madelynsudac's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
elenajohansen's review against another edition
2.0
I rarely read the introductions in any book that has one. I'd rather get to the actual content, and often I don't have the academic grounding to understand half of what the introduction's authors have to say.
This time, I went back and read it after. Counter-intuitive, I'm sure many people would say, but I was vindicated by Thirlwell mentioning Italo Calvino as a similar author, because I read The Complete Cosmicomics earlier this year and found Corpse to be strikingly reminiscent of it. The subject matter of any individual story between the two could be wildly different, but they all felt the same in their treatment of the "fantastic" as a blend of real, absurd, and academic.
Like my reaction to Cosmicomics, I'm left here with the feeling of "I wish I understood this better so I can appreciate it more." I'm no student of philosophy, and while I have enough knowledge of Russian history to connect it to the dismal, censorious atmosphere of the stories in Corpse, beyond that I have no ground to stand on. I love absurdity in fiction; but this is high-minded, philosophical absurdity outside my ken. I always felt like I was grasping at the edges of what Krzhizanovsky was trying to say--I could see connections forming between identity, time, brokenness, and storytelling. I feel confident in stating his stories are mostly about some or all of those things, most of the time. But as with Calvino, deeper meaning eludes me; I value emotion most in my fiction, not philosophy. I would rather grapple with characters than concepts.
This is a challenging work that I'm glad I attempted, but not something I'd shout from the rooftops as a general recommendation. It's weird and interesting, and I'm vaguely sad that this author was never recognized for his fiction in his lifetime because of censorship. Even if I can't appreciate his work fully, clearly he deserved better than what he got.
This time, I went back and read it after. Counter-intuitive, I'm sure many people would say, but I was vindicated by Thirlwell mentioning Italo Calvino as a similar author, because I read The Complete Cosmicomics earlier this year and found Corpse to be strikingly reminiscent of it. The subject matter of any individual story between the two could be wildly different, but they all felt the same in their treatment of the "fantastic" as a blend of real, absurd, and academic.
Like my reaction to Cosmicomics, I'm left here with the feeling of "I wish I understood this better so I can appreciate it more." I'm no student of philosophy, and while I have enough knowledge of Russian history to connect it to the dismal, censorious atmosphere of the stories in Corpse, beyond that I have no ground to stand on. I love absurdity in fiction; but this is high-minded, philosophical absurdity outside my ken. I always felt like I was grasping at the edges of what Krzhizanovsky was trying to say--I could see connections forming between identity, time, brokenness, and storytelling. I feel confident in stating his stories are mostly about some or all of those things, most of the time. But as with Calvino, deeper meaning eludes me; I value emotion most in my fiction, not philosophy. I would rather grapple with characters than concepts.
This is a challenging work that I'm glad I attempted, but not something I'd shout from the rooftops as a general recommendation. It's weird and interesting, and I'm vaguely sad that this author was never recognized for his fiction in his lifetime because of censorship. Even if I can't appreciate his work fully, clearly he deserved better than what he got.
fictionfan's review against another edition
4.0
“Man is to man a ghost”
This is a collection of short stories written by surely the most difficult to spell author of all-time, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. Writing under the Soviet regime in the early part of last century, most of his work didn’t get past the censors and remained unpublished until the period of Glasnost in the late ’80s. The stories are quirky and imaginative, sometimes fantastical, usually satirical, and often witty; and there are common themes of individual and social identity, reality and abstraction, life and death, space and time. Some of the stories are quite clearly political, concerning the submergence and alienation of the individual under Soviet rule – soul seepage, as he terms it. There is a good deal of word-play in the stories, so the excellent translation by Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov is essential to letting the reader grasp the author’s intention.
By morning many-hued military flags were hanging over building entrances and gateways. Men with newspapers held up to their eyes were walking down the sidewalks; men with rifles on their shoulders were walking down the roadways. Thus from the very first day newspapers and rifles divided us all into those who would die and those for whom they would die.
Like most collections, this one is variable – some of the stories are interesting and enjoyable, while in others Krzhizhanovsky lets his philosophising tendencies run away with him, making them overly wordy while not being quite as profound he presumably intended them to be. However, none of them are less than thought-provoking and they give an insight into the difficulties of plain-speaking in a time of censorship and worse.
There are 11 stories in the collection, plus a short introduction by Adam Thirlwell, giving brief biographical details of the author. There are fairly extensive notes at the back, and in some of the stories these are quite important as the people and institutions the author refers to are often no longer household names – at least, not in my household.
A philosophizing Not once said, “Being cannot not be without becoming Nothing, while Nothing cannot be without becoming Being.” This is so very reasonable it’s hard to believe that a Not, a nonexistent being, could – in little more than a dozen words – have come so close to the truth.”
The title story sets the scene for much of what is to follow – through the letters of a man written in the three consecutive nights before committing suicide, Krzhizhanovsky introduces his main subject of identity as an individual within, or more often outside, society. The next story takes us straight to the fantastical as a man becomes fascinated by his own image reflected back to him from the eye of his lover – until one day the reflection disappears. We are told the story of this ‘little man’ who finds he has fallen into a space in the lover’s head where the ‘little men’ of all her former lovers are gathered, telling each other the story of their relationship with her. Humorous and quirky, but still with the theme of identity at the fore, we begin to get a feel for how Krzhizhanovsky uses the fantastic as a vehicle for philosophising and satire. This shows through strongly in another story, The Unbitten Elbow, where the author takes a sharply ironic look at politics, celebrity, the media and most of all the tendency of philosophers to try to read meaning into the meaningless – which is in itself ironic, since I felt Krzhizhanovsky wasn’t immune from falling into that trap himself.
It turned out that the energy of a potential fistfight, if sucked promptly into the pores of a street absorberator, could heat an entire floor for twelve hours. Even without adopting any matrimoniological measures, simply by giving porous double beds to two million “happily married” couples, you could support the work of an enormous sawmill.
Overall I enjoyed most of the stories enough that they made up for the over-stuffed ones. I think my favourite is Yellow Coal – a satire based on the idea that sources of energy are running out and, in response to a competition, an inventor suggests powering things with human spite – bile, known as yellow coal. This works amazingly well as supplies are inexhaustible, until gradually everyone becomes contented and well-fed… Unfortunately the last story, Postmark: Moscow, was the most incomprehensible to me, since it relied to some extent on the reader getting references to the ideas of many philosophers who were no more than names to me, if that. But even so, it rounded off the recurring theme throughout the book of ‘I’s and ‘Not’s – the alienation of the individual and the disconnect from society. A thought-provoking collection where the best of the stories are highly entertaining and the worst are still quite readable – recommended.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, NYRB.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
This is a collection of short stories written by surely the most difficult to spell author of all-time, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. Writing under the Soviet regime in the early part of last century, most of his work didn’t get past the censors and remained unpublished until the period of Glasnost in the late ’80s. The stories are quirky and imaginative, sometimes fantastical, usually satirical, and often witty; and there are common themes of individual and social identity, reality and abstraction, life and death, space and time. Some of the stories are quite clearly political, concerning the submergence and alienation of the individual under Soviet rule – soul seepage, as he terms it. There is a good deal of word-play in the stories, so the excellent translation by Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov is essential to letting the reader grasp the author’s intention.
By morning many-hued military flags were hanging over building entrances and gateways. Men with newspapers held up to their eyes were walking down the sidewalks; men with rifles on their shoulders were walking down the roadways. Thus from the very first day newspapers and rifles divided us all into those who would die and those for whom they would die.
Like most collections, this one is variable – some of the stories are interesting and enjoyable, while in others Krzhizhanovsky lets his philosophising tendencies run away with him, making them overly wordy while not being quite as profound he presumably intended them to be. However, none of them are less than thought-provoking and they give an insight into the difficulties of plain-speaking in a time of censorship and worse.
There are 11 stories in the collection, plus a short introduction by Adam Thirlwell, giving brief biographical details of the author. There are fairly extensive notes at the back, and in some of the stories these are quite important as the people and institutions the author refers to are often no longer household names – at least, not in my household.
A philosophizing Not once said, “Being cannot not be without becoming Nothing, while Nothing cannot be without becoming Being.” This is so very reasonable it’s hard to believe that a Not, a nonexistent being, could – in little more than a dozen words – have come so close to the truth.”
The title story sets the scene for much of what is to follow – through the letters of a man written in the three consecutive nights before committing suicide, Krzhizhanovsky introduces his main subject of identity as an individual within, or more often outside, society. The next story takes us straight to the fantastical as a man becomes fascinated by his own image reflected back to him from the eye of his lover – until one day the reflection disappears. We are told the story of this ‘little man’ who finds he has fallen into a space in the lover’s head where the ‘little men’ of all her former lovers are gathered, telling each other the story of their relationship with her. Humorous and quirky, but still with the theme of identity at the fore, we begin to get a feel for how Krzhizhanovsky uses the fantastic as a vehicle for philosophising and satire. This shows through strongly in another story, The Unbitten Elbow, where the author takes a sharply ironic look at politics, celebrity, the media and most of all the tendency of philosophers to try to read meaning into the meaningless – which is in itself ironic, since I felt Krzhizhanovsky wasn’t immune from falling into that trap himself.
It turned out that the energy of a potential fistfight, if sucked promptly into the pores of a street absorberator, could heat an entire floor for twelve hours. Even without adopting any matrimoniological measures, simply by giving porous double beds to two million “happily married” couples, you could support the work of an enormous sawmill.
Overall I enjoyed most of the stories enough that they made up for the over-stuffed ones. I think my favourite is Yellow Coal – a satire based on the idea that sources of energy are running out and, in response to a competition, an inventor suggests powering things with human spite – bile, known as yellow coal. This works amazingly well as supplies are inexhaustible, until gradually everyone becomes contented and well-fed… Unfortunately the last story, Postmark: Moscow, was the most incomprehensible to me, since it relied to some extent on the reader getting references to the ideas of many philosophers who were no more than names to me, if that. But even so, it rounded off the recurring theme throughout the book of ‘I’s and ‘Not’s – the alienation of the individual and the disconnect from society. A thought-provoking collection where the best of the stories are highly entertaining and the worst are still quite readable – recommended.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, NYRB.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
vanjr's review against another edition
4.0
A collection of short stories that while easy to read, is actually quite dense. It seemed like reading this prose was like reading poetry. I was always working hard to find the reference that the author was making. (As a side note this is a great book to read to get ideas of other Russian authors to read outside of the big names everyone knows).
The short stories occasionally had some links-such as the "Ises and the Nots" but I had different levels of enjoyment. I will start off with "In the Pupil" is better than "Autobiography of a Corpse." The title song is not always the hit from a record (that phrase shows my non-streaming age.) My favorites were as above and Seams, The Unbitten Elbow and Thirty Pieces of Silver.
If I have not thoroughly confused you, I will finish with a short quote to give a feel for this eclectic book. From Postmark: Moscow-thirteen letters postmarked "Moscow" [aside thank you Mr. Putin for preventing me from ever using this short story as a way to see Moscow in real life]
From Letter Ten:
The short stories occasionally had some links-such as the "Ises and the Nots" but I had different levels of enjoyment. I will start off with "In the Pupil" is better than "Autobiography of a Corpse." The title song is not always the hit from a record (that phrase shows my non-streaming age.) My favorites were as above and Seams, The Unbitten Elbow and Thirty Pieces of Silver.
If I have not thoroughly confused you, I will finish with a short quote to give a feel for this eclectic book. From Postmark: Moscow-thirteen letters postmarked "Moscow" [aside thank you Mr. Putin for preventing me from ever using this short story as a way to see Moscow in real life]
From Letter Ten:
At first, crosses were for crucifying: They say that among the crucified an occasional god turned up. Later on, the blood on their cross-pieces gilded, crosses were hoisted up onto the tops of domes. To see them there, people had to raise their heads. At first they raised them, then they stopped: no time. Everyone knew those metal plus signs could not put anything together; they could not unite disparate lives into a single life. Love remained as disorganized and amateurish as ever.
Soon people, even those with a little cross tucked inside their shirtfront, learned to live near the cross, yet past it.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
An old Indian folktale tells of a man forced to shoulder a corpse night after night—till the corpse, its dead but moving lips pressed to his ear, has finished telling the story of its long-finished life. Don’t try to throw me to the ground. Like the man in the folktale, you will have to shoulder the burden of my three insomnias and listen patiently, till the corpse has finished its autobiography.«Автобиография трупа» — Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky (Сигизмунд Доминикович Кржижановский), tr. Joanne Turnbull, Nikolai Formozov.
javansutton's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
kilgore_trout's review
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
jdscott50's review against another edition
4.0
Krzhizhanovsky’s stories are filled with existential angst and desperation. These surreal stories have been compared to Kafka and Gogol. SK’s twist casts a shadow upon living in Soviet Russia wheras one who is not a party member is less than nothing, a minus one. Even though he doesn’t explicitly state this, the idea is peppered through most of the stories. It’s a sharp contrast as these lonely and isolating stories take place in the heart of Moscow. There is an erasure of identity, people who don’t see or acknowledge you.
In the titular story, a man moves into a flat in Moscow only to find a note from the previous tenant documenting his last three days alive. His mad ramblings explore how men are reduced to points, to parts of a person, 0.6 to be exact, by government entities and by society. In Pupil, a man sees himself in the pupil of his lover and wonders why people are afraid of the dark, where dreams reside. Seams, Collector of Cracks, and Land of Nots all continue the theme of Autobiography of a Corpse with the focus on the “not there” the places in between, unseen. Runaway Fingers is definitely homage to Gogol’s The Nose (the fingers run away leaving the pianist less than). Some of the stories later in the book don’t seem to have the same punch as the earlier ones. The stories mix from 1922 to 1939.
This is one of a few Soviet-era books I’ve read. I’m more fascinated by those authors who are able to criticize the government and get published at the same time. Master and the Margarita is a very prominent example probably moreso that they didn’t know what to make of it. The other would be Envy by Yury Olesha, less prominent but still a clever critic. I can only imagine how frightening it would have been to not get published and face repercussions. SK read is material to small groups and people knew of it, but he was never published. This collection of work adequately conveys the feeling of being a non-person in the midst of a scared society.
In the titular story, a man moves into a flat in Moscow only to find a note from the previous tenant documenting his last three days alive. His mad ramblings explore how men are reduced to points, to parts of a person, 0.6 to be exact, by government entities and by society. In Pupil, a man sees himself in the pupil of his lover and wonders why people are afraid of the dark, where dreams reside. Seams, Collector of Cracks, and Land of Nots all continue the theme of Autobiography of a Corpse with the focus on the “not there” the places in between, unseen. Runaway Fingers is definitely homage to Gogol’s The Nose (the fingers run away leaving the pianist less than). Some of the stories later in the book don’t seem to have the same punch as the earlier ones. The stories mix from 1922 to 1939.
This is one of a few Soviet-era books I’ve read. I’m more fascinated by those authors who are able to criticize the government and get published at the same time. Master and the Margarita is a very prominent example probably moreso that they didn’t know what to make of it. The other would be Envy by Yury Olesha, less prominent but still a clever critic. I can only imagine how frightening it would have been to not get published and face repercussions. SK read is material to small groups and people knew of it, but he was never published. This collection of work adequately conveys the feeling of being a non-person in the midst of a scared society.
juicebox's review
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0