The Economist

The EconomistAugust 4th 2018 Books and arts 69

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A

S ANYONE who has tried (and failed) to

crack a joke in a foreign language

knows humour is the marker of linguistic

mastery. The only thingharder than crack-

ing jokes may be translating them. Perhaps

this is why Mikhail Zoshchenko remains a

lesser-known Russian writer among Eng-

lish-language readers despite beingone of

the Soviet Union’s most beloved humor-

ists a satirist in the best traditions of Gogol.

Boris Dralyuk’s new translation of “Senti-

mental Tales” a collection of Zosh-

chenko’s stories from the 1920s is a delight

that brings the author’s wit to life.

Zoshchenko’swriting career began in

the wake ofthe Russian revolution follow-

ing stints in the army during the first world

war and on the side of the Red Army in the

Russian civil war. He became popular dur-

ing the 1920s for tales that tackled the con-

tradictions of everyday life during the

short-lived liberalism of the New Eco-

nomic Policy. As Mr Dralyuk notes in his in-

troduction Zoshchenko “hid behind so

many masks that it was impossible to de-

termine whom exactly he was mocking.”

His contemporaries wondered whose

“side” he was on.

Zoshchenko writesaround rather than

about the revolution. He observes the mi-

nute miseries of the individual life that

transcend collective traumas. “As for the

limp—which is anyhow hardly notice-

able—that’s just a sore foot” he writes of

one of his heroes. “It dates back to the tsar-

ist era.” He notes the wild swings of for-

tune that shift the structure of society: a

former landowner is reduced to begging

“thanks to the new democratic way of life”

he deadpans. And he never loses sight of

the enduring traits of human nature

which—paceMarxist ideology—remain re-

sistant to changes in material conditions.

What results is less a dystopia than a cut-

ting send up of the promised utopia. “And

will it really be that wondrous this future

life? That’s another question” he muses.

“For the sake of his own peace of mind the

author chooses to believe that this future

life will be just as full of nonsense and rub-

bish as the one we’re living.”

Such scepticism proved prescient with

respect to his own fate. The turn to the offi-

cial aesthetic doctrine of Socialist Realism

in the 1930s forced Zoshchenko into cre-

ative compromises such as participating

in a hagiographic book about the construc-

tion of the White Sea Canal by Gulag la-

bourers. Though he survived the Stalinist

terror himself he fell foul of the authorities

in 1946 and was expelled from the Soviet

Writer’s Union. He was rehabilitated only

after Stalin’s death—but upset the party

again by proclaiming his innocence in an

appearance before foreign students a year

later. Zoshchenko’s literary output never

recovered from the persecution and he

died impoverished and depressed. Yet

after his death reprints of his early works

flew off the shelves—an ending fitting of

one of his tales which often leave the read-

er uncertain whether to chuckle helplessly

at life’s cruel absurdity or succumb to its in-

effable sadness.

In “Sentimental Tales” Zoshchenko

trains his sights on the literary scene itself.

Assuming the voice of Ivan Kolenkorov a

flailing writer struggling to fulfil the role of

the new model Sovietartist Zoshchenko

stumbles and bumbles through dreadful

descriptions turning intentional inepti-

tude into art. The metafictional device

reads as delightfully modern: imagine a be-

loved sit-com seton the outskirtsof the ear-

ly Soviet Union. Zoshchenko is a master of

stylised voices a subtle observer of lan-

guage and the ways it reflects social status

and Mr Dralyuk manages to capture both

his irony and his lyricism. Following his

equally magical renderings of Isaac Ba-

bel’s “Red Cavalry” and “Odessa Stories”

in recent years Mr Dralyuk has positioned

himself as a master of the era’s language

injecting welcome new life into an under-

appreciated school of Russian literature. 7

Mikhail Zoshchenko

Satire and the

Soviet Union

Sentimental Tales.By Mikhail Zoshchenko.

Translated by Boris Dralyuk. Columbia

University Press; 207 pages; $30 and £24

A

CCOUNTS of the last years of British

rule in India in the 1930s and 1940s

typically dwell on the actions of powerful

figures in Delhi and London. Rival inde-

pendence campaigners and especially

British politicians preoccupied by war in

Europe helped to cause immense suffering

in India. Indians got their freedom but only

after a wartime famine in Bengal killed at

least 2m. Partition as Pakistan broke away

displaced millions more and led to deaths

of hundreds of thousands.

A few individuals had outsized influ-

ence on this. The Harrow- and Cambridge-

educated Jawaharlal Nehru co-led agita-

tion for independence and became India’s

prime minister for 17 years. Urbane elo-

quent and an Anglophile he quipped he

was the last Englishman to rule the coun-

try. Another Anglophile Muhammad Ali

Jinnah did most to bring about partition.

Winston Churchill’s wartime government

drew heavily on economic and military

help from India but he bitterly resisted its

freedom. His peacetime successors over-

saw a rushed end to imperial rule.

These rulers and liberators appear in

Deborah Baker’s narrative but remain

mostly in the background. The result is a re-

freshingly novel account. She focuses on

smaller but nevertheless noteworthy fry:

mostly characters entering adulthood

passingtheir time in Calcutta or the Hima-

layan foothills—occasionally in Lon-

don—as war and independence loom.

These are poets mountaineers scientists

romantics nationalist blowhards police

informers communist spies and forlorn

lovers. Some are Britons half-hearted ser-

vants of empire. They interact with and are

influenced byjournalists politicians and

thinkers who are eager for self-govern-

ment but unsure how their lives will

change because of it.

The most engrossing of all the charac-

ters is Sudhindranath Datta a young

“handsome and quick-witted” Bengali. He

knew his family had prospered through

alliances with the occupiers. He also be-

lieved English law and literature had

brought profound benefits to India. Datta

presided over an “adda” a regular gather-

ing of thinkers and writers who mixed “se-

riousness and silliness” as they discussed

culture and politics. He also founded Pari-

chay a literary and scientific journal that

became an outlet for Bengali men (it was

almost always men) of letters.

Indian independence

Midnight at the

margins

The Last Englishmen: Love War and the

End of Empire. By Deborah Baker. Graywolf

Press; 352 pages; $28. Chatto & Windus; £25