I’m always griping about publishers commissioning the umpteenth translation of Anna Karenina rather than looking for something interesting that hasn’t appeared in English yet, so I’m especially appreciative of Columbia University Press’s Russian Library series (see this post on their Krzhizhanovsky edition, with prior links), which does exactly that, and does it very well. They have now published Boris Poplavsky’s Homeward from Heaven, translated by Bryan Karetnyk (see this post), and have been kind enough to send me a copy. As is usual with Russian Library, it comes with an informative introduction by the translator and a full set of end notes that not only explain the realia of the novel (“The Paris-Midi was a midday newspaper in daily circulation between 1911 and 1944. It enjoyed wide popularity and catered principally to a working readership at a time when two-hour lunch breaks were still common…”) but quote long chunks from the typescript (the textual history of the novel is complicated) and French lyrics used in the text (in both French and English). The publisher’s summary says:
The novel’s protagonist and sometime narrator is Oleg, whose intense love for two women leads him along a journey of spiritual transfiguration. He follows Tania to a seaside resort, but after a passionate dalliance she jilts him. In the cafés of Montparnasse, Oleg meets Katia, with whom he finds physical intimacy and emotional candor, yet is unable to banish a lingering sense of existential disquiet and destitution. When he encounters Tania again in Paris, his quest to comprehend the laws of spiritual and physical love begins anew, with results that are both profound and tragic.
Taken by Poplavsky’s contemporaries to be semiautobiographical, Homeward from Heaven stands out for its uncompromising depictions of sexuality and deprivation. Richly allusive and symbolic, the novel mixes psychological confession, philosophical reflection, and social critique in prose that is by turns poetic, mystical, and erotic. It is at once a work of daring literary modernism and an immersive meditation on the émigré condition.
You can read an appreciative review at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings. Karetnyk’s Englishing is eloquent and convincing, and I’m glad he’s chosen to focus on little-known writers like Gaito Gazdanov, Yuri Felzen, and now Poplavsky rather than on the usual suspects. Kudos to him and to CUP!
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