Voroshilovgrad

Voroshilovgrad, an hallucinatory novel by Ukrainian Serhij Zhadan novelist and poet Serhij Zhadan, was written several years before the Russian invasion of the country. And yet, the book is rife with a feeling of the precariousness of the Ukrainian state in the post-Soviet era. Our protagonist Herman has a steady if somewhat shady job in a large city. But he gets a call from an old friend that his brother has suddenly disappeared, presumably to Amersterdam, urging Herman to come out to his home town and "take care of business" in his brother's absence. The "business" turns out to be a small but profitable gas station on the outskirts of the town, located on Ukraine's eastern steppes, now known as Luhansk but formerly known, during the show more Soviet Era, as Voroshilovgrad. The station is under seige from mysterious forces who want to force Herman to sell it, perhaps (although exact reasons remain obscure) because there is natural gas to be found in the area. There is barely a character in the story who is not mysterious and rough around the edges. Stories of the past are always blurred by secrets and mythology. The representatives from the federal government who make periodic appearances are more likely to be gangsters than legitimate government officials. Or else they're both. Travels across the empty stretches of this country are always hazardous. The people Herman runs into could be from anywhere, and the sights that pass before his eyes, especially at sundown and after dark, swirl into hallucinations and dreams.

Gradually, though, Herman begins to find a sense of purpose as he gains a sense of comradeship with the old friends he reconnects with, and through the stories they tell him. What he'd thought would be a quick in and out to "take care of business" before returning to his old life becomes a commitment to this off-kilter community. At one point, an old soccer team, on which Herman had been a young player on a team of old veterans, reassembles for a rowdy game against a local rival. Later, Herman comes upon the graves of some of these teammates in the local cemetery. Had he been playing soccer with ghosts? It is central to the essence of the novel that this question is never taken up again. Herman seems to simply shrug the discovery off as irrelevant.

The writing is often laced with multiple metaphors that don't quite work. A metal rod brought down on the hood of a car makes a sound like to tolling of Easter Bells. Spider webs described as floating in the air, as if anchoring a metal fence to the ground. The come, at times, so fast and furious that eventually I could only decide that the effect was purposeful, as if telling us that no impressions can be trusted. Although the metaphors can also be precise: "He was giving me an angry, prickly look, but it was somehow detached from his personality, as though he was wearing anger-tinted contact lenses."

The overall theme of the book to me seemed clearly to be the struggles of these far flung areas of Ukraine to make sense of their post-Soviet existence, already several decades in the past but still casting a difficult shadow over everything. It's obviously no coincidence that the book's title harkens back to the town's Soviet name. And then there is this seeming (from our current remove and perspective) foreshadowing of events to come:

"It was obvious what Ernst was thinking. Ernst was thinking, 'Something bad is going to happen, something real bad is definitely going to happen. For now, nobody can really tell--they all think that the worst is behind us and that the storm has passed. But that's not true at all.' Ernst was very famlliar with the feeling, with the sense of impending danger. It was coming, all right, and there was no0 way to avoid it. They'd have to run this gauntlet one way or another. There would be no way to sped the process up of avoid it altogether. All you could do was look the ominous beast in the eye and wait. Its terrible snout would sniff you for a while, then it'd just walk away, leaving fear an stench behind. Ernst almost immediately had a flashback to when he once felt the rotten breath of brewing trouble. He recalled that trapped feeling that filled his lungs, he recalled that seep-seated fear that encroaches upon new territory like swollen rivers in March. . . . "

Often, reading this novel is like stepping through thin ice and falling into a dream. But the sense of time and place is solid, and the current of hope and compassion carried me along. Highly recommended. show less

Back when I was first starting my Global Challenge, trying to find a book for each country, I asked my boyfriend which book I should read for Ukraine, considering he and his family are Ukrainian. He lent me this one. He'd never read it, but he liked Serhiy Zhadan—he listened to his music and had met him once or twice (for a fairly large country, Ukraine is also pretty small, if you get my meaning). So I took the book and proceeded to not read it for several months.

Then Ukraine was invaded. My boyfriend's family imploded; friends and relatives were in peril, suddenly a week without texts wasn't just someone forgetting to write, it was something terrifying, something so much bigger. They worked to send supplies and aid over. We went to show more protests and fundraisers. And, for several more months, I didn't read this book.

I don't know what finally made me open it up, but I'm glad I did. In Voroshilovgrad—the title itself referencing the Russified name of a place now called Luhansk—Serhiy Zhadan writes of a Ukraine which is at once living and dead, simultaneously dying and being resurrected. He describes broken asphalt and train tracks that go nowhere, wandering dogs, endless wheat fields and sun-bleached negatives where portraits of Lenin once hung. It feels wrong to say this is eerily prescient, presaging the now-nearly-obliterated state of many of these places in Eastern Ukraine since the war began... It feels wrong because all of this really started long before 2022 or 2014 or even 1991, and so in a way Zhadan is observing the past just as much as he is telling the future.

I've been vague about what Voroshilovgrad actually is, and it's basically a Ukrainian odyssey, a road novel where the road just keeps bringing you back to the place you were trying to leave. There is an overarching narrative, but it's very loose, and you find yourself caring less and less about it as the story moves along: the real meat here is the series of surreal episodes our main character Herman experiences. A midnight soccer match with ghosts, a wedding at a village of Stundist smugglers, a drink of cognac with a psychopathic capitalist, an auspicious birth in the middle of the steppe. It is, by turns, contemplative, hilarious, mysterious, erotic, tense, depressing, and absurd.

The writing here is superb. Really, really wonderful. Zhadan is a master of simile.

Here is how he describes taking shelter in a building during a rainstorm: "...as if we were diving into a tin cookie jar while kids happily drummed on it with sticks."

Or his description of the desolate cornfields: "...yellow cornstalks that swayed in the wind like hangers in an empty closet..."

And this lovely sentence about a man entering a house where the main character has been cooped up for a while: "There was fresh air nestled into his leather jacket, as though he had come carrying scraps of an October morning in his pockets."

Just wonderful. I should mention the translation, though. It is, in the broad strokes, magnificent—perfectly representing Zhadan's expansive, textured, visual prose—but sloppy in the details. Missing punctuation, duplicate words, and omitted phrases are common. There are a few sentences that are totally botched and garbled beyond comprehensibility. Deep Vellum is an indie publisher and a nonprofit and I respect their mission (and in fact I did buy two more books from them after I finished this) but come on guys, hire a copyeditor, please!

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Global Challenge: Ukraine show less

If Voroshilovgrad is well written (which it is), provides fascinating insights into Ukraine (which it does), and supplies appealing characters (which it did), why did I find myself more detached and disappointed as my reading progressed?

First, it seemed there were annoying minor inconsistencies in the text. As this could possibly be attributed to translation issues, I wasn't overly concerned. A much larger and consistent concern related to plot and structure. Many incidents seemed to be clumsily introduced with only minor connection to the overall plot. At times, it seemed the author just had some interesting anecdotes/scenes that he wanted to get in simply because they were interesting anecdotes/scenes. They were, but stringing a show more number of those in a row started to feel like a loosely connected collection of short stories.

Another minor annoyance were the sexual situations which often seemed artificial and contributed little if anything to plot or character development. Speaking of character development, it seemed some characters were introduced, explored, and then largely forgotten.

I know its pretentious and ubiquitous for me to say the book needed editing. But, I believe it could have been a much more impressive work with some editorial assistance. Zhadan obviously has enormous talent and has had fascinating life experiences. Moreover, his cultural observations are much needed in the West.

Definitely worth reading but not a polished piece of fiction. show less

3.7 stars. Voroshilovgrad is a dreamily brutal and brutally dreamy novel about a youngish Ukrainian man who returns to his native places after his brother, owner of a service station, disappears. This trippy novel is both bizarre and lovely, with a combination of all sorts of odd elements, from a reference to the yellow brick road to finding shelter in the Lenin room of a children's camp during a rain storm.

(There's more on my blog, here.)

In trying to save his brother's business (a gas station) Herman encounters thugs, gypsies, refugees, smugglers, ghosts, and various kinds of fanatics.Life is not easy in post-USSR Ukraine.

Een enorm vrolijke reputatie heeft de Donbas, de oostelijke regio van Oekraïne, niet. Al eeuwenlang wordt het gebied bevochten door volkeren met expansiedrang, in de Sovjet-tijd was het een centrum van zware industrie en mijnbouw, en ook de recente oorlog van Rusland tegen Oekraïne is in dit gebied begonnen. Die somberheid is ook aanwezig in Vorosjylovhrad, een boek van de Oekraïense schrijver Serhi Zjadan, dat zich afspeelt in deze regio, overigens wel al in de tijd voordat de problemen met Rusland begonnen. Toch weet hij ook kleur en vrolijkheid in zijn verhaal te brengen.

Serhi Zjadan (1974) heeft enkele romans gepubliceerd, waarvan tot nu toe alleen Vorosjylovhrad in het Nederlands is vertaald. Voor zijn andere werk ben je show more aangewezen op Engelse of Duitse vertalingen. Naast schrijver is Zjadan bovenal ook dichter, iets wat je terugziet in de poëtische stijl waarin Vorosjylovhrad geschreven is. Daarnaast is hij muzikant in een punkband, is hij actief in de pro-Europese beweging en is hij een promotor van de Oekraïense taal. Vorosjylovhrad is in 2018 verfilmd als “The wild fields”. De foto op de voorzijde van de Nederlandse uitgave is een screenshot uit die film.

Het boek draait om de 33-jarige Herman, die is opgegroeid in de Donbas, maar daar al jaren geleden is vertrokken en een leven heeft opgebouwd in de stad Charkov. Tot op een nacht een compagnon van zijn broer hem opbelt en hem om hulp vraagt. De broer blijkt met de noorderzon vertrokken en Hermans hulp is nodig bij het tankstation dat deze broer met zijn compagnon bestierde. Herman denkt deze zaak in een weekendje op te kunnen lossen, maar het loopt anders.

De stijl van dit boek is een stijl waar ik aan moest wennen, maar waar ik uiteindelijk ook van gecharmeerd raakte. Enerzijds is het een schelmenroman, een avonturenboek vol met testosteron en stoere praatjes. Er wordt gevochten, uitgedaagd, gezopen, gescholden en gevreeën zonder al te veel romantiek of sentiment. Tegelijkertijd is het ook een lyrische lofzang op de omgeving, het licht, de natuur. Dat wordt weer afgewisseld met surrealistische koortsdromen, waarin overledenen een voetbalteam kunnen vormen en waarin treinen rijden over doodlopende sporen. Die grens tussen ‘werkelijkheid’ en koortsdroom is niet altijd duidelijk en wordt ook niet uitgelegd.

Door deze mix van stijlen voelt het boek als een achtbaan. Af en toe schiet het vreselijk uit de bocht, zeker naar het einde van het boek toe dat enkele passages bevat met vreemde perspectiefbreuken, alsof ze er ingeplakt zijn vanuit een andere tekst. Ook had ik moeite met de eendimensionale manier waarop de meeste vrouwen worden neergezet. De charme zit hem in de manier waarop Zjadan de Donbas en zijn inwoners kleur geeft. Dat doet hij heel letterlijk: op elke pagina komen verschillende kleuren voor, waarbij zwart het duidelijk wint. Maar ook figuurlijk: hij zet kleurrijke (ok, iets zwartgallige) karakters neer, die je in je hart kan sluiten vanwege hun loyaliteit aan elkaar en tegen de boze buitenwereld. show less

Schon vor über zehn Jahren wurde dieses Buch geschrieben. Man merkt zum Beispiel, dass von den handelnden Personen noch niemand ein Smartphone hat. Aber erst jetzt, im Zuge des unsäglichen Kriegs und der Auszeichnung des Autors mit dem Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels, wird das Buch wieder mehr gelesen. Anders als "Mesopotamien" fand ich dieses Buch gut lesbar, wenn auch nicht gerade stringent. Phantasie und Wahrheit gehen ineinander über, etwa bei einem Fußballspiel, bei dem sich später herausstellt, dass von den Mitspielern eigentlich keiner mehr lebt. Man fragt sich öfter wie Hermann selbst auf Seite 321: "In der Tat - wie war es wirklich gewesen?" Diese überbordende Handlung ist aber nicht wirklich irritierend, man show more kann gut folgen, was vor allem an den klaren Figuren liegt, dem Priester, dem Versehrten, Olga, Katja...
Es geht um Hermann, der sich um die Tankstelle seines Bruders kümmern soll. Jener ist wohl nach Amsterdam abgehauen. Hermann fährt also in den Donbas und kümmert sich. Und aus einem kurzen "Vorbeischauen" werden Wochen und Monate. Das Buch ist in meinen Augen ein Männerbuch, was sich an einer eher harten Sprache zeigt, die auch nicht mit dem N- oder dem Z-Wort spart. Zudem gibt es viel Sex, der eher so ist, wie Männer es sich wünschen. Auch die Frauenfiguren sind eher so, wie Männer sich Frauen vorstellen. Die Botschaft aber (Dankbarkeit, Zusammenhalt) ist universell.
Ich mochte die Sprache auch gern. Metaphern wie "Anfang Oktober sind die Tage kurz wie eine Fußballerkarriere" fand ich sehr amüsant. Ich mochte auch viele Szenen, etwa das Zusammentreffen mit den Mongolen oder die Szene mit dem Feuerzeug des Priesers ganz am Ende. show less