Makanin’s Old Books.

I’ve been wanting to read Vladimir Makanin for years, mainly because of Lizok — back in 2011 she wrote “I’ve read quite a few books and stories by Vladimir Makanin and found more than enough to consider him a favorite” and in 2017 “I’m not sure I would have started writing this blog if it hadn’t been for the dearth of English-language information about his books,” so he was high on my list. I’m not quite sure why I started with Старые книги [Old books], except that I’d gotten up to 1976 and decided I wanted a breather before plunging into the Big Three of that year, Trifonov’s Дом на набережной [The House on the Embankment], Rasputin’s Прощание с Матёрой [Farewell to Matyora], and Sokolov’s Школа для дураков [A School for Fools]. Needless to say, I was attracted by the title, which turned out to be fully justified: the heroine, Svetik (an unusual diminutive for Svetlana), arrives in Moscow with the intention of making some money in the illegal book trade, and much of the story focuses on the details of how that trade worked (if you’re planning to travel via time machine to Moscow in the 1970s, you will definitely want to read it first — which reminds me, Russian readers will want to check out Техника выживания для случайно попавшего в СССР, about how to make a living if you unexpectedly find yourself back in 1980).

I enjoyed the story greatly, in part because I was coming off an Andrei Bitov binge, and while Bitov is a fine writer, I had gotten pretty tired of his solipsism — everything he writes, whether fiction or travel reportage (of which he did a lot), focuses almost entirely on a first-person viewpoint described in tireless, moment-by-moment philosophical detail (opening his book on Armenia at random I immediately see “I dream of living this moment. In this moment, by this moment alone. I would then be alive, harmonious, and happy…”; from his book on Georgia: “Time exists independently, we exist independently. Time is not understood…”) A little of that goes a long way, and I’d had a lot of it. What a relief it was to open Makanin and see (my translation):

Svetik laughs again:
“So do you think we should try doing a little trading together?”
“Together?”
“Sure.”
“Wow. That’s great! Fantastic!… That’s really cool!”
Svetik interrupts him.
“Where do you live?”
“Here. Next door. Right next door… In this house right here. All by myself. I have my own apartment.”
“A whole apartment all to yourself?”
“Yes! All to myself… Together — that would be cool!”

Светик опять смеется:
— А хочешь, попробуем промышлять вместе?
— Вместе?
— Ну да.
— Ух ты. Отлично! Красота!.. Вот здорово!
Светик прерывает его.
— Где ты живешь?
— Здесь. Рядом. Совсем рядом… Вот в этом доме. Один. У меня квартира.
— Один в целой квартире?
— Да!.. Один… Вместе — это здорово!

We have no idea what’s going on, but we’re plunged into a cheerful world of people getting by and helping each other out when it’s convenient (or they’re besotted) and betraying each other when that’s convenient, with no extraneous background or description. We eventually learn that Svetik has left her native Chelyabinsk because her mother’s on her fifth husband and is getting more and more insistent that Svetik should get married and move out, but we don’t get any tear-jerking backstory about how she suffered — she wanted out and she left. (It reminds me of Aquarium’s “Теперь ты говоришь: ‘Ну куда же ты отсюда?’/ Ты знаешь, главное – прочь, а там все равно” [Now you ask “So where are you going from here?”/ You know, the main thing is away, beyond that I don’t care].) When things get difficult in Moscow, she might go back to Chelyabinsk for a while, or she might head south where it’s nice and warm; she’ll see.

There’s not much of a plot. Peter Rollberg calls it a “grotesque mystery novella,” but that’s nuts — there’s no mystery, Svetik just keeps trying to stay one step ahead of the law using her wits and well-honed survival instincts, and even the law isn’t presented as very frightening (of course, it couldn’t be so presented in Brezhnev’s USSR). She and her crew reminded me of some of the lowlifes I used to hang out with in New Haven when I was in my twenties and enjoyed random activity and scavenging for drinks; Makanin doesn’t pretend that they’re noble or that they’re wicked, he’s just having fun describing them and their world, as Kataev does in The Embezzlers. The feel of both novels brings to mind Manny Farber on Preston Sturges: “Basically, a Sturges film is executed to give one the delighted sensation of a person moving on a smoothly traveling vehicle going at high speed through fields, towns, homes, even through other vehicles. The vehicle in which the spectator is traveling never stops but seems to be moving in a circle, making its journey again and again in an ascending, narrowing spiral until it diminishes into nothingness.” (Incidentally, Amazon is still offering the Kindle edition of Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber for an absurdly cheap $1.99; grab it if you have any interest in movie criticism.)

Really, the main thing is the books. Everybody wants detective stories — American if possible, but homegrown is OK, anything is better than the official crap that’s readily available. Some grad students are looking for a saint’s life they need for their dissertation, and their stuffy boss, who winds up getting sucked into Svetik’s chaotic life, desperately wants a copy of the unfindable 17th-century «Книгу печалей и радостей» [Book of sorrows and joys]; one of the high points of the story (spoiler!) is when Svetik happens on a copy in the possession of Father Vasily (in a monastery she wanders off to), and the beautifully unexpected result is that instead of stealing it (which we fully expect) she photographs every page with the camera she’s brought on the trip, and when she triumphantly shows the scholar the copy and he tremulously asks how much she wants for it (she got 500 rubles for the saint’s life), she impulsively gives it to him (she’s got a growing crush on him).

What I ultimately loved about it, and what makes me want to read more Makanin, is its sense of the contingency of life. So many stories are about fated loves and fated lives; two people see each other and are doomed to either get married or part in agony. Here, people fall in love pretty casually, and nothing may come of it; at one point Svetik reflects on two of the other characters that one of them didn’t notice the other was madly in love with him: “Не заметил, значит, не заметил — уже проехали.” [He didn’t notice, so he didn’t notice — they’ve already gone past each other.] She’s often wrong about where things are headed (as are we readers), but she doesn’t care, she’s ready for anything and takes it as it comes. That’s true to life as I know it; there’s no plot and nothing is written in the stars, we just muddle through and keep smiling if we’re lucky enough to be so disposed.