Financial Times Europe - 04.04.2020 - 05.04.2020

4 April/5 April 2020 ★ FT Weekend 7

A

lexander Pushkin thrived

on confinement. At the

start of his career, a friend’s

elderlyandobstinate valet

oncelockedhim intoa

room, sayinghe would release him only

whenhe completeda narrative poem

for which he had already been paid but

had long been procrastinating over;

once past his initial indignation, Push-

kinduly got carriedaway andwrote all

through the night.

Something similar — but on a grander

scale—happenedaround10 yearslater.

In autumn 1830, Pushkin was confined

by a cholera outbreak to the village of

Boldino, hisfather’s remote country

estate in southeastern Russia. Desper-

ate to return to Moscow to marry, he

wrote to hisfiancée:“There arefive

quarantine zones between here and

Moscow, and I would have to spend

fourteen days in each. Do the maths and

imagine what a foul mood I am in.”

Pushkin went on complaining bitterly

but, withnothing else todo,hepro-

duced an astonishing number of mas-

terpieces — short stories, short plays,

lyric andnarrative poems, andthelast

two chapters of his verse novelEugene

Onegin—in a mere three months.

Almost allRussians takeitasreadthat

Pushkin (1799-1837) is their greatest

writer. To others this can seem puzzling:

are Russians not aware ofthe greatness

of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky? Flaubert

famously complained to Turgenev that

Pushkin was“flat”—“ilestplat,votre

poète.”And this complaint isunder-

standable — most translations ofPush-

kinfail. Apparent simplicity isfar

harder to reproduce than obvious com-

plexity; Pushkin demands more ofa

translator than Dostoyevsky.

Today, however, we are morefortu-

nate than Flaubert. After publishingthe

late Stanley Mitchell’s outstanding

translationofOneginin2008, Penguin

Classicshave now publisheda compre-

hensiveSelectedPoetry, translatedby

Antony Wood.BothMitchellandWo od

—unlike previous translators —have

been able to bring into English allthe

important aspects ofthe original: not

onlythe paraphrasable content,but also

Pushkin’sgrace, wit and musicality.

Theresultisamoreroundedpicture

ofPushkin—in many ways the most uni-

versal ofpoets. Russianssee himas

supremely Russian, yethewasreceptive

toother cultures, translatingandadapt-

ingpassages ofShakespeare, Dante, Wal-

ter Scott andmany others. His poetry is

full ofthought, but his own beliefsnever

obtrude; almost every Russianliterary

andpoliticalmovement — modernist or

traditionalist, Communist or anti-Com-

munist,democratic or authoritarian —

has tried to claimhimas theirown.

Heshowsthatitispossible

tobebothpatrioticand

European,loyaltotradition

yetreceptivetothenew

SelectedPoetry

byAlexander

Pushkin,translated

byAntonyWood

Penguin Classics

£10.99, 336 pages

W

hy do we visit the

houses of long-dead

luminaries? Plenty ofus

drift aroundtheir

reconstructed libraries

and tables laidfor phantom suppers.

Nearly 27m visitors rubbernecked

aroundtheNationalTrust’shistoric

housesin 2 018 -19.Actual luminaries do

it too: BobDylan oncejoineda National

Trust tour ofMendips, John Lennon’s

childhoodhome in suburban Liverpool.

What are we all lookingfor?

We arebroughtcloser to understand-

ingthis“mixture ofawe, longing, desire

for inwardness and intrusive curiosity”

withLivesofHouses,a collection ofessays

editedby Hermione Lee andKate

Kennedy that satisfies the same impulse

to rootle about in other people’s homes.

Lee andKennedyhave selectedweighty

names, including Simon Armitage,

Julian Barnes andJenny Uglow,toexca-

vate the domestic lives ofpast politi-

cians, writers, artists andothers.AsLee

—adistinguishedbiographer — points

out inher own contribution, almost all

life-writers try to reimagine their sub-

jects’houses.

Thejoy ofthe book lies in the sheer

variety ofits subjects’domestic rou-

tines.Uglowflings open the doors to

Edward Lear’s villa in San Remo, where

Lear entertainedendlessguests and

wrote allthe nonsense versehe wanted,

freefrom scorn and the rigidity of19th-

century Englishsociety. By contrast,

Lucy Walker portrays a clenched—

thoughequallyhappy — mid-20thcen-

tury routine at Aldeburgh, on England’s

east coast, where Benjamin Britten and

Peter Pears lived in quiet comfort.

Seamus Perry paints the most riotous

portrait, ofWH Auden’s time in New

York’sLowerEast Sideinthe 19 50s. We

findthepoet sharingan apartment with

Chester Kallman andassortedboozy

hangers-on. This ishigh bohemia in

charmingsqualor, with batteredfurni-

ture, overflowingashtrays and a water-

colour by William Blake, a presentfrom

a patron,danglingabove the mantel-

piece.“The speed with which he could

wreckaroomwasbarelycredible, cer-

tainly dangerous,”observed oneguest.

LivesofHouses

editedby

KateKennedy

andHermioneLee

Princeton, $24.95/

£20, 304 pages

political success andfinal acceptance

into therulingclass. An intelligent and

kindly woman, Mary Anne’s attempts at

graciouslivingwere mockedopenlyby

drearily snobbishcontemporaries.

For others,home is insecure. Alucid

essaybyElleke Boehmer recallsa

strange encounter withDambudzo

Marechera—then, in 1976, abrilliant

Rhodesian(Zimbabwean)scholarship

student. Marechera lived in afield,

bashingaway at a typewriter in a tent

pitched on the banks ofthe Thames in

Oxford. Rusticatedfrom New College

for various wrongdoings, includingtry-

ingto setfire to his room, this soggy

dwellingwashislast universityhome.

Marechera, wholivedachaotic andtor-

mented life, would win the Guardian

Fiction Prize three yearslater. Hedied

in 1987 ofcomplications relatingto Aids

— but hisfate, Boehmer suggests, was

sealedin those itinerant student years.

Not allthe writingis skilled. A piece

byAlexander Masters is presentedasa

series ofinterviewswithhomelessmen

andwomen at adrop-in centre in the

south coast town ofEastbourne, a world

ripe for illumination. But this essay is

dutiful rather than necessary, its sub-

jects reduced to theirfirst names.

For compulsive carpet-treaderslike

Dylan and the rest ofus, life-writingof

thiskindhas the power to animate its

subjects in ways that Sunday afternoon

tours cannot. Lee suggests the answer to

why we haunt the houses ofothers lies

withalivingluminary: Hilary Mantel.

Inher autobiography,GivingUp the

Ghost,Mantelwrites that every place in

whichwelive represents abandoned

choices:“All your houses are haunted by

the person you might have been.”

Few ofus reach highoffice, write liter-

ary masterpieces or perform to acclaim,

but most ofus have experienced domes-

ticlife of onesortoranother.Weare

searchingfor ourselves.

HelenBarrettiseditorofFTHouse&Home

Bringing it all back home

Acollectionofeclecticessays

shedslightonthedomestic

livesofpoliticians,artistsand

writers,saysHelenBarrett

Poetry in isolation

Pushkin’swritingcanboth

rallyandreconcile.Thisfresh

translationkeepshisgraceand

witalive,saysRobertChandler

Alexander

Pushkin,

pictured in an

1827 portrait by

Orest Kiprensky,

wrote many of

his greatest

works in

confinement

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow;

Getty Images

L e K a P £

But not all homes are charmingand

not all domestic lifeisjolly. Houses are

full ofhorrors and, in this collection,

women experiencefewer oftheir sen-

sual pleasures and more ofthe drudge.

In David Cannadine’s contribution, an

anguishedClementine Churchillstalks

Chartwell, her husband’s beloved

money pit,forever tryingto economise.

Others are oppressedbythe expectat-

ions ofthe men who share their homes,

suchas Hester LynchPiozzi, in whose

Streathamhouse SamuelJohnson stayed

in times ofpersonal crisis. Rebecca Bull-

ard brings Piozzi to vivid life in her essay

on Johnson’s houses, notingthat she was

“calledfrom her bed by himfour times

in one night to supplyhim withpaper,

lest he should lose a thought”.

Particular sympathyisdue to Mary

Anne Disraeli. The sprawlingHugh-

enden Manor wasboughtbyherhus-

bandBenjamin, the Victorian-era Brit-

ishprime minister, at vast expense in

1 848 as the embodiment ofhopesfor his

TheunfinishednovelPetertheGreat’s

Africancontains witty accounts ofthe

old nobility’s imaginative ways ofcir-

cumventing Peter’s reforms. And in the

mini-epicTheBronzeHorseman, Peteris

stilloppressing Russians, even a century

after his death. In the prologue we hear

Peter say, on the banks ofthe Neva river:

FromhereweshallchastisetheSwede.

Hereweshallraiseacitadel:

Ourhaughtyneighbourshalltakeheed.

Herewehavebeenordainedtohew

AwindowontoEurope

Thepoemisoften seen as a study of

the conflict between historical necessity

and the rights ofthe individual. Anatoly

Lunacharsky, the first Bolshevik com-

missarfor enlightenment, insisted that

Pushkin was ontheside ofPeterthe

Great andprogress. Thegreat Soviet

prose writer Andrei Platonov retorted

that the everyday values representedby

Ye vgeny, a minor civilservant,mat-

terednoless tohim. Without Yevgeny,

he wrote, we would be left with“nothing

butbronze[...]andtheAdmiralty

spire wouldturn into a candlestick

beside the coffin ofthe now-destroyed

poetic human soul”.

Platonovunderstood thatPushkin is

—aboveall —amediator.He defended

the rights ofthe individual, yet under-

stood the needforapowerful state. He

wasbotha westerniser anda patriot. He

wrote at a time offierce linguistic con-

troversies. Was it acceptableto

“Frenchify”one’s Russian, or shoulda

writer use thefossilised language known

as Church Slavonic? Pushkin’s response

was to make inspired use ofevery tone

andregister availabletohim. Similarly,

his positive heroes — like Pyotr Grinyov,

the young aristocrat befriended by

Pugachev—arethose abletomove

freely between different worlds.

To Russians, Pushkin’s heroes and

heroines are enduring images, a part of

everyday discourse. Now at last, anglo-

phone readers, too, are in a position to

appreciate Pushkin’s greatness. Just as

Mitchell’sOneginsupersedes previous

Onegins,so thisSelected Poetryby

Anthony Wood supersedes all previous

translationsofPushkin’s o therverse

narratives. Wood’sTheBronzeHorseman

gives us Pushkin athis most tragic.

Count Nulin, a witty parody ofShake-

speare’sTheRapeofLucrece,showshim

athis mostlight-hearted.TheTaleofTsar

Saltan—one ofPushkin’s versefairy

tales — bounces alongwith delightful

vitality. Even withthedelicately musi-

calshortlyrics — still harder to translate

— Wood’s successrateisremarkable.

More than any other Russian writer,

Pushkin offers the hope offreedom and

reconciliation.Hislife andworkshowus

that onecanbebothpatriotic andopen-

mindedly European,loyalto tradition

yet receptive to the new. Andhislegen-

dary“Boldino Autumn”tells us what

inspiration canbereleasedby unaccus-

tomed andunwanted confinement.

RobertChandler’s‘AShortLifeofPushkin’

ispublishedbyPushkinPress.Hehas

translated‘TheCaptain’sDaughter’for

NYRBClassics

In his later work, Pushkin treats dark,

difficult material(obsessive madness,

insoluble sociopolitical conflict)with

grace and clarity. And he has written

with unparalleled understanding about

the vicious schismsbroughtaboutby

every attempt to modernise Russian

society. His perceptions are as applica-

ble to the reformsofMikhail Gorbachev,

BorisYeltsinandVladimir Putinas to

those introduced by Peter the Great.

These splitsfollow a similar pattern.

Russia’s vastness impedes communic-

ations, breeding general social and cul-

tural inertia; attempts at reform from

above meet withresistance; the authori-

ties then resort toforce, alienating

much ofthe population. In the 17th cen-

tury, Patriarch Nikon’s attempts to

reform RussianOrthodoxritualled to

thefirst such split. In his historical novel

TheCaptain’sDaughter,Pushkin writes

sympatheticallyabout Yemelyan Puga-

chev, the leader ofamajor peasant

rebellion that drew much ofits support

from the breakaway sects known as

“Old Believers”. At the same time, he

vividly evokes the rebellion’sghastly

consequences. The novel’s mostfamous

sentence is a prayer:“God spare usfrom

the sight ofRussian revolt — senseless,

mercilessRussianrevolt.”

Thenextschism was occasionedby

Peter the Great — afigure Pushkin

returnedto repeatedlythroughouthis

life. In his narrative poem“Poltava”,

Pushkin presents Peter as a warrior-

hero, winningadecisive victory over the

Swedishempire in 1709 andso ensuring

Russia’s survival as a European power.

A

ta time in which wefind ourselves ata

near total loss for words, in which we

rely on terms such as“unprece-

dented” or “extraordinary” to articu-

late our sense of bewilderment and

despair at the current situation, it is reassuring to

know that we can stillturn to the great poets who,

with their talent of turbocharginglanguage, have

invariably been able to express what the rest ofus

find to be ineffable.

Poetry is the language that we reach for when

everyday expressionsfail us. A poem need not just

be somethingthat we wheel out at milestone

moments such as weddings andfunerals. Read

daily, poetry offers a kind ofmental and spiritual

balm that can help usforget, or alternatively make

sense of, what troubles us.

It is hardly surprising, then, that the coronavirus

crisis has prompted an outburst ofverse —from the

sharing of lyrical favourites to the daily broadcast

ofa poem on the BBC’s Today programme. In

moments ofloneliness or solitude — something

with which every one of us has recently become all

toofamiliar — a poem can help us connect with

other mindsandremindus that we are not alone.

Ted Hughes’ philosophy was that poetry “isa

universal language in which we can all hope to

meet”. When we have nobody to talk to, there are

few more comforting things to do than pick up a

book ofverse and break bread with the brilliant

dead(or, ofcourse, the living laureates).

And now, as we have become confined within our

homes, we can rely on the visual richness ofpoetry

to transport us to the naturalworld. WB Yeats takes

us backtoachildhoodhauntin “TheLakeIsleof

Innisfree”; Shelley lets us explore undiscovered

lands in the company ofhis intrepid“Alastor”.

Countless otherworkscanconnectustocountless

other memories, so that we become like

Wordsworth recalling hisfield ofdaffodils in his

“inward eye”.

Theinfinite variety ofpoetry allows each indi-

vidual tofind the right poem to offer them the right

kind of consolation. Some will be reassured by

uplifting, spirited lines such as Maya Angelou’s

“Life Doesn’t Frighten Me”.

In terms of poetry suitable for a lockdown, when

many ofus might be yearningfor the solace ofa

natural world which,for now, remains off-limits, I

would recommend “O Solitude!” by John Keats and

“I Watched a Blackbird”by Thomas Hardy — espe-

cially suitablefor Easter.“Spring”by Gerard

Manley Hopkins and Shakespeare’s “When daffo-

dils begin to peer”are otherseasonal treats.

When addressing anxieties andovercoming

fears, look to “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver or for

when we are allowed to see afriend again:“The

Pleasures of Friendship” by Stevie Smith. To banish

any presentgloom, enjoy the humour ofAdrian

Mitchell in“CeliaCelia” orto sharewithachild:

“The Land ofCounterpane”by Robert Louis Ste-

venson, who was stuckindoorsduringchildhood.

Apersonalfavourite is“‘Hope’is the thingwith

feathers”by Emily Dickinson:

“Hope”isthethingwithfeathers—

Thatperchesinthesoul—

Andsingsthetunewithoutthewords—

Andneverstops—atall—

Andsweetest—intheGale—isheard—

Andsoremustbethestorm—

ThatcouldabashthelittleBird

Thatkeptsomanywarm—

I’vehearditinthechillestland—

AndonthestrangestSea—

Yet—never—inExtremity,

Itaskedacrumb—ofme.

AllieEsiriistheeditorof‘APoemforEveryDayofthe

Year’and‘APoemforEveryNightoftheYear’(both

Macmillan). A longer list ofher lockdown poetry

choicescanbefoundatft.com.TheDickinsonpoemis

courtesyofthePoetryFoundation

LockdownreadingWhatverse

shouldweturntointhesetroubling

times? AllieEsiri offerssomeuplifting

andenlighteningsuggestions