with the
abbreviated
thought of an unsure protagonist. The intent is to provoke
with
ambiguity. But those who are not familiar with Russia, and
occasionally those who are, will be disappointed by references
like
these that are never unpacked.
The beauty of this collage is
that it
entertains us with absurdities and never compromises their
extremity
by asking why. This may be all he wanted. James, sitting in
Sheremetyevo-2 at the end of the book, says: "How should I
spend
these last few hours between here and there? What should I do
until I
leave? And then it occurs to me: I'll write something! Nothing
too
serious or meaningful, of course. Just the usual bit: naive
foreigner
goes to Russia, lives there for six and a half years, then
leaves
forever. Even I can write something like that."
James seems to seek the
reader's
respect, but he never takes the requisite risks to earn it. In
a
conversation with a friend, he offers up this thought: "You
see,
Vadim, for me the most important thing isn't the meaning. At
this
point in my life the most important thing is irony!" We then
have
to swallow these big words and move on.
With all due respect for the
need to
avoid asking why, ignoring the question can sometimes be just
as
perplexing as asking it in the first place.
"Twelve Stories of Russia: A
Novel, I guess," by A.J. Perry, is published by Glas. 448
pages.
Dan Nehmad is a freelance
journalist
living in Moscow.
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