Zoshchenko and the Ilf-Petrov Partnership: How They Laughed by Lesley s> Milne (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 949 Milne, Lesley. Zoshchenko and the Ilf-PetrovPartnership. How TheyLaughed. Birmingham Slavonic Monographs, 35. University of Birmingham, Birmingham, 2003. xiv + 296 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. /25.o0 (paperback). IT is often said that, with the notable exception of Mikhail Bulgakov, twentieth-century Russian satirists and humorists have been undeservedly ignored in the West. Lesley Milne's widely read MikhailBulgakov. A Critical Biography (Cambridge, I990) greatlyaided the knowledge and appreciationof that writer, so readers may well anticipate How 7heyLaughed to administera similar boost to the posthumous fortunes of Zoshchenko, Il'f and Petrov. However, while this book approaches its subjectin similarways and with no less skillthan the earlierwork, the end product is by no means its equal. The fundamentalweaknesslies in itsbifurcatedstructure:in a monograph devoted to satiristsor humoristswho were contemporaries,Milne presentsuswith two entirely unconnected narrativesof the authors'lives and works.The material would have been better published either as two separate slender volumes or by rewritingon the basisof the comparisonsdrawnin the excellent conclusion. Nevertheless, the component parts of How 7heyLaughed are fluently and accessibly written, and no less scholarly for it. Milne cogently synthesizes, comments upon and presents,sometimesfor the firsttime in English,the wide range of materials that has appeared in recent decades in Russian on Zoshchenko, and the lesser body of work on Il'fand Petrov. She paraphrases Zoshchenko'sstoriesso as to highlightthe point she is making,and yet retains their humour, something which by no means all of Zoshchenko's commentators have succeeded in doing. She is also good at finding more familiar culturalparallelsfor elements of Zoshchenko'sart:fromMr Bean to stand-up comedy. These virtuesmake the Zoshchenko half of the monograph the most user-friendlyserious discussion of his work to have appeared in the English language. If there are any BA students of Zoshchenko, they will appreciate thisaddition to theirreadinglists. Throughout, the analysisof textsiscogent and sensitive,and thebiographies that bind thesereadingsinto a narrativeare carefullyresearched.In each case there is a particular concern with the behaviour of these writers during the highpoint of Stalinistrepression.The sometimesimplicitmoralmeasureis the question: did these writerscondone the terror?Bulgakov and Mandel'shtam are called as character witnesses, and the body of biographical evidence is examined before Milne concludes that even on the trip to the White-Sea Canal corrective labour camp her subjects conducted themselves with integrity. These are interestingquestionsto ask,but it is strangethatthey are askedat all in this, a worksettingitselfthe aim of providing'a de-politicisedassessment [of] Zoshchenko and the partnershipof Ilf and Petrov as "comic classics"of universalappeal' (p. xii). Surelyreactionsto politicalterrorare actsof politics, albeit a politics so divorced from the public sphere as to be almost indistinguishablefromprivatemorality.Likewise,the aim of establishingthese writersas universalsurelydoes not preclude analysisof their responsesto the political events of their time. The notion itself of the universality of comic 950 SEER, 82, 4, 2004 appealmight have been groundedin a considerationof comic theory,as could the assertion that humour is irreverent: Milne's discussion of the film adaptationof Il'fand Petrov'sscreenplayfor h7he Circus (GrigoriiAleksandrov, 1936) shows this not always to be so. The same desire to rescue these writers fromthe politics of theirtime may lie behind the decision to splitthe book into two discrete parts, since the political and editorial forces preventing them from conducting satire were the same in both cases. The result, however, is that we lose any sense of the differentways in which these writersfashioned incredible comic art from the narrowly utilitarian satire and humour that prevailed in the I920S and I930s. Milne's 'de-politicizing' intent is clearly a reaction to a previous era of narrowlypoliticized Zoshchenko and Il'f-Petrovcriticismas is clear from the closing chapter of both parts of the book where posthumous reputations, editions of their works and public marks of recognition are discussed. Necessarily the list is incomplete: omissions include the statue of Zoshchenko erected at his grave in Sestroretsk,the founding of the Zoshchenko memorial apartment in St Petersburg and the various film adaptations of his work. Similarlysome of the film adaptationsof 7he Twelve Chairs are not mentioned, including a very successfultranspositionof the storyto Fidel Castro'sCuba by Tom,asGutierrezAlea (LasDocesillas,I962), possiblythe best testimonyto the universalappeal of the book. Queen Mary J...