Gazdanov’s Journey.

I’ve now read my second novel by Gaito Gazdanov, История одного путешествия [The story of a journey], and he’s starting to come a bit more into focus — when you’ve only read one novel by an author (or heard one piece of music by a composer, etc.), you don’t really have a sense of them. As I wrote here, “I reread Gaito Gazdanov’s Вечер у Клэр [An Evening with Claire], which I last read shortly after moving to NYC in 1981 (I checked it out of the much-missed Donnell, with its superb foreign-language collection); I don’t know why I didn’t post about it, but I enjoyed it even more than I had before.” Well, I think I know why I didn’t post about it; I didn’t know what to say about it. I’m still pretty uncertain, but I think I have enough of a hold on his style to flail around for the length of a post (with copious quotes); as I read more of him, I’ll probably have more focused things to say.

At any rate, a brief description might go: young émigré Volodya Rogachov travels from Constantinople to Paris (via Prague, Berlin, and Vienna), where his older brother Nikolai sells cars, and spends time with him and his wife Virginia and their friends while working on a novel before leaving Paris for the Levant (to sell cars for his brother). Many of the characters are non-Russians: the Englishman Arthur Thomson, who lived in Russia for a while and speaks perfect Russian; the Austrian Viktoria; and various French people, including Andrée, who doesn’t speak much Russian but lives with the painter Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, who won’t interact with anyone but her and Volodya. There are loving descriptions of Parisian neighborhoods and itineraries, name-checking famous hangouts like the Coupole and the Rotonde. It’s a lot of fun for anyone who loves Paris.

But there’s no plot. We get Volodya’s impressions of these people and their interconnections and memories, but nothing leads to anything else: he wanders around, talks to people, feels things, and eventually leaves town. This frustrates a lot of people and would once have frustrated me; fortunately, in recent years I’ve gotten much less interested in plot, having immersed myself in writers like Dorothy Richardson and Irina Polyanskaya, and all I really care about is good writing, which is what Gazdanov provides in full measure. Alas, reviewers of his day were more severe; they had appreciated his first novel, but this one disappointed them (though they continued to be ravished by his prose) — even the usually perceptive Khodasevich complained that any of the episodes could be omitted without harming the structure of the novel. And this was the last of his novels to receive any substantial criticism; WWII swept away the whole émigré literary scene, with its journals and critics, and he fell into obscurity for his final decades.

I’ll quote some passages from László Dienes’s Russian Literature in Exile: The Life and Work of Gajto Gazdanov, which while not especially impressive as criticism (note his snooty reference to “third-rate trash writers”) is valuable as the work of someone who’s read everything Gazdanov wrote and thus provides useful orientation, and then (as usual) quote some bits of linguistic interest. Here’s Dienes (the surname is apparently an archaic equivalent of Hungarian Dénes = Dennis):

His realism is the realism of the “soul,” the “private soul,” not that of man in society or man in history. His novelty is not in any daring of subject nor flashy technique, even though some of his topics are relatively daring within the context of Russian literature (and led to conflict with emigre censorship although on different grounds than, say, in the case of Nabokov) and in some respects his novelistic technique and especially his language may prove to be important for the development of Russian prose. His novelty and importance is in his creative continuation in Russian literature of that spirit of tortuous doubt and metaphysical terror which so impressed and influenced the West in the works of Dostoevskij and Tolstoj (and which was brought to an artificial end by the Revolution) and in his bringing Russian prose into the Western twentieth century by his existential concerns and approach, yet doing it with what in the West would be called classical means (in which respect he much resembles Camus) but which in Russian literature still had to be created for, if there was Classicism in Russia, it was mostly in poetry and drama, classical prose not having been brought to the same high level (except in Puškin’s fragmentary attempts) that was attained subsequently in the non-classical prose of a Gogol’ or a Lermontov. […]

Gazdanov’s style is characterized by a classical economy of means, a clear awareness of the artifice (but without the artificiality), a symmetry (and to some extent, a predictability) of design of the narrative movement as well as the various points of view, a careful selection of suggestive detail, a reliance on sound and rhythm and a fine sense of language. The emotional intensity is subdued by the firmly controlled classical style which does not allow the turmoils to disrupt the prose, to disfigure the expression. His diction is smooth, his sentences flow with freedom and ease, despite his fondness of complicated compound sentences, their impeccable sustained rhythm turns his prose, in his best paragraphs, into genuine poetry. Ultimately, his stories operate through language and style: the separation of “contents” becomes impossible for what he says is in how he says it. […]

Gazdanov’s protagonists all dream of this life yet very few of them find themselves chosen. They are all pilgrims in search of the “real,” of what is real to them, their true identity and the world as it truly exists in and for that identity. Rendering this search, rendering it plainly and truthfully is the central concern of Gazdanov’s fiction. […]

Gazdanov’s language is a distillation of literary Russian and as such it has its advantages and drawbacks as well. By simply being “the quintessential Russian literary prose,” as Gazdanov himself characterized it in an interview he gave in 1971, it is something that has never quite existed before and is a great novelty in Russian letters. Older literatures all have writers who represent a summing up of the achievements of their language up to that point and after whom new directions become inevitable, writers who distill and unite in their works all the essential features of the preceding period. History may find Gazdanov such a writer from a strictly stylistic point of view. The drawbacks are equally obvious: being nothing but the essential, it is almost like a dinner that consists of steak only; it is a relatively lifeless prose missing the liveliness of contemporary living speech, of dialects, of skaz, etc. and it is not always easy to enjoy the essence, unrelieved, unbalanced. Gazdanov himself complained, admitting this shortcoming and explaining it as a direct result of exile, of the absence of a live connection with the people and the language of the homeland. His language is “the quintessence of Russian literary language” also in terms of vocabulary: no dialectal words, no neologisms, no innovations on this formal level. His originality here is in his ability to give back the words their original meaning and in his combination of extreme sensitivity to linguistic as well as emotional subtleties and a controlled, classically clear expression of them. […]

His prose is direct and unembellished, towards the end almost terse and curt, yet it is always highly polished and never plain, never banal. Despite its straightforwardness it is always vivid and lively, partly because of its rhythm, partly because of its extraordinary graphic quality, something that Gazdanov got the critics’ unanimous praise for. Another unusual combination in Gazdanov is the presence of both a story-telling talent that makes his writings very “interesting” and readable even when they are about “nothing” and a propensity for meditative, intellectual prose. In the latter he is a truly remarkable innovator, with Nabokov, in Russian literature where non-fictional, discursive, philosophical prose has never been highly developed. The existence of such prose is of enormous importance for it is arguable that if a language or culture does not have the linguistic tools to render or express certain ideas or certain ways of thinking, then those will simply not be possible in that culture. Although Gazdanov, any more than Nabokov, was not writing philosophical prose, he has many passages where great philosophical problems are dealt with in exemplary clarity, simplicity, in a very good, natural, yet sophisticated Russian which is something that has not been done very much before. Whereas many of the greatest masters of prose in Western literatures were not fiction writers, in Russia good prose has been largely synonymous with good fiction. The stylistic achievements of Nabokov and Gazdanov in this respect (even though they both remained within fiction) may prove to be of great importance for the future development of Russian prose. […]

He must have read all the “yellow” novels of the period: later, in his fiction, he utilized this knowledge—many of his petty-bourgeois characters read the books, not only of the relatively well-known Verbickaja and the almost respectable Arcybašev, but also of Bebutova, Čirikov, Salias, Lappo-Danilevskaja, Agnijcev, Krinickij, and other completely forgotten, third-rate trash writers.

* * *

The novel is a product of the “sensualist” Gazdanov. Not only does he excel in the evocation of purely sensual pleasures of life, in such physical delights as sports (swimming, tennis, hunting) or gastronomy or the contemplation and admiration of nature but the total experience of life, its events as well as their mental and psychological reflections, are all seen through, and by, the senses. […] Movements, gestures, intonations, lines, colors, contours, odors, subtle moods, nuances of atmosphere, “the interior music of life,” play a central role in the psychological texture of the novel. The title’s “journey” is a metaphor for life, and also for any of the innumerable little “journeys” in one’s life. In fact, the book is nothing but a series of interconnected psychological journeys into remote, little known recesses of human sensibility, of human experience, into the subtle sources of our innermost feelings or “interior actions.” […]

The episodic narration reflects a mosaic-like vision of life; the series of various episodes are not woven into a coherent plot leading from point A to point В because the author does not believe in the possibility to have a coherent, all-inclusive picture. It is his underlying assumption that even within a segment or “slice” of life there is no meaningful system, no true coherence, events are accidental and do not lead, purposely or consciously, anywhere.

And here are some Hattic bits (my translations — I don’t think the novel has appeared in English yet):

– Она была очень образованной женщиной, прекрасно говорила по-русски, по-французски, по-турецки, по-английски, не считая немецкого и латышского, – она была рижанкой.

[She was a highly educated woman; she spoke Russian, French, Turkish, and English perfectly, not to mention German and Latvian; she was from Riga.]

* * *

– Знаешь, Коля, – сказал Володя, вытягиваясь на стуле, – знаешь, у меня иногда впечатление, что я не русский, а так, черт знает что. Страшно сказать, ведь я даже по-турецки говорю, – а потом вся эта смесь французский, английский, немецкий, – и вот когда от всего этого тошно становится, я всегда вспоминаю русские нецензурные слова, которым мы научились в гимназии и которыми разговаривали с женщинами Банного переулка. Это, брат, и есть самое национальное – никакой француз не способен понять.

– Да, язык у нас хороший, грех жаловаться, – сказал Николай, улыбаясь.

[“You know, Kolya,” said Volodya, stretching out in his chair, “you know, sometimes I get the impression that I’m not Russian—just something or other, who knows what. It’s an awful thing to admit—I even speak Turkish—and then there is that whole jumble of French, English, German; but whenever all of this makes me feel sick to my stomach, I always recall the Russian obscenities we learned in school and used when we talked to the women of Bath Lane. That, brother, is the very essence of our national character—something no Frenchman could ever understand.”

“Yes, we have a fine language; it would be a sin to complain,” said Nikolai, smiling.]

* * *

– C’est stupide, – сказала Вирджиния. Оба брата в один голос спросили:

– Qu’est ce que c’est qui est stupide?

– Le russe. C’est une langue de sauvages.

– Вирджиния, стань в угол за дерзость, – сказал Николай.

– Votre ignorance m’écrase, madame”, – сказал Володя.

[“C’est stupide,” said Virginia. Both brothers asked with one voice: “Qu’est ce que c’est qui est stupide?”

“Le russe. C’est une langue de sauvages.”

“Virginia, go stand in the corner for your insolence,” said Nikolai.

“Votre ignorance m’écrase, madame,” said Volodya.]

* * *

Потом Володя встретил Александра Александровича в Париже, стал к нему приходить и познакомился с Андрэ, которая сначала невзлюбила его.

– Он слишком хорошо говорит по-французски, – объяснила она Александру Александровичу. – Он никогда не ошибается, у него такие длинные и красивые фразы – и он так невыносимо правильно произносит – и так сложно говорит.

Когда Александр Александрович сказал это по-русски Володе в присутствии Андрэ – она, начинавшая понимать по-русски и догадывавшаяся, о чем идет речь, внимательно смотрела на обоих. – Володя улыбнулся и ответил, обращаясь к ней:

– Vous avez tort, Andree, voyons. Я говорю так “красиво и сложно”, потому что недостаточно хорошо знаю ваш язык. Вы понимаете? Я, как человек, попавший в чужую квартиру: я знаю назначение всех предметов, которые в ней находятся, но я не хозяин, я с ними слишком бережно и неумело обращаюсь.

И Андрэ примирилась с Володиным французским языком.

[Later, Volodya met Alexander Alexandrovich in Paris, began visiting him, and made the acquaintance of Andrée—who at first took a dislike to him.

“He speaks French too well,” she explained to Alexander Alexandrovich. “He never makes a mistake; his sentences are so long and beautiful—and his pronunciation is so unbearably correct—and his speech is so complicated.”

When Alexander Alexandrovich said this to Volodya in Russian in Andrée’s presence, she, having started to understand Russian and guessing what was being discussed, watched them both intently. Volodya smiled and replied, addressing her:

“Vous avez tort, Andrée, voyons. I speak in such a ‘beautiful and complicated’ way because I don’t know your language well enough. Do you understand? I’m like someone who finds himself in a stranger’s apartment: I know the purpose of all the objects in it, but I’m not the owner, so I handle them with a mixture of excessive care and clumsiness.”

And Andrée made her peace with Volodya’s French.]

Finally, here’s a long passage about the novel Volodya is writing, which has obvious interest for the reader of Gazdanov:

Свой роман Володя писал уже несколько лет, обрывая и начиная снова и заменяя одни главы другими. В роман входило все или почти все, о чем думал Володя, – исправленные и представленные не так, как они были, а как ему хотелось бы, чтобы они произошли, – многие события его жизни; рассказы обо всем, что он любил – охоты, моря, льды, собаки, государственные люди, женщины, разливы рек, апрельские вечера, и выпадение атмосферных осадков как иронически говорил сам Володя, – и первые, ранней весной зацветающие деревья. Но, несмотря на такое обилие матерьяла и на широту темы, которая не ограничивала Володю ничем, роман получался значительно хуже, чем должен был бы получаться. То, что Володя думал изобразить и что в его представлении было очень сильно, вещи, которые он ясно видел прекрасными или печальными, умершими или неувядающими, в его описании тускнели и почти исчезали, и ему удавалось лишь изредка выразить в одной главе едва ли не десятую часть того, что он так хорошо понимал и видел и сущность чего, как ему казалось, он так прекрасно постигал. Он замечал тогда, что полнота впечатления создается почти иррациональным звучанием слов, удачно удержанным и необъяснимым ритмом повествования, так, как если бы все, что написано, нельзя было рассказать, но что шло между словами, как незримое, протекающее здесь, в этой книге человеческое существование. Но когда он пытался писать так, почти не обращая внимания на построение фраз, все следя за этим ритмом и этим иррациональным, музыкальным движением, рассказ становился тяжелым и бессмысленным. Тогда он принимался за тщательную отделку текста, и выходило, что на его страницах появлялись удачные сравнения, анекдотические места, и они становились похожими на ту среднюю французскую прозу, которую он всегда находил невыносимо фальшивой. И лишь в редкие часы, когда он не думал, как нужно писать и что нужно делать, когда он писал почти что с закрытыми глазами, не думая и не останавливаясь, ему удавалось, с помощью нескольких случайных слов, выразить то, что он хотел; и, перечитывая некоторое время спустя эти страницы, он отчетливо вспоминал те ощущения, которые вызывали их и сохранили, вопреки закону забвенья, их неувядаемую и иллюзорную жизнь. Так было и на этот раз – и позже, читая описания Италии, он видел все, что им предшествовало, – где музыка и Жермена и мечты сливались в одно соединение, счастливая сложность которого все углублялась и углублялась временем.

[Volodya had been writing his novel for several years, breaking off and starting over, and replacing some chapters with others. Into the novel went everything—or nearly everything—that Volodya was thinking about: many events from his life, revised and presented not as they had actually happened, but as he would have liked them to be; stories about everything he loved—hunting, the sea, the ice, dogs, statesmen, women, flooding rivers, April evenings, and “atmospheric precipitation”—as Volodya himself would ironically put it—and the first trees to blossom in early spring. But despite such an abundance of material and the breadth of the subject—which placed absolutely no constraints on Volodya—the novel was turning out significantly worse than it should have. What Volodya had intended to portray, things that in his imagination were very powerful, things he saw clearly as beautiful or sad, dead or unfading, in his descriptions grew dim and all but vanished, and only rarely did he manage to express, in a single chapter, barely a tenth of what he had understood and seen so well and whose essence, it seemed to him, he grasped so perfectly. He observed then that the fullness of the impression was created by the almost irrational sound of the words, the successfully sustained yet inexplicable rhythm of the narration, as if everything that had been written down could not, in fact, be recounted but rather flowed between the words, like an invisible human existence unfolding right here within the pages of this book. But when he tried to write that way—paying almost no heed to sentence structure, always following that rhythm and that irrational, musical movement—the story became heavy and meaningless. Then he would set about meticulously giving finishing touches to the text, and the result was that felicitous comparisons and anecdotal passages would appear on its pages—making them resemble that middling French prose which he had always found unbearably artificial. And only during those rare hours when he was not thinking about how he ought to write or what he ought to do, when he wrote almost with his eyes closed, without thinking or pausing, did he manage, with the help of a few chance words, to express what he wanted to; and rereading these pages some time later, he vividly recalled the sensations that had evoked them and that, defying the law of oblivion, had preserved their unfading and illusory life. And so it was this time as well—and later, reading descriptions of Italy, he perceived all that had preceded them—where music, Germaine, and dreams merged into a single union, the blissful complexity of which deepened ever more profoundly with the passage of time.

I expect to revisit all this when I read his later novels.