Sovremennaia russkaia literatura: Novyi uchebnik po literature v 3-kh knigakh. Kniga 1: Literatura 'Ottepeli' (1953-1968); Kniga 2: Semidesiatye gody (1968-1986); Kniga 3: V kontse veka (1986-1990-e gody) by N. L. s> Leiderman M. N. Lipovetskii (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS I I 3 highly personal and intimate quality, and offers a wonderful and rare insight into Nabokov's ability to transform a deeply unpleasant and traumatic situation into a darkly comic episode. On the phone to a Mrs Karpovich (wife of a Harvard professor), Nabokov tries to tell her that he is very ill: 'When she heard me gasping into the telephone and pleading for help she said: please do not play the fool [... .] this is the usual thing that happens to humorists, and I had quite a time persuading her that I was dying. Incidentally I vomited into the telephone which I think has never been done before' (Letter I00, p. 147). All the letters have been reproduced with minimal editorial interference. Apart from the handwritten notes and doodles that illustrate many of Nabokov's letters, idiosyncrasies of grammar and expression have been retained, and passages deleted by the authors reinstated. The volume's adjusted chronology also generates a strong sense of how each man was placed in the social and cultural context of I940s and '5os America. Simon Karlinsky is to be congratulated for his dedication to this project and his efforts over the past twenty years to produce, as far as possible, a reliable, accurate and complete volume of correspondence which provides an invaluable and fascinating record of a unique literary friendship. Schoolof SlavonicandEast EuropeanStudies BARBARA WYLLIE UniversityCollegeLondon Leiderman, N. L. and Lipovetskii,M. N. Sovremennaia russkaia literatura. JNfovyi uchebnikpo literature v3-kh knigakh. Knigai. Literatura 'Ottepeli' (I953-I968), Kniga2. Semidesiatye gody(1968-I986), Kniga 3. Vkontse veka(1986-1I9o-e gody).Editorial URSS, Moscow, 200I. 284 PP. + 285 PP. + I59 PP. Notes. Indexes. ?3I. IO(paperbacks). THE father-and-son relationship does not necessarily suggest similarity of viewpoint, harmonious co-operation and mutual appreciation, yet Naum Leiderman and Mark Lipovetskii are adamant that this has been their experience of co-authorship in writing an officially approved textbook for universitystudents. The differencesin the length of their academic engagement with modern Russian literature (forty and ten years) and their perspectives from two different continents (father in Ekaterinburg, son in Boulder, Colorado) have, they maintain, positively enriched the project and correctedpotential imbalancesand partialitiesin theirwork. Few histories of post-Stalinist literature range as widely as this volume; concentration on either trends and movements in particular decades or individual authors being the norm. Each of the periods treated in the three volumes is characterized in a chapter on the cultural atmosphere, the whole being preceded by an account of the state of play in 1953, and thereafter by a mixed approach. Firstly, writers are shoe-horned into inevitably simplistic categories in order to give a shape and clarity (notably lacking at the time) to each new development. Individual works, rather than authors, are then singled out for fairly detailed analysis in an attempt to convey the flavour and significance of the most distinguished achievements in each group. Distortions naturally occur: much is made of the contrast between Doktor II4 SEER, 8i, I, 2003 Zhivago andLolita asexamplesoftheendofonetradition andthebeginning of another,completewithNabokov's supercilious reactionsinpoetryandprose totheformer.Neitherreallybenefits,andthewisdomofjuxtaposing themon groundsof chronological contiguity andthedifferences betweenemigreand homelandsensibilities mustbeopentodoubt. Realproblemsof placementarisewithauthorssuchas Bulgakov, Mandel 'shtamor indeedNabokov,whoseworkmadeitsinitialimpacton a small circleof theircontemporaries; itssecondary impacton theWestandthence on a scarcelylargercirclein Russiaduringthe sixtiesandseventies; andits full,finaleffecton thepublication historyof Gorbachev's Russia.Whereto putPlatonovandSlutskii, whohaveso recentlysurfaced in a formenabling properassessments to be made?Leiderman andLipovetskii arefirmon this point:writers belongwiththeircontemporaries andthismustbethecorrect decision.Yet in the i99os, when it sometimesseemedthat any workof literature wasprefacedby an epigraph fromNabokov,orwhenBatailleand Derridahit literaryconsciousness simultaneously, the telescoping of a nearcenturyof the WestEuropeanand Americanexperienceinto a whirlwind decadeor so of dissemination in Russiaplayedhavocwith chronological considerations. Withinthe broadercategoriessuch as 'SocialistRealismwith a human face', the authorsare meticulousin theirinclusionof writerslike Granin, KaverinandKochetovwhosecontribution, felttobesignificant atthetime is rapidlyfadingfrommemory-something whichmayhappentothemajority of post-I930 Soviet literaturesubspecie aeternitatis. Equally,majordissidentsor front-line poets are given due prominence, yet minor players also merit attention,leading to a fulland roundedpictureof the era.Anotherparticularly impressivefeatureis thejudicious selection of literary,historicaland political backgroundinformationnecessaryforthosewhose entiresecondaryeducation will have takenplace in the post-Sovietperiod. Any dispute is likelyto be centred on two aspectsof the book:the choice of works for detailed treatment and the system of classification.Whereas, for instance, it makesgood...