A Librarian, An Inventor and A Painter

The Librarian

Mikhail Elizarov (Pushkin Press, $18.95)

It has been said that the most vicious, uncompromising political battles take place inside nonprofits and university English departments. Such brutality in unexpected places lies at the heart of Elizarov’s novel, in which seemingly unassuming, harmless members of Russia’s 1990s intelligentsia take up maces, battleaxes and spears to wage bloody hand-to-hand combat for control over... books.

But not just any books. They are the lost novels of an obscure Soviet author named Gromov that inexplicably reflect onto their possessors unusual powers (memory, bravery, fury, endurance) when read under the right conditions. And since possessing more books conveys more powers, there is something worth fighting for.

At the center of the action is the unassuming Alexei, who at the outset finds he has inherited his Uncle Maxim’s Siberian apartment, yet only belatedly does he discover he has also been bequeathed the Book of Memory. As the newly appointed keeper of this tome, he becomes a Librarian, trying desperately to survive while under siege from all sides by other reader groups.

After The Librarian, it is a bit difficult to think of a book club in exactly the same way again. And, admittedly, the book does at times seem to lurch from one graphically medieval bloodbath to the next. Barely do we get an opportunity to meet a character before they are gored or decapitated. Perhaps this is part of the reason for the book’s great appeal (it won the Russian Booker).

But one hopes there is more to it. Because between all the fight and flight, the novel is something of a requiem for a country torn asunder by poverty and criminal gangs, a sort of nostalgic tribute to a time when words and books held greater meaning, when people would expose themselves to great personal risk to preserve books and ideas for later generations.

But perhaps that is reading too much into things.

Fardwor, Russia

Oleg Kashin (Restless Books, $14.99)

Kashin’s allegorical novel is set closer to the present day, lampooning the corporatist, verticalized state that Russia has morphed into since the turn of the twenty-first century.

A self-taught scientist discovers a growth serum that promises to transform agriculture (and child-rearing, and the diminutive size of political and business leaders). But, this being Putin’s Russia, rather than make the most of the discovery, the Powers That Be opt to bury it (along with countless other breakthroughs), so that they can hold businesses hostage and demand protection be paid to the state-controlled enterprise Olympstroi (which has no intention of holding the Sochi games, only at raking in Olympian scale bribes).

Kashin completed his novel in 2010, just two months before his notoriously brutal beating at the hands of goons he later said were sicked on him by a corrupt regional boss. The cause of the attack, he alleges, was an online remark he posted about the boss – proving if nothing else that words still carry great meaning.

Fardwor, Russia! is short, offbeat, and satisfying. While it is not a searing indictment of modern Russia, it does put things on a gently humorous simmer. The blending of fact and fiction, of real life personages with pseudonymous anti-heroes, and the injection (pun intended) of science fiction motifs adds to the attraction.

Readers less familiar with Russian realities will probably miss many of the more subtle cultural references, but the general import, that Russia is a land of great potential limited by the greed and short-sightedness of its leaders, will be lost on no one. Nor will most miss the profound understatement of a Kashin’s throw-away line toward the book’s end:

“Big systems always have logistical problems.”

Konstantin Makovsky

The Tsar’s Painter in America and Paris

Wendy Salmond, Russell E. Martin, Wilfried Zeisler (Hillwood, $45)

The rise and acclaim of artist Konstantin Makovsky’s work paralleled both the Russian imperialism of the late Romanov era, and a warming in US-Russian relations. His work romanticized and often idealized the boyar past, serving to make him a favorite in the Russian court and, after some of his works were acquired or toured abroad, Russia’s unofficial cultural ambassador.

Media savvy New York entrepreneurs displayed his Boyar Wedding Feast in their jewelry store, where it drew in large and avid crowds, eager to consume such “exotic” art. Postcards and prints proliferated and this and other works by Makovsky went on to have a rather disproportionate impact on Americans’ perceptions of Russia and Russian art.

Not until the cooling of US-Russian relations at the turn of the twentieth century, and the rise of other more popular art forms, did Makovsky’s influence wane.

This beautifully designed book puts Makovsky’s life and work into well deserved perspective, and sheds light on an era in US-Russian relations that is little examined.