Tag: Russian

  • Short Story Review: “The Autopsy” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya (Translated, from the Russian, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.)

    (The short story “The Autopsy” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya appeared in the August 28th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (You know there are SPOILERS, right?)

    Photograph by Tereza Zelenková for The New Yorker

    First of all, I do want to give credit and say thank you to the Fiction Editor at The New Yorker, for exposing me to another Russian author. (I haven’t read this much Russian literature since I was a freshman theatre major.) In the writers of late, I have found this very interesting dynamic in their storytelling, where they take a pragmatic and a fantasifull world, and then combine them in a seamless fold of a believable surrealism.

    “The Autopsy” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya continues this form. It is a simple story that moves between a coroner, a mother, and her son. The storytelling is impressive, and with a few lines, I was pulled into this piece. The economy of words, simple yet pushing the story forward, lulls the reader into the throws of this very pragmatic world, first starting with a coroner. Then the story shifts to a mother who is looking for her missing son. Again, the beautiful simple language tells us of her wrenching, difficult life story, and the heartbreaking love she has for her son. Then the story shifts to the son’s perspective, and again we are betwixt by the magic of these words, though the language stays in it’s realistic form, we now move into an ethereal realm. All leading to the final section, and a completion of this story that leaves us feeling that this journey has fulfilled its purpose.

    I loved this story. I loved how it ran me through these lives, how they were connected to each other, and how strong and painful love and loving someone can be. There was a tragedy to this love, but also a dignity to loving someone so much. I appreciated that Ulitskaya swung for the fences on this, and made these two realms fit together. But most of all, I loved they style in which this story was presented; never going down a rabbit hole of flourishes or needless details. It got the job done in an effective use of language (And I know this was a translation) that never felt like a word was wasted.

  • Short Story Review: “Alisa” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya (Translated from the Russian, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.)

    (The short story “Alisa” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya appeared in the April 3rd, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Yes, I will SPOIL this story.)

    Illustration by Golden Cosmos

    The story “Alisa” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya is translated from the Russian, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. But I’m pretty sure you knew that from the title of this post. When it comes to translated works, I often wonder how different the piece sounds in its original language. In college, I read three different translations of “The Cherry Orchard” and though the plot stayed the same, the tone of each version was radically different. This was a thought that crossed my mind as I read “Alisa.”

    “Alisa” is a tight little story that I found myself drawn into quickly. The piece focuses on Alisa, a woman who is in nearly perfect health at sixty-four. She lives alone, has no family, and after a brief fainting spell, begins to think that she would rather commit suicide than get to the point where she will need someone to take care of her. She finds a doctor whom she asks for sleeping pills, and she is honest with her intentions. The doctor, Alexander, doesn’t agree right away, but soon they start on a relationship that leads to them getting married. I want to leave it there, though I will spoil the story a little later, I want to leave a few surprises for you.

    What impressed me with this story was that it went in two different directions, and tied up wonderfully together. This was a well-structured, and built story. At first I thought I was getting the tried and true “reason to live” story, such as Alisa wants to die, but then she finds love and wants to live. And she does find love, with those moments of between her and Alexander being very poignant and tender. As their love grows, Alisa never forgets that even with a commitment of marriage, nothing lasts forever. So, when Alexander is killed in a car crash on his way to the hospital to see his daughter and new granddaughter, the surprise is in how he died, but not that he died. Ulitskaya did a very good sleight of hand/misdirection of foreshadowing, laying out the clue, but not in the way you expected. And when Alisa decides to raise Alexander’s granddaughter, as the mother slips into mental illness and cannot take care of the child, there are clear moments that preceded this decision, where it was shone to us why Alisa would come to this conclusion. All of this leading to a satisfying conclusion where Alisa has grown and changed from where we first met her, while also allowing Alisa to retain a quality of her character that still hasn’t changed. Again, I don’t want to ruin the last line of the story, but it’s fits very well with the narrative and tone.

    Which gets me back to my first question about the translation and the original tone of the story. In this case, I didn’t find myself wonder if something was lost. The intention and tone were clear, and worked together in a very effective story. Maybe it was just a “reason to live” story, but I left feeling satisfied that Alisa got to have that time with Alexander, and that she was happy where her life had taken her.  

    (Say, if you have a second. Please take a moment to “like” this post, and if you haven’t already, “subscribe” to the blog. It will make the Algorithm gods very happy.)