Tag: Russian literature

December 2022 Reading List

John Winkelman

What I Read in December 2022

This was another great month for reading, though the list is short. But such is necessarily the case for Dostoevsky December.

And this rounds out the list for the year. 120 books or journals, and 252 pieces of short prose. Not bad at all.

Books and Journals

  1. Fyodor Dostoevsky (Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear, translators), Crime and Punishment [2022.12.18]
  2. Poetry #221.3 [2022.12.19]
  3. The Paris Review #242 [2022.12.21]

Short Prose

  1. Avigayl Sharp, “Uncontrollable, Irrelevant”, The Paris Review #242 [2022.12.19]
  2. Addie E. Citchens, “A Good Samaritan”, The Paris Review #242 [2022.12.19]
  3. Mieko Kanai (Polly Barton, translator), “Tap Water”, The Paris Review #242 [2022.12.20]
  4. Sophie Madeline Dess, “Zalmanovs”, The Paris Review #242 [2022.12.21]
  5. Tom Drury, “Where Does This Live?”, The Paris Review #242 [2022.12.21]
  6. Isabella Hammad, “Gertrude”, The Paris Review #242 [2022.12.21]
  7. Lauren C. Teffeau, “Sing! & Remember”, Dreamforge #1 [2022.12.24]
  8. Jane Lindskold, “Born From Memory”, Dreamforge #1 [2022.12.24]
  9. Jean Martin, “I Am Not As Young As I Was”, Dreamforge #1 [2022.12.29]
  10. Paul Dellinger, “Con Man”, Dreamforge #1 [2022.12.29]
  11. Chris Sumberg, “Anthropomorphile”, Dreamforge #1 [2022.12.29]
  12. Scot Noel, “Walker in Leaves”, Dreamforge #1 [2022.12.29]
  13. Dr. Eric Leif Davin, “The Prophetic Vision of Stephen Vincent Benet”, Dreamforge #1 [2022.12.30]
  14. Tom Sheehan, “The Old Man Who Hid Music”, Dreamforge #1 [2022.12.30]

The Last Week of Autumn

John Winkelman

Pepper giving Poe a bath.

The last week of Autumn has brought with it a case of the creeping crud, which fortunately is not COVID, but is also not much fun. I don’t feel overly terrible; just exhaustion, some sinus issues, and a scratchy throat. So of the many viruses colonizing the population right now, I have one of them.

No new books arrived this week, so here is a photo of some domestic tranquility.

After three weeks of intense concentration, I have finished Crime and Punishment, which I really should have read about 30 years ago. Better late than never, I suppose.

And in writing news, there is nothing to report. My brain is sprained.

IWSG, March 2022

John Winkelman

Riverside Park in Grand Rapids Michigan

Hi everyone. I missed last month’s IWSG post due to a combination of *multiple vague gestures at the state of the world*. I’m sure you can relate.

This month’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group question is:

Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding a scene to a story? How did you decide to write it or not?

Much of what I write is in response to calls for submission to anthologies and themed issues of various literary and genre fiction magazines. I seldom complete those stories in time to meet the deadline, but even when it is obvious that the work will take months longer than originally estimated, I try to keep to the original theme. Constraints, I have heard, breed innovation.

But when writing to a theme, particularly if it is a type of story I have not written before, I sometimes find myself asking the question, “Did I put that thing I wrote into the story because the story demands it, or because the constraints of the theme demand it?” This can be a difficult knot to untangle.

Here is an example:

A few years ago, World Weaver Press put out a call for new interpretations of the Baba Yaga myth, for their anthology Skull and Pestle. My degree is in Russian Studies, and I have been to Russia, and continue to read Russian literature (in translation only; my language skills are quite rusty), so this seemed like a perfect fit.

I set the story in a village of Russian Orthodox Old Believers in northern Minnesota, near the Canadian border. The writing went well, with (I thought) good characters, good dialog, and good pacing, but when it came time to include Baba Yaga, I found that I couldn’t quite fit her into the story in a way that felt convincing. I went back and re-wrote the first third of the story (which kept getting longer), and by the time I found a way to transplant Baba Yaga from the forests of western Russia to the plains of the American Midwest, the deadline had long passed, and the short story had become a novella.

The troublesome scene, which would have brought Baba Yaga into prominence, was an act of bigoted violence against the Old Believers which, while all too plausible, felt gratuitous. Yet I couldn’t find a way through to the final act without that scene or something like it. So I left the scene in and re-wrote almost everything before it. Having done that, I found I needed to go a completely different direction with the last part of the story, and that is why it is still not finished.

Skull and Pestle is available here, and is quite good. I think all of the stories in it are better than whatever final form my own story would have taken, had I completed it in time to meet the deadline.

On a side note, I want to thank all of the members of the IWSG for your support and encouragement as  I round out my first year in this group. It has been difficult to stay motivated during the pandemic, and being part of this writing group has been a big help. In particular I want to thank Jean Davis for bringing the IWSG to my attention. You rock!

 

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The Days are Definitely Darker

John Winkelman

The Tai Chi Tree at Wilcox Park

Here in the middle of October dusk comes noticeably earlier every evening, particularly on Wednesdays when we have tai chi class in Wilcox Park. Class runs from 6:00 to 7:30, and while the sunsets are beautiful, soon we will not be able to see each other well enough to practice sword work safely.

No new reading material arrived at the house this week. Just as well; I have a big backlog.

In reading news, I just finished Simon Wiesenthal‘s The Sunflower, and I can see that this is a book which I will keep within reach for a very long time.

I also finished George Saunders‘ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, which is now firmly in the top three of the best books about writing I have read in the past thirty years.

In writing news, still no new prose or poetry. I am still in recovery (mental, emotion, sleep) from the past month or year or two years, and hope to get to a place where I can participate meaningfully in NaNoWriMo, which starts in (o god!) two weeks.

Hitting the Ground Running in 2021

John Winkelman

We had a great start to the acquisitions process here at the Library of Winkelman Abbey. The first full week of 2021 saw six new books arrive.

On the top left is Box of Bones, by Ayize Jama-Everett and John Jennings, from a recently-completed Kickstarter campaign run by the ever-excellent Rosarium Publishing.

In the top middle is volume 2 of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s A Writer’s Diary. I picked up volume 1 around 20 years ago, and I swore I had purchased vol. 2 at some point, but it is nowhere to be found and I suspect it was lost during a move or vacation or something. I had to buy this one used, as new copies sell for over a hundred dollars.

On the right is Kim Stanley Robinson’s newest book The Ministry for the Future. I am already 400 pages in, and it is magnificent! I have been a fan of Mr. Robinson’s work since I first read Red Mars over twenty years ago. The Ministry for the Future is more in line with his works like the Science in the Capitol series or even New York 2140, of which this could well be a prequel. Robinson shows his work and imbues his novel with a strong sense of hope, though hope born of difficult struggles and terrible loss.

The bottom row is the result of an impulse purchase made after I discovered The Russian Library series published by Columbia University Press. I have recently started following Read Russia, and they are in partnership with CUP to publish lesser-known (outside of Russia) Russian writers of the past 250 or so years; from the late 1700s to well into the 21st century. So far they have released about two dozen books, and many more are scheduled for the next few years.

On bottom left is Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry by Konstantin Batyushkov, translated by Peter France. In the middle of the bottom row is Between Dog and Wolf by Sasha Sokolov, translated by Alexander Boguslawski. On the bottom right is City Folk and Country Folk by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya, translated by Nora Seligman Favorov.

(Yes translators are important, and they deserve as much recognition as the writers.)

So between these books, and Doctor Zhivago which arrived last week, and my slow but steady process through The Brothers Karamazov, I am in for an interesting few months of reading.

Speaking of reading, I am currently making progress in three books: The aforementioned The Ministry for the Future, the aforementioned The Brothers Karamazov, and Sheldon Wolin’s Democracy Incorporated. Cheerful stuff, here in the first full week of 2021, four days after an insurrection and attempted coup at the nation’s Capitol Building.

Assuming society still exists next week, I will post an update to my progress through these books.

Last of the Old, First of the New

John Winkelman

And with that, we are in the first book post of the new year.

On the left is the last book to arrive during calendar year 2020: Some Kind of Monster by Tim Waggoner, from my subscription to the catalog of Apex Book Company. On the right is the first arrival of 2021: Boris Pasternak‘s magisterial Doctor Zhivago, translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, who have translated so very many of the great works of Russian literature.

I am a bit ashamed to say that I have never read Doctor Zhivago, nor seen the movie. In the larger picture, despite devoting more than a little of my life to studying Russian culture and literature, I have many gaps in my education. To make up for this short-coming, I have just started reading Fyodor Dostoevsky‘s The Brothers Karamazov for about the fifth time. To clarify I have started it for the fifth time. I have not yet made it more than about 40 pages in, though this time I am pacing myself and have managed to stay focused for 30 pages. Pacing is the trick, and one which helped me read Tolstoy‘s Anna Karenina to completion back in the mid-1990s when my attention span was much shorter than it is now.

2021 will be the year of Russian literature for me. I recently (re-) discovered Read Russia, an organization devoted to Russian literature and book culture. Through them I have found a wealth of contemporary and current Russian writers whose works have been translated into English as part of The Russian Library series from Columbia University Press. Currently they have over two dozen books in print, with more being translated and added to the collection every year.

Welcome to 2021, everyone! May your year be full of beautiful writing.

Post-Travel Post

John Winkelman

And just like that, we’re back! San Francisco was wonderful. We stayed in the Warwick, which is right in the middle of everything, and we ate ALL THE FOOD, which is all I will say about San Francisco in this post. We visited City Lights Bookstore, of course, and more San Francisco stories will accompany the photo of my haul from there.

Just one book arrived when I was out; A Punk Rock Future, from a Kickstarter created by the excellent Steve Zisson. For the general public, the book is available for pre-order at Amazon and will hit the shelves in October.

This was extra-EXTRA-special for me because my friend Steven (not Zisson) has a story in the collection, which I only discovered when I scanned the table of contents. I love when my friends win!

On the reading side of things, the week leading up to the trip was hectic and didn’t allow for much quiet time. I did burn through Mary Robinette Kowal‘s short story collection Scenting the Dark and Other Stories. I have long enjoyed Kowal’s novels and podcasting, but this was my first foray into her short works. And they are great! Highly recommended.

Once vacation started, things settled down. The plane ride was about four hours each way, which gave me something which I very seldom have any more: big blocks of uninterrupted reading time. And who, historically, has written books meant for readers with big blocks of uninterrupted reading time? The Russians! Specifically, Ivan Turgenev. I brought with me the collection First Love and Other Stories, which I picked up in August of last year. Eight hours on a plane was just about perfect to read the six stories therein.

I like Turgenev’s writing. He has a deep understanding of how young men think and how they react to love, heartache, and stress. That said, the main characters are not particularly likable. They tend to be of a type. “Wanker” is, I believe, the clinical term, though Turgenev treats them with empathy and compassion, rather than as the butt of jokes. Not that there isn’t plenty of humor herein, of the satirical and sarcastic variety.

And that is how, early in my fiftieth year, I completed a reading assignment handed to me by my Russian Studies professor in January of 1991. I suppose I should let Dr. Rydel know I’m finally done.

Andrey Kharshak

John Winkelman

Today, on a whim, I did a Google search for the ISBN of a book I picked up in Russia back in the summer of 1994. I figured that the number would be the one attribute of the book which would not need to be translated.

Lo and behold, I got a hit: Master and Margarita, written by Michael Bulgakov and illustrated by Andrey Kharshak.

So now I was curious: you can’t swing a cat on the internet without hitting a Bulgakov reference, but how about Mr. Kharshak? His illustrations are good enough that SOMEBODY must have heard of him… And here he is! Apparently Mr Kharshak is well known everywhere in the world except The United States and the Internet. I should do something about that…

Manuscripts Don't Burn Manuscripts Don’t Burn

Golgotha Golgotha

These are prints of works by Mr. Kharshak which I picked up while in Russia. They are reproduced in Master and Margarita, along with at least two dozen other illustrations.

And for your convenience here is a link to the English version of Master and Margarita (translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky). It is, as they say, a Ripping Good Yarn.