TRANSLATIONS BY SUSAN BROWNSBERGER (1935-2021): Iskander, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Bitov, Aleshkovsky, Voinovich, Hoffman, Aksenov
Saltykov-Shchedrin, THE HISTORY OF A TOWN, or THE CHRONICLE OF FOOLOV, Ann Arbor (Ardis), 1982. Illustrations by Leonid Lamm.
A taste of Saltykov’s humor, from the opening of the chronicle:
“If the ancient Hellenes and Romans were suffered to compose praises to their godless rulers and transmit their loathsome deeds for the edification of posterity, can it be that we, Christians who have received the Light from Byzantium, shall prove in this respect less worthy and thankful?”
In the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS Elizabeth Hardwick praised the translator’s “splendid background notes,” which flag allusions to familiar figures——Catherine the Great, Empress Anne, Potemkin——that Russian readers relish but Western readers often miss.
Fazil Iskander, Sandro of Chegem, New York (Vintage Books), 1983.
This book is available on the web as a pdf file at:
https://abkhazworld.com/aw/Pdf/Sandro_of_Chegem_by_Fazil_Iskander.pdf
Fazil Iskander is to his small Caucasian republic, Abkhazia, as Halldór Laxness is to Iceland.
Susan Jacoby called him “an Abkhazian Mark Twain.” Carl Proffer noted “an epic, universal quality” in his works.
Handsome, charming Uncle Sandro has a stint as a folk dancer and impresses Stalin himself, yet he maintains deep local tribal traditions filled with lore and custom, gallantry, passions and courtesies. Each chapter tells of his colorful, diverse allegiances, which, whether born of love, obligation, or expedience, often bring Sandro and his friends into conflict with Soviet rule.
A taste of the humor, written from the viewpoint of a mule:
“Let’s suppose a dog barks a hundred times a day, though they usually bark much more often. If you sort through the reasons he barked a hundred times, it will turn out there was only one time he really had to bark. The other times he should have sat there quietly or slept. Now imagine a mule that goes to the mill a hundred times in order to bring home one sack of meal, and it will immediately become clear what a dog’s mind is worth.”
Fazil Iskander, The Gospel According to Cheghem, New York (Vintage), 1984. The further adventures of Sandro of Chegem.
a “superb, delightfully idiomatic translation” — Jeri Laber
Of the village games:
“Among the girls of our settlement there was one who easily outdistanced all the girls and nearly all the boys. Even now she runs, runs, runs before my eyes, and the tall grass lashes her bare legs and feet with its sky-blue bellflowers, blue-gray wormwood, fanlike ferns, and still she runs, with a peculiar, smoothly lunging stride, as though she might go even faster…
“In my soul, back then as a ten-year-old boy, I secretly guessed that she was a distant descendant of the Son of the Deer. But I didn’t tell anyone, out of shame that they might laugh at me…
“Once in a while these days, strangely, as in a dream, the times come together in my memory. I see the runners running from the tobacco shed to the chestnut tree and back, and at the same time I see the sad and modest graves in which several of the runners already lie–fiery-eyed Adgur and his sister, the proud, modest Lyuba, and dear little Sofya.
“They run past their own graves without noting them, brake lightly at the chestnut tree, slap the trunk with flashing hand, and back they run, back in a rush of excitement, heads joyously up, again without noticing their own graves, running farther and farther away from them now, triumphantly, irretrievably!”
Andrei Bitov, Pushkin House, New York (FSG), 1987.
“A brilliant, restless, impudent novel… Bitov’s loving demolition of the grand Russian tradition forms a new installment in that traditiion.” John Updike, The New Yorker.
Vladimir Voinovich, The Fur Hat, New York (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) 1989
“Now, the Writers’ Union is giving out fur hats to its members, according to their importance——reindeer fawn for a foremost writer, marmot for a leading writer, and so on down the line. Anxious to know where he stands in the literary hierarchy, Yefim rushes to the director’s office, where he learns the awful truth: his hat is domestic fluffy tomcat.” (from the dust jacket, 1989)
Yuz Aleshkovsky, The Hand: The Confession of an Executioner, New York (FSG), 1990. Introduction by Joseph Brodsky.
Colonel Bashov, Stalin’s executioner, is known as “the Hand” for his cruelty. What those around him don’t know is that he is plotting his revenge on the Communist Party for decimating his family and childhood village. Now he has one of the perpetrators, a toadying climber in the party elite, at his mercy in a posh dacha. But, to his astonishment, a dream from the beyond has afflicted him with moral uncertainty.
Andrei Bitov, A Captive of the Caucasus, New York (FSG), 1992.
“Russians visit the Caucasus with a sense of homecoming, Andrei Bitov——one of the Soviet Union’s most gifted stylists——has remarked. They find there a world familiar from the moral and philosophic landscapes of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tolstoy. …Though held in thrall by Armenia, a captive of the Caucasus, Bitov the traveler is a captive, however alienated, of his homeland, too.” (from the dust jacket, 1992)
Andrei Bitov, The Monkey Link, New York (FSG), 1995.
“as convoluted and hectic as a Marx brothers’ movie”; the translator is “invaluable” ——John Banville, The New York Review of Books, 4/6/95
Sarah M. Brownsberger 