Ready , Oliver Persisting in Folly: Russian Writers in Search of Wisdom, 1963–2013 (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 353 Gaining a place at the prestigious Moscow State University to study classics, he was — as is related in the second chapter — subsequently expelled. Erofeev always said that the reason was his non-attendance at compulsory military training, but as the three authors discovered by interviewing various Moscow intellectuals, he in fact ignored the entire formal process, not attending lectures and seminars, and not appearing at exams. The following chapters describe his uncompleted studies in other high schools, various odd jobs, his marriages and his sojourns in hospitals, where doctors unsuccessfully tried to cure their extraordinary patient of alcoholism. The tale concludes with an account of Erofeev’s last years, his late writing, huge fame, adoration and admiration by the public and his friends, conversion to Catholicism and his horrible illness. Throat cancer might have not killed him if he had been allowed to travel to France for a life-saving operation and treatment, but the Soviet authorities denied him travel documents under the absurdpretextthattwenty-threeyearsearliertherehadbeensomeinterruptions in his working life. He lost his voice, being able to speak only with the help of a mechanical French device. Venedikt Erofeev’s life ended on 1 October 1990. As a result of their research, Lekmanov, Sverdlov and Simanovskii have managed to produce a unique biography — the life story and world-view of Russia’s last tragic genius of the twentieth century. This biography illustrates not only Erofeev’s extraordinary talent and personality, but also gives an enormously valuable account of life in the late Soviet Union. Modestly priced (at just over £8), this book is a delight to read and an essential resource for everyone who has an interest in Russian life and culture. It deserves a place in all research libraries. UCL SSEES Svetlana Shnitman-McMillin Ready, Oliver. Persisting in Folly: Russian Writers in Search of Wisdom, 1963– 2013. Russian Transformations: Literature, Thought, Culture, 6. Peter Lang, Oxford, New York and Vienna, 2017. ix + 406 pp. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. €61.95: £49.95: $75.95 (paperback). In this meticulously researched volume, Oliver Ready explores the late-Soviet and post-Soviet evolution of one of Russia’s most enduring literary stereotypes. The book is divided into three main sections, which address samizdat classics, texts written after 1980 and the legacy of the fool in post-Soviet literature respectively. The main body of research is preceded by a survey of the (holy-) fool archetype throughout the centuries, from the iurodivye of the middle ages, fools in Christ seeking truth through provocative and aggressive behaviour, to SEER, 97, 2, APRIL 2019 354 the more immediate precursors of Ready’s research subjects. These precursors are the Russian classics, Gogol´, Tolstoi and Dostoevskii, as well as early Soviet authors such as Olesha, Zoshchenko and Platonov, who ‘articulated ambivalent responses to the new order’ (p. 29) and are less commonly read as authors of ‘fool’ narratives, perhaps because their fools can lay no claim to being ‘holy’. Part Two is prefaced by a discussion of the Silver Age thinker Vasilii Rozanov, one cultural model of folly who influenced many later authors. The complicated cultural web in which Ready thus places his subjects significantly enriches our reading. Ready repeatedly underlines the origin of the late Soviet fool in underground culture and attributes several paradigm shifts to this fact. Firstly, the underground engendered a first person narrator living in a solipsistic universe. When narrator and fool are one, the reader is plunged into a world entirely dependent on this single, distorted consciousness. Secondly, the novels can be read as implicit criticism of the underground and the role of the fool in society, discussed below. Not all literary folly/foolishness is recognizably Christian, and Christian folly is not necessarily specifically Orthodox. This is shown persuasively in the example of the most iconic fool of late Soviet literature, the hero of Venedikt Erofeev’s Moscow Circles. Through a parallel reading of Erasmus of Rotterdam’s In Praise of Folly, Ready explores Venichka’s indebtedness to the Western tradition, grounded in the theology of St Paul (1 Corinthians) and Nicholas of Cusa’s concept of learned ignorance. This is a refreshing alternative to the commonplace reading of Venichka as a...