The Tales of Belkin (Hesperus Classics) (edition 2009)

(from http://withhiddennoise.net/2010/04/22/alexander-pushkin-the-tales-of-belkin/ )

My knowledge of nineteenth-century Russians is embarrassingly bad: most of Dostoyevsky, a reasonable amount of Tolstoy, Oblomov, some Chekhov, a handful of others. Eugene Onegin, in a translation that I’m sure is lacking in some way, is sitting on the shelf yet unread, awaiting a project. In the mean time, here’s Pushkin’s The Tales of Belkin, a collection of early short stories. The book belongs to that familiar subject: how people in the provinces live who have gain their knowledge of the outside world through books. A problem invariably arises: how can a literate and knowing narrator tell their stories from within? A variety of frames of narration are constructed around the stories to permit this: as much as anything, The Tales of Belkin is an investigation of how storytelling works.

The central image of “The Shot” is a painting with two shots fired through it. The narrator marvels at the closeness of the shots; the second turns out to be the work of Silvio, an officer the narrator once knew, and is the occasion for the telling of the story of how those shots came to be there. In a duel, the painting was shot the first time by accident; the second time, it was not an accident, but rather a demonstration by Silvio of how he could kill if he chose to do so. The painting is the occasion for the telling of the story: the narrator meets both parties of the duel, but separately, and if he had not remarked upon the two shots in the painting, he would never have been able to put the two parts of the story together. The painting is thus a plot device; the content (described offhandedly as “some scene from Switzerland”) is not important, but its existence is, because without it the story couldn’t be told. Coincidence makes the story possible; it grabs the reader’s attention, but coincidence by itself is not enough to serve as a plot. It maneuvers the narrator into place so that he can tell the two halves of the story of Silvio; but coincidence in fiction is a very different thing from coincidence in life. The narrator comes off, as he must, as blithely oblivious of the forces moving him about.

This is complicated by layers of narration: “The Shot” is told in the first person by a narrator, who we learn in a quoted letter in the publisher’s note which serves as introduction, is “Lieutenant-Colonel I.L.P.” who ostensibly told it to Ivan Belkin, who wrote down the story; Pushkin (if we may assume that Pushkin is the “A.P.” of the publisher’s note) ostensibly only edited these stories into a volume. We have then a story retold several times; presumably it merited retelling because of its use of coincidence. Coincidence grabs a listener; does it grab a reader in the same way? It’s worth looking back at the twice-shot Swiss landscape: it might be taken as a representation of realism, what the artist sees in nature. What makes interesting fiction isn’t realism: the painting only appears in the story because of the bullet holes the author added to it.

Coincidence also features heavily in the next story, “The Blizzard”; here, we are told the story of a girl who “had been raised on French novels, and consequently was in love”. A secret marriage is arranged; a blizzard fortuitously arrives, and the marriage doesn’t happen. Years pass, a second suitor turns up, the girl sits in the garden “like a true heroine from a novel”. Rousseau’s Julie is imagined. The new suitor turns out to be known to the girl; earlier gaps in the narrative are explained. Re-reading the story, the reader sees how the author has carefully left out events to build suspense, which is held when the story ends, unresolved. With this story, what Pushkin is doing becomes more clear: this is a systematic investigation of how fiction works and what can be believed. The reader is advised of this again near the start of “The Undertaker”:

The enlightened reader is aware that Shakespeare and Walter Scott both represented their gravediggers as cheerful and humorous people so as to strike our imaginations the more powerfully with this contrast. Out of respect for the truth, we cannot follow their example and are forced to admit that our undertaker’s disposition corresponded perfectly to his sombre trade. (p. 31)

This is straight-up metafiction; the first person plural of the narrator suggests the unreliability of the multiple narrators behind this: unreliable in the sense that we know full well that they are twisting the truth to suit narrative needs. When the reader then finds the titular undertaker confronted by his late charges, we don’t know if this is a tale of the supernatural – as we know the narrator is unafraid to play with reality – or if it’s all a drunken dream, as it turns out to be. In his forward, Adam Thirlwell presents Pushkin’s work is an analogue to Sterne’s, an unacknowledged elaboration on a passage in Shklovsky’s Theory of Prose; I think the Tales of Belkin suffer in this comparison, but one senses that these stories are intended to be slight. They’re still pleasant. The other material tacked on to the end of the book – two fragments that Pushkin wrote in the voice of Belkin – feel extraneous.

I like how Hesperus Classics look: I like that they’re marketing small books, and they tend to pick up things that other’s don’t. That said: there’s a lot of marketing evident on this book. Adam Thirlwell’s name appears as many times as Pushkin’s on the covers; Hugh Aplin, the translator, is nowhere to be found, though he also contributes a useful historical introduction. Maybe Thirlwell’s name goes further in Britain than it does here. And I presume Pushkin won’t sell himself. The cover – crows on a snowy landscape – has a solemnity that suggests that the designer never read the book. Aplin’s translation is unobtrusive, though this isn’t the case with his annotations: they are necessary because of Pushkin’s heavy use of references, but generally not particularly revealing.

First a caveat—this is more of a preliminary evaluation of the book than a proper review. I will eventually give it its proper due.

Being a long-time reader of works in translation, I know how important it is to find a worthwhile translation before beginning the reading of any particular work. Poor, or merely dated, translation can render the life out of even the most vibrant and vital of works. My initial feeling is that Hugh Aplin has done a fine job in translating Pushkin here. I began simply by reading the introduction and a few of the stories, with attention to the notes.

As for the introduction, it is helpful and interesting reading, placing this work of prose within the context of Pushkin's literary development, and of Russian literature in general. The stories are quite readable. They don't suffer from strangulated translation. They don't read like a 21st century writer wearing the affectation of 19th century "pantaloons, waistcoat, and frock,"—"these words are not of Russian stock..."—and therefore give relatively direct access to English readers of Pushkin's stories.

Without making an exhaustive search for other translations of these stories, I did briefly compare them with the stories and notes as previously published in Norton's The Complete Tales of Alexandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin (trans. Aitken, Gillon R., 1966) and found that Aplin's version comes out favorably. The Aitken version feels dated and rather wooden, where Aplin's dialog, for example, has a far more natural flow to it—at least to my modern ears. The notes, too, seem to be superior in the Hesperus publication, being more frequent, and somewhat more expansive.

As I stated at the outset, this is merely an initial evaluation of the kind that I perform for myself every time I set out to read a work in translation. My opinion of the book may change as I read it closely and thoroughly, but there is every indication that this will be a successful and enjoyable read. ( )

Imagine my delight when I received this slim volume published by Hesperus. Hesperus is, according to their blog, "a small London based independent publisher committed to their motto ET REMOTISSIMA PROPE - or bringing near what is far. That is to say, introducing to the English speaking world authors who have been unjustly neglected or inaccessible. They seem to specialise in short classic works - no more than 100 pages.

Adam Thirlwell - named by Granta magazine in 2003 as one of Britain's twenty best young novelists - provides a Foreword to this edition and Hugh Aplin provides the Introduction. Aplin studied Russian at the University of East Anglia and is now the Head of Russian at Westminster School, London. He has translated Chekhov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgeneve and Zamyatin for Hesperus previously.

I have not read Pushkin to date, I am ashamed to say. He is described on the inside back flap as Russia's greatest poet. (Note to self....put Eugene Onegin on the TBR pile.) The Tales of Belkin is, however, prose and Pushkin wrote them in 1830 just before he got married. This was his first work of prose fiction and he published it anonymously the following year. Verse was more prestigious in those days apparently. Pushkin's goals with prose fiction were "Precision and brevity..." But more importantly he wanted to challenge notions about fiction.

The Tales of Belkin was originally published with an introduction by the Publisher, known only as A.P. attributing the tales to Ivan Petrovich Belkin. The introduction includes a letter from a neighbour in response to a request for a biography of Belkin from the Publisher. Belkin is described by the neighbour as inexperienced, soft-hearted, weak and perniciously remiss when it came to managing his estate. He also described him as leading a moderate life - avoiding excess and when it came to women, exhibiting a bashfulness that was "truly maidenly".

And so we are presented with The Tales of Belkin - five short stories and two other small pieces - The History of the village of Goryukhino and A Fragment. Does our reading of them change if we don't know Pushkin is writing them? How much of our reading is informed by what we think we know of the author? The tales seem simple enough - stories of thwarted love or deceived maidens. I found myself checking the notes which are by and large very helpful. However in the process I smiled wryly to myself that I was probably doing exactly what Pushkin was rebelling against most - checking for authenticity/scholarship. What makes a good story? Or indeed a good storyteller? Is there such a thing as a new story or are there only a certain number of stories in this world and it depends on the storyteller and how well they tell them? What does the reader bring to a story? His or her own experience is as important as the storyteller in determining what they find in the story.

For my money, and let's be honest - the book cost me nothing but this review - I enjoyed the story of The Undertaker the most. This story was written nearly 200 years ago and yet nothing changes about the world and the characters we find therein.....An Undertaker moves house and is surprised when he is not as happy as he thought he might be if he changed location. He drinks cups of tea endlessly and is morose as befits "his sombre trade". His neighbour, the cobbler, comes over with an invitation to dinner the next day. They chew the fat - "How's business?" ....."Can't complain..." and so on. The dinner is a great success - many toasts are proposed - to the health of the hosts, to the health of the guests, to the health of Moscow, to the health of the guilds, to the health of the masters, to the health of the apprentices and finally to the health of the customers....and this is when things turn sour for the undertaker. Everyone finds this intensely amusing in his case but he feels insulted and goes home cranky...."In what way is my trade more dishonourable than others?.... Is the undertaker a pantomime clown?" he bleats as his domestic helps him get ready for bed. He declares to the Universe that rather than invite his neighbours to a housewarming, he invites the Orthodox dead and then falls into bed in a drunken stupor. You'll have to read the rest...but I can guarantee, it's most entertaining.

Thanks Hesperus for an informative and delightful introduction to Pushkin. ( )

This edition of the Tales of Belkin has been a great pleasure to read. Not only because of the story themselves - which are timeless little masterpieces - but also because of the insightful foreword by Adam Thirlwell. He puts Pushkin's work in an interesting perspective (both in the history of Russian literature and among Pushkin's other work) and this made me read the stories in a different manner than the last time I read the book. It definitely added to the joy of reading. I'm not sure which story is my favourite - but I especially liked "The Shot" because it reminded me of other Russian prose, only with the typical Pushkin tone added to it. Definitely a world classic! ( )

The other reviews here describe the stories, so I won't bother much.
Suffice it to say I have long been lectured by my Russian friends that it was time I read Pushkin, for as people say about Shakespeare "all human life is here". The friends could quote long chunks of his poetry by heart at the drop of a hat. Who can do that anymore? Not being a great fan of poetry it took me time to discover Pushkin's poetry but when I did, I read and reread it and even in translation I loved it.

After that I don't know what took me so long to get to Pushkin's prose. Anyway when this book arrived in the post, it seemed so slight compared with the usual Russian novel, I wasn't sure what I would find. But I read it and marvelled. It's a long time since I read many short stories (probably my teens with Maupassant and Maugham) but these "new" stories rekindled my interest in the form. It's understandable that they changed the face of fiction because they are rather down to earth and humorous. Each story has its own suspense and a fantastic coincidence. I spent a long time pondering about the end of "The Blizzard".

I think I enjoyed "The History of the Village of Goryukhino" most. Pushkin's at first mocking attempt to make a history out of a village with no significant "historical" events, shows that even with uninspiring material, a great story can emerge about "ordinary" life. ( )

When Alexander Pushkin wrote The Tales of Belkin, verse still made up the bulk of serious Russian literature, and this marked Pushkin's first prose fiction publication. According to translator Hugh Aplin's introduction to the Hesperus Press edition of the Tales, Pushkin didn't think much of many of his prose predecessors, and he put his criticism—in favor of "[p]recision and brevity”—into action here. "What seemed to the vast majority of Pushkin's critical contemporaries to be mere bagatelles, presaging the waning of the great poet's powers, were arguably a crucial turning-point in Russian letters, when a verse-dominated literary world was shown ways it could develop the prose fiction that was to make it so influential over the subsequent century and more," he explains.

Superficially, it's easy to see the Tales as bagatelles, and they are certainly charming. They consist of six stories ostensibly written by the late I.P. Belkin, who heard them from various individuals he met. His collection, where names have been changed to protect the innocent, but places have not, "solely through a lack of imagination," has been published posthumously along with a description of the author by an anonymous former neighbor. That's at least three layers of remove for each story: the fictional publisher, the fictional author, and the fictional author's acquaintance. And of course many of those acquaintances had the stories told to them as well.

Pushkin uses as many interpositions of fiction as possible to make these seem like true stories, and each interposition leaves its own residue. Each story has its own voice as it has its own original "teller," but Belkin is always there as well. In "Mistress Peasant," the story of a Russian Romeo and Juliet, it is only he who can be addressing "[t]hose of my readers who have never lived in the country." What about earlier, describing our Juliet's father, who "was, withal, considered a man not stupid, for he was the first landowner of his province to have the sense to mortgage his estate with the Board of Trustees, a move which at the time seemed extremely complex and bold"? The irony could be Belkin's, but seems more likely Pushkin's own. On the other hand, what of the totally false suspense in "The Blizzard," which deliberately withholds information known to all three narrators? Here, is it Belkin, presenting the story in its most exciting light, or was that how it was related to him by some other talented storyteller?

Ultimately, Pushkin is behind it all and is well in control. He gives us more of Belkin in "The History of the Village of Goryukhino," published later. That a man whose only reading material is an old letter-writer should be credited with these half-dozen delicious stories!

The FTC, deeming a subjective evaluation of a work of art an endorsement, compels me to disclose that Hesperus Press gave me a copy of their new edition of The Tales of Belkin. ( )

My first experience with Alexander Pushkin, I now want to run out and read more. I didn't know what to expect but I did not expect to laugh out loud as I read the stories.

Pushkin is truly masterful in his tale telling, depicting village life in Russia with spare description yet resplendent in meaning. They are simple but also critical and charged with satire. I so thoroughly enjoyed this collection. The stories are about the interactions between villagers or the landed gentry or both. They range from postmasters to tales of revenge and true love. In each story there is always a moment of unbelievable coincidence, so unbelievable that it only seems right.

The font in this edition is a bit small and difficult to read but truly worth the experience. The stories are beautifully crafted and almost modern in their cadence and phrasing. ( )

This collection is a set of stories within a story. The preface, by "the editors," incorporates a letter from a friend of the eponymous Belkin, describing the dead writer's character, history and interests. The stories are themselves said to be retellings as told to Belkin by various and sundry figures.

The first story, "The Shot," describes a duel between Sylvio and Count ***. The narrator, part of a regiment of hussars, meets Sylvio who lodges in the same town in which the regiment bivouacs. One day at Silvio's house the host is insulted, but Sylvio does not demand satisfaction. Why, asks the narrator? Is he a coward? It turns out that Sylvio, like a bride to be, has been saving himself for an unfinished duel. Sylvio tells our narrator how it started. But then Sylvio is gone, the conclusion to the story uncertain, until the former hussar moves to a remote village. Here he bumps into the Count *** himself, from whom he gets the end of the story. Sylvio, you see, had found the Count too uncaring about his own personal safety during the initial encounter, so he waited until some more propitious time. As soon as he gets word of the Count's marriage, he goes to see him, he is still owed his shot after all. He depends on finding the Count's former attitude toward his personal safety, now that he has a wife, substantially changed.

"The Blizzard" is about the doomed elopement of a the young Maria Gavrilovna and her unsuitable suitor, Vladimir Nikolayevitch. On the appointed night it snows. Maria and her maid take off for the church, but poor Vladimir, traveling in a sleigh drawn by a single horse, disastrously loses his way. He never finds the church in the blizzard. The conclusion seems a little dated in our day and age, but the reader does take away a certain satisfaction that the nubile Maria will not suffer.

"The Undertaker," is the story of a mortician who moves to a new district and is there invited by neighbors to a feast. He is insulted during the evening and this leads to some interesting alcohol-fueled encounters that border on the delusional.

"The Postmaster" I found to be the most affecting tale of the five. A traveler passing through a provincial village gets a glimpse of a postmaster's budding daughter. He is quite taken with her and she kisses him when showing him to his freshly horsed carriage. (The postmaster is a dealer in such post horses.) Later the narrator comes back through town again and is told the story of the girl's seduction and abduction by a rake. The postmaster is distraught. His neat little shop, and his personal hygiene, go simply to pieces. We all know after all what happens to little girls who are seduced by rakes, and he goes to his early death fearing the worst. But the narrator has more story to relate.

The final story, "The Mistress Peasant," is the story of a young provincial woman who disguises herself as a peasant in order that she might arrange to run across the son of the neighboring landowner, about whom all her servants are talking. He's handsome, rich, etc. She is driven to this extremity by the fact that their fathers are not on speaking terms. She's a little devilish, but not improper. When the fathers reconcile, and a dinner is given that will be attended by the son, with whom she's already had clandestine but innocent encounters, she must resort to expedients that do not allow the young man to recognize her. It's all merry fun and innocent carprice.

I enjoyed THE TALES OF BELKIN immensely and recommend it. You don't need a knowledge in Russian lit. The stories are themselves the perfect introduction. My thanks to the Hesperus Press for producing this wonderful (and handsome) little book.