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Autobiography of a Corpse
The stakes are wildly high in Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s fantastic and blackly comic philosophical fables, which abound in nested narratives and wild paradoxes. This new collection of eleven mind-bending and spellbinding tales includes some of Krzhizhanovsky’s most dazzling conceits: a provincial journalist who moves to Moscow finds his existence consumed by the autobiography of his room’s previous occupant; the fingers of a celebrated pianist’s right hand run away to spend a night alone on the city streets; a man’s lifelong quest to bite his own elbow inspires both a hugely popular circus act and a new refutation of Kant. Ordinary reality cracks open before our eyes in the pages of Autobiography of a Corpse, and the extraordinary spills out.
257 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1927
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About the author
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
50 books208 followersSigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky (Russian: Сигизму́нд Домини́кович Кржижано́вский) (February 11 [O.S. January 30] 1887, Kyiv, Russian Empire — 28 December 1950, Moscow, USSR) was a Russian and Soviet short-story writer who described himself as being "known for being unknown" and the bulk of whose writings were published posthumously.
Many details of Krzhizhanovsky's life are obscure. Judging from his works, Robert Louis Stevenson, G. K. Chesterton, Edgar Allan Poe, Nikolai Gogol, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and H. G. Wells were major influences on his style. Krzhizhanovsky was active among Moscow's literati in the 1920s, while working for Alexander Tairov's Chamber Theater. Several of Krzhizhanovsky's stories became known through private readings, and a couple of them even found their way to print. In 1929 he penned a screenplay for Yakov Protazanov's acclaimed film The Feast of St Jorgen, yet his name did not appear in the credits. One of his last novellas, "Dymchaty bokal" (The smoky beaker, 1939), tells the story of a goblet miraculously never running out of wine, sometimes interpreted as a wry allusion to the author's fondness for alcohol. He died in Moscow, but the place where he was buried is not known.
In 1976 the scholar Vadim Perelmuter discovered Krzhizhanovsky's archive and in 1989 published one of his short stories. As the five volumes of his collected works followed (the fifth volume has not yet reached publication), Krzhizhanovsky emerged from obscurity as a remarkable Soviet writer, who polished his prose to the verge of poetry. His short parables, written with an abundance of poetic detail and wonderful fertility of invention — though occasionally bordering on the whimsical — are sometimes compared to the ficciones of Jorge Luis Borges. Quadraturin (1926), the best known of such phantasmagoric stories, is a Kafkaesque novella in which allegory meets existentialism. Quadraturin is available in English translation in Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida, Penguin Classics, 2005.
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April 17, 2022
It isn’t a tragedy of the little man… It’s a farce of the cipher…
Probably there was something in the air at that period because so many writers in the different, distant lands were practically simultaneously paying their creative debt to the surrealistic and absurdist literature. And Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky was one of those – his highly intellectual and original stories are somewhere between Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges.
Autobiography of a Corpse is Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s share in portraying hollow men…
When a man has nothing to do in his life or all his earthly deeds total into naught he turns into a zero, the worthless and ridiculous Collector of Cracks.
An old Indian folktale tells of a man forced to shoulder a corpse night after night – till the corpse, its dead but moving lips pressed to his ear, has finished telling the story of its long-finished life. Don’t try to throw me to the ground. Like the man in the folktale, you will have to shoulder the burden of my three insomnias and listen patiently, till the corpse has finished its autobiography.
Probably there was something in the air at that period because so many writers in the different, distant lands were practically simultaneously paying their creative debt to the surrealistic and absurdist literature. And Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky was one of those – his highly intellectual and original stories are somewhere between Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges.
Autobiography of a Corpse is Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s share in portraying hollow men…
It was then, I remember, that the period of dead, empty days began. They had come before. And gone. But now I knew: They had come forever.
This was not a source of pain or even uneasiness. Only boredom. Or rather: boredoms. A late-eighteenth-century book I once read mentioned “Earthly Boredoms.” That’s just it. There are many of them: There is the spring boredom when identical people love identical people, when the ground is covered with puddles, the trees with green pustules. And a series of tedious autumn boredoms when the sky sheds stars, clouds shed rain, trees shed leaves, and “I’s” shed themselves.
When a man has nothing to do in his life or all his earthly deeds total into naught he turns into a zero, the worthless and ridiculous Collector of Cracks.
August 10, 2016
This is like fables on acid, man.
Wait. Wait a minute. I mean, honestly, I've never actually been on acid. I've never even been remotely close to being on acid. So just strike that. That was me trying to be hip, which is silly and pretentious and fraudulent.
This is like fables on hashish, man.
There. That's better.
This book is a collection of stories - fables, parables - written by Krzhizhanovsky (yes, it's pronounced just like it looks) in the '20s and '30s and with enough 'Is he talking about us, do you think, Yorgi?' satire to have kept it and everything else he wrote unpublished until 1989. I liked half of them very much.
In Autobiography of a Corpse, a man comes to a very overcrowded Moscow. He is finally able to score an apartment, and only later finds out why: the previous tenant hung himself right there. A manuscript is delivered to his door. It is three days of ruminations by the deceased leading up to his suicide and spoken to the new tenant. We learn why a funeral should never take place after sunset: It is the reward of the dead to see the sun at the hour of their burial. Very Russian wouldn’t you say?
In The Runaway Fingers, a German pianist’s right hand stops in mid-concerto, and runs away. The fingers return, the worse for wear, but are received much like the Prodigal Son. It’s not the same though.
In The Unbitten Elbow, a weekly newspaper distributed a questionnaire to its readers. One topic asked ‘Goal in Life?’ Responder 11111, in clear, round letters, stated: To bite my own elbow. Well, he became a media sensation, as he actually was a man who was trying, very unsuccessfully of course, to bite his own elbow. What would the people, the philosophers, the literati, and ultimately the politicians make of him?
A man is making love to a woman in In the Pupil, when he does look in her pupil. A little man is in there waving to him. The wee chap pops out one night to chat but takes the protagonist back with him, where he meets the other, former lovers.
Thirty Pieces of Silver traces what happened to the coins Caiaphas paid to Judas for his betrayal. The potter, the tavern keeper, the tax collector, the publican all must deal with the curse of the Price of Blood.
The rest of the stories….not so much. Maybe it was the Russian cold which has descended unrelentingly upon these parts this winter. Maybe it was the translation. Hell, maybe it was the hashish. If I happened across any other book by this author, I would buy it without question. I just wouldn’t go out of my way.
Wait. Wait a minute. I mean, honestly, I've never actually been on acid. I've never even been remotely close to being on acid. So just strike that. That was me trying to be hip, which is silly and pretentious and fraudulent.
This is like fables on hashish, man.
There. That's better.
This book is a collection of stories - fables, parables - written by Krzhizhanovsky (yes, it's pronounced just like it looks) in the '20s and '30s and with enough 'Is he talking about us, do you think, Yorgi?' satire to have kept it and everything else he wrote unpublished until 1989. I liked half of them very much.
In Autobiography of a Corpse, a man comes to a very overcrowded Moscow. He is finally able to score an apartment, and only later finds out why: the previous tenant hung himself right there. A manuscript is delivered to his door. It is three days of ruminations by the deceased leading up to his suicide and spoken to the new tenant. We learn why a funeral should never take place after sunset: It is the reward of the dead to see the sun at the hour of their burial. Very Russian wouldn’t you say?
In The Runaway Fingers, a German pianist’s right hand stops in mid-concerto, and runs away. The fingers return, the worse for wear, but are received much like the Prodigal Son. It’s not the same though.
In The Unbitten Elbow, a weekly newspaper distributed a questionnaire to its readers. One topic asked ‘Goal in Life?’ Responder 11111, in clear, round letters, stated: To bite my own elbow. Well, he became a media sensation, as he actually was a man who was trying, very unsuccessfully of course, to bite his own elbow. What would the people, the philosophers, the literati, and ultimately the politicians make of him?
A man is making love to a woman in In the Pupil, when he does look in her pupil. A little man is in there waving to him. The wee chap pops out one night to chat but takes the protagonist back with him, where he meets the other, former lovers.
Thirty Pieces of Silver traces what happened to the coins Caiaphas paid to Judas for his betrayal. The potter, the tavern keeper, the tax collector, the publican all must deal with the curse of the Price of Blood.
The rest of the stories….not so much. Maybe it was the Russian cold which has descended unrelentingly upon these parts this winter. Maybe it was the translation. Hell, maybe it was the hashish. If I happened across any other book by this author, I would buy it without question. I just wouldn’t go out of my way.
June 5, 2015
Wow!
Eleven stories—eleven different faces of paranoia, whimsy, stunted desires, manias, in varying degrees of the bizarre & the fantastical. It's hard to choose a favourite here; almost all of them register high on the novelty meter. Krzhizhanovsky chooses unconventional subjects ( e.g. The Collector of Cracks, now who would've thought of that!) & gives them a unique treatment.
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887-1950) was one of history's deleted characters; just like the 0.6 person of his story: a tragedy of being in the wrong place at the wrong time writing the wrong kind of books.
But there's justice in the world even though the wheels of justice take forever to move. All of Krzhizhanovsky's books were published posthumously & thanks to the literature in translation we are now able to read and celebrate this neglected writer.
Like Poe & Kafka, he had looked into the abyss & his stories take you right to that point: "psychorrhea," i.e. "soul seepage," loneliness & problem of space in a big city, the nature of identity & reality, musings on space & time, alienation, death, etc, are some of the themes tackled.
But all is not gloom & doom here—there's a talking Toad that quotes Juvenal & Hegel! Postmark: Moscow, a tribute to Moscow in thirteen postmarks is very Walser-like in its rambling thoughts & featherlight touch. This epistolary tale reference many of the ideas present in other stories here, emphasizing the autobiographical elements in K's writing. Then there are delicious Borgesian stories like The Land of Nots &, The Unbitten Elbow, with their metaphysical approach, wrapped in a self-deprecatory, tongue-in-cheek humour that provides necessary emotional distance from the oddities on display. Both pathos & irony run high here: the "bilification of life" spurred by the energy of "Yellow Coal" is funny & sad at the same time. On second thought, I'd call Yellow Coal, Seams, & Thirty Pieces of Silver my favourite tales.
I took it as a filler read before picking up another big fat book—it turned out to be one of the reading surprises of this year! Such serendipities make reading an absolute joy.
*********
Since I'm such a sucker for beautiful eyes, here is a passage from the story, In the Pupil:
Read
December 29, 2014[2.5] No more books of short stories by early twentieth century East European writers introduced by Adam Thirlwell. That shouldn't be too difficult a resolution to keep.
Almost as much as with the volume of Kafka prefaced by Thirlwell which I read early in the year, I'm in a minority by not being terribly keen on this.
It made fascinating, sometimes prescient ideas remarkably dry. At times I wanted to argue with the illogic of the stories. The philosophy said little that I found new or profound. Moments of satire sometimes fell flat, as in mediocre British comic novels.
I found much of the book skilful yet shallowly whimsical and detached, as if it had been written by a sheltered twenty-year old Williamsburg hipster of prodigious talent and wide reading, but bugger-all life experience and feeling, never having so much as fallen in love or suffered or witnessed significant illness or poverty unlike his Romantic forebears of 200 years earlier. (It's entirely possible that the translation, for a US market which undoubtedly includes plenty such, has produced this effect of superficiality.)
Neither were some of the pieces as fantastical as the write-ups implied; more often they are obviously metaphorical. A few, towards the end, are strongly reminiscent of concepts or openings for Neil Gaiman stories, but, they are, by comparison frustratingly lacking in good plots (plots that from a virtuoso like NG would enhance their underlying meaning) - they don't go anywhere much, tossing and turning and muttering, emitting the occasional damp-squib sound. When I pick this book up, I understand hardcore SFF readers who scorn slipstream, magic realism and 'literary' authors' attempts at the genre. It's like bread with as much butter scraped back off as possible. Stale brown bread at that.
The observations about the dark corners of city life are potentially great, but can come across with all the empathy and contextual understanding of smartarse well-off teenagers overheard on public transport, who implicitly consider the life of the street as a theatre existing for their amusement. (And who will, 15 years later, most likely cringe at their future counterparts...)
I disconnected from the book quite early on, and it never really won me back, even when trying it again, and finishing it, months later.
Still, there were a couple of exceptions to the meh:
- 'The Runaway Fingers': Short tale of the escaped hand of a concert pianist, reminiscent of unsettling fairy-tales for grownups by the likes of James Thurber.
- 'Postmark Moscow': Whilst many of the preceding stories feel pointless to read, like ragged shadows of things done better elsewhere, there's every point to this last piece, which saves the book from the ignominous 2 stars - a realist series of letters from a Kievan writer visiting Moscow, which barely belongs with the rest of the volume. At times the atmosphere is marred by contemporary litfic tics (which add to my suspicion that it's the work of the translators I have a problem with more than Krzhizh himself). Regardless, it's full of reflections about the contemporary, i.e. 1920s, environment and Muscovite history, with a trove of little observations about words and their significance (a handful more added fleeting sparkle to other stories in this volume). e.g Moscow was subject to frequent major fires from the fourteenth to eighteenth century and Russian has a single word for "a person who has lost everything in a fire". Places whose names changed over time, different meaning but similar sounds: the church of Nikolai w Klennikakh [Maples]/ Klinnikakh [Blades - an armourer set up nearby] /Blinnikakh [Blinis - a blini shop]. The author takes a greater delight in words than the average writer of history or guidebooks, making these observations all the more loveable. This piece even made me want to look things up, not get it over and done with like the others.
Autobiography of a Corpse has done nothing to change my aversion to NYRB Classics - made me more wary if anything, as I dislike American translations. It also uses that archaic and pointlessly frustrating structure of having endnotes but no pointers in the text: the best - and least petty - reason I've found to avoid the imprint where other editions are available. And now I know to try and avoid NYRBs in paper form, as the print was too small and closely packed to be really comfortable. At least the cover is decent - they've used an abstract Kandinsky, not the usual dreary post-Impressionist blur, and as it's a diffuse pattern, the central placement of the title box for once doesn't ruin the picture.
Oh, never mind, you'll probably love all of it. (A handful of friends/following - who aren't glib twenty year olds - already do.)
Almost as much as with the volume of Kafka prefaced by Thirlwell which I read early in the year, I'm in a minority by not being terribly keen on this.
It made fascinating, sometimes prescient ideas remarkably dry. At times I wanted to argue with the illogic of the stories. The philosophy said little that I found new or profound. Moments of satire sometimes fell flat, as in mediocre British comic novels.
I found much of the book skilful yet shallowly whimsical and detached, as if it had been written by a sheltered twenty-year old Williamsburg hipster of prodigious talent and wide reading, but bugger-all life experience and feeling, never having so much as fallen in love or suffered or witnessed significant illness or poverty unlike his Romantic forebears of 200 years earlier. (It's entirely possible that the translation, for a US market which undoubtedly includes plenty such, has produced this effect of superficiality.)
Neither were some of the pieces as fantastical as the write-ups implied; more often they are obviously metaphorical. A few, towards the end, are strongly reminiscent of concepts or openings for Neil Gaiman stories, but, they are, by comparison frustratingly lacking in good plots (plots that from a virtuoso like NG would enhance their underlying meaning) - they don't go anywhere much, tossing and turning and muttering, emitting the occasional damp-squib sound. When I pick this book up, I understand hardcore SFF readers who scorn slipstream, magic realism and 'literary' authors' attempts at the genre. It's like bread with as much butter scraped back off as possible. Stale brown bread at that.
The observations about the dark corners of city life are potentially great, but can come across with all the empathy and contextual understanding of smartarse well-off teenagers overheard on public transport, who implicitly consider the life of the street as a theatre existing for their amusement. (And who will, 15 years later, most likely cringe at their future counterparts...)
I disconnected from the book quite early on, and it never really won me back, even when trying it again, and finishing it, months later.
Still, there were a couple of exceptions to the meh:
- 'The Runaway Fingers': Short tale of the escaped hand of a concert pianist, reminiscent of unsettling fairy-tales for grownups by the likes of James Thurber.
- 'Postmark Moscow': Whilst many of the preceding stories feel pointless to read, like ragged shadows of things done better elsewhere, there's every point to this last piece, which saves the book from the ignominous 2 stars - a realist series of letters from a Kievan writer visiting Moscow, which barely belongs with the rest of the volume. At times the atmosphere is marred by contemporary litfic tics (which add to my suspicion that it's the work of the translators I have a problem with more than Krzhizh himself). Regardless, it's full of reflections about the contemporary, i.e. 1920s, environment and Muscovite history, with a trove of little observations about words and their significance (a handful more added fleeting sparkle to other stories in this volume). e.g Moscow was subject to frequent major fires from the fourteenth to eighteenth century and Russian has a single word for "a person who has lost everything in a fire". Places whose names changed over time, different meaning but similar sounds: the church of Nikolai w Klennikakh [Maples]/ Klinnikakh [Blades - an armourer set up nearby] /Blinnikakh [Blinis - a blini shop]. The author takes a greater delight in words than the average writer of history or guidebooks, making these observations all the more loveable. This piece even made me want to look things up, not get it over and done with like the others.
Autobiography of a Corpse has done nothing to change my aversion to NYRB Classics - made me more wary if anything, as I dislike American translations. It also uses that archaic and pointlessly frustrating structure of having endnotes but no pointers in the text: the best - and least petty - reason I've found to avoid the imprint where other editions are available. And now I know to try and avoid NYRBs in paper form, as the print was too small and closely packed to be really comfortable. At least the cover is decent - they've used an abstract Kandinsky, not the usual dreary post-Impressionist blur, and as it's a diffuse pattern, the central placement of the title box for once doesn't ruin the picture.
Oh, never mind, you'll probably love all of it. (A handful of friends/following - who aren't glib twenty year olds - already do.)
October 19, 2018
" Sad, kad pokušavam da što tačnijim izrazima opišem taj, recimo nesrećan slučaj s ' ja', o kome je prethodno pisano, pomažu mi simboli matematičke logike. Tačka može da se pronađe u prostoru, kažu oni, jedino ukrštanjem koordinata. Ali koordinate treba samo da se razmaknu i - prostor je ogroman, tačka nema nikakvu vrednost. Očigledno, moje su se koordinate razmakle, i da pronađem sebe, psihičku tačku u beskraju, nije moguće".
Ovaj baćuška zbunjujućeg prezimena je u jednom pasusu opisao suštinu mog postojanja bolje od bilo kog psihologa.
Neobična zbirka priča. Teško svarljiva. Nije za svako raspoloženje.
Ali odlična za sado-mazohističke kišne dane kada želite da kanališete unutrašnjeg filozofa.
Ovaj baćuška zbunjujućeg prezimena je u jednom pasusu opisao suštinu mog postojanja bolje od bilo kog psihologa.
Neobična zbirka priča. Teško svarljiva. Nije za svako raspoloženje.
Ali odlična za sado-mazohističke kišne dane kada želite da kanališete unutrašnjeg filozofa.
March 5, 2019
Lo sorprendente de este libro de relatos es la naturaleza de sus protagonistas. El primer cuento, Biografía de una idea, fue mi primera lectura de Krzyzanowski. Una idea es la protagonista del texto, desde que se genera en la cabeza del autor, el Sabio, hasta que sale por el bolígrafo, se plasma en el papel y pasa a ser de dominio público, impresa y repetida una y otra vez en libros y publicaciones, desde donde accede al pensamiento y al cerebro de otras personas, y de nuevo vuelve a la cabeza del propio Sabio. No se puede trazar una biografía de algo más original y complicado. Krzyzanowski, de nuevo, construyendo un cuento sobre algo casi imposible de fabular.
Así que la primera lectura que efectué de Krzyzanowski me dejó aturdido porque es algo que en absoluto te esperas. Piensas que, tal vez, este haya sido el canto del cisne de la originalidad del autor, y que lo que viene a continuación en absoluto puede encontrarse, ni por asomo, a ese mismo nivel. El tema ajeno es el siguiente relato, sobre un hombre que vende sistemas filosóficos a quienes se los quiera comprar, y si no pueden pagar por tanto, pues les ofrece aforismos o ideas:
“¿No querrá adquirir un sistema filosófico, ciudadano? Con doble alcanzamiento del mundo: ajuste para el micro y el macrocosmos. Elaborado con un método serio y exacto. Respuesta a todas las preguntas. Bueno y… precio cerrado (…) Usted comprenderá que, al ofrecerle una visión del mundo, yo me quedo sin ella. Y si no fuera por extrema necesidad… (…) Si no tiene medios para la visión de mundo, quizá pueda contentarse con dos o tres aforismos, a su elección”.
Descacharrante, pero más descacharrante todavía es el relato En la pupila. Un amante se encuentra a sí mismo en forma de miniatura en el interior del ojo de la mujer a la que ama. Ese mini amante nos contará una historia de lo que acontece dentro del ojo de la mujer. Al fondo, se reúnen las miniaturas de otros amantes que ha tenido, condenadas a repetir en voz alta la historia de su amor con ella hasta que fueron sustituidas por el siguiente, todo ello antes de que se conviertan en transparentes, es decir, olvidados, y desaparezcan.
Tiene esta Biografía de una idea y otros relatos un momento crucial. Se trata del cuento Kunz y Schiller, de los mejores relatos que he leído, ejemplar, modélico y que además emociona por la forma en la que está contado. Solamente por este texto merece la pena el libro de Biografía de una idea y otros relatos, y merece la pena haber descubierto a Krzyzanowski.
El relato de un viejo director de teatro y estudioso de Schiller que el día de la celebración del aniversario del autor, en la primavera de 1905, se emociona ante los fastos y se compromete a encontrar una obra de teatro extraviada que todo el mundo ha buscado sin éxito, casi ya como un mito. Esa noche, la estatua de Schiller ante la que se ha celebrado el festejo y se han pronunciado los discursos, decide abandonar su lugar frente a la casa consistorial y acudir al piso del viejo director para ayudarle a encontrar esa obra perdida.
Desde aquí, el desenlace impactante del relato, la forma en que literariamente Krzyzanowski lo conduce, hace que nos emocionemos y entendamos que estamos ante una de sus obras maestras. El volumen se completa con El viejo y el mar, Los poco-poquísimos y Por eso, para un total de siete cuentos escritos entre 1922 y 1930.
Este es Sigismund Krzyzanowski, un autor de muchísimas virtudes literarias, aunque ahora que lo pienso, y reflexionando sobre una anotación editorial en la solapa de la novela El club de los asesinos de letras, debo coincidir en que tuvo una virtud mayor: supo esquivar el balazo en la nuca sobre los suelos pavimentados de la sala de ejecuciones de la Lubianka de Moscú, supo mantenerse alejado de la congelación de los campos del GULAG, del aislamiento mortal de Vorkutá y Kolymá, de las purgas y las represiones y, con eso, fue capaz de ser un escritor que, en tiempos de Stalin, pudo y supo morir en su cama. En eso radica su gran mérito. Lo demás es literatura. Pero qué literatura más grande.
Así que la primera lectura que efectué de Krzyzanowski me dejó aturdido porque es algo que en absoluto te esperas. Piensas que, tal vez, este haya sido el canto del cisne de la originalidad del autor, y que lo que viene a continuación en absoluto puede encontrarse, ni por asomo, a ese mismo nivel. El tema ajeno es el siguiente relato, sobre un hombre que vende sistemas filosóficos a quienes se los quiera comprar, y si no pueden pagar por tanto, pues les ofrece aforismos o ideas:
“¿No querrá adquirir un sistema filosófico, ciudadano? Con doble alcanzamiento del mundo: ajuste para el micro y el macrocosmos. Elaborado con un método serio y exacto. Respuesta a todas las preguntas. Bueno y… precio cerrado (…) Usted comprenderá que, al ofrecerle una visión del mundo, yo me quedo sin ella. Y si no fuera por extrema necesidad… (…) Si no tiene medios para la visión de mundo, quizá pueda contentarse con dos o tres aforismos, a su elección”.
Descacharrante, pero más descacharrante todavía es el relato En la pupila. Un amante se encuentra a sí mismo en forma de miniatura en el interior del ojo de la mujer a la que ama. Ese mini amante nos contará una historia de lo que acontece dentro del ojo de la mujer. Al fondo, se reúnen las miniaturas de otros amantes que ha tenido, condenadas a repetir en voz alta la historia de su amor con ella hasta que fueron sustituidas por el siguiente, todo ello antes de que se conviertan en transparentes, es decir, olvidados, y desaparezcan.
Tiene esta Biografía de una idea y otros relatos un momento crucial. Se trata del cuento Kunz y Schiller, de los mejores relatos que he leído, ejemplar, modélico y que además emociona por la forma en la que está contado. Solamente por este texto merece la pena el libro de Biografía de una idea y otros relatos, y merece la pena haber descubierto a Krzyzanowski.
El relato de un viejo director de teatro y estudioso de Schiller que el día de la celebración del aniversario del autor, en la primavera de 1905, se emociona ante los fastos y se compromete a encontrar una obra de teatro extraviada que todo el mundo ha buscado sin éxito, casi ya como un mito. Esa noche, la estatua de Schiller ante la que se ha celebrado el festejo y se han pronunciado los discursos, decide abandonar su lugar frente a la casa consistorial y acudir al piso del viejo director para ayudarle a encontrar esa obra perdida.
Desde aquí, el desenlace impactante del relato, la forma en que literariamente Krzyzanowski lo conduce, hace que nos emocionemos y entendamos que estamos ante una de sus obras maestras. El volumen se completa con El viejo y el mar, Los poco-poquísimos y Por eso, para un total de siete cuentos escritos entre 1922 y 1930.
Este es Sigismund Krzyzanowski, un autor de muchísimas virtudes literarias, aunque ahora que lo pienso, y reflexionando sobre una anotación editorial en la solapa de la novela El club de los asesinos de letras, debo coincidir en que tuvo una virtud mayor: supo esquivar el balazo en la nuca sobre los suelos pavimentados de la sala de ejecuciones de la Lubianka de Moscú, supo mantenerse alejado de la congelación de los campos del GULAG, del aislamiento mortal de Vorkutá y Kolymá, de las purgas y las represiones y, con eso, fue capaz de ser un escritor que, en tiempos de Stalin, pudo y supo morir en su cama. En eso radica su gran mérito. Lo demás es literatura. Pero qué literatura más grande.
January 10, 2022
Met veel plezier las ik de voorbeeldig uitgegeven en vertaalde - en helder geannoteerde- verhalenbundel "Autobiografie van een lijk" van de Rus Sigizmoend Krzjizjanovski (1887-1950). Deze schrijver wordt wel vergeleken met Kafka en Poe, omdat zijn verhalen zo fantastisch zijn in alle betekenissen des woords en zo ongrijpbaar- ongerijmd, en met Borges omdat er in die fantastische verhalen zo mooi gespeeld wordt met filosofische denkbeelden. Zelf had ik ook associaties met Gogol, en met Krzjizjanovski's tijdgenoten Charms, Platonov, Oljesja, Babel, Boelgakov en Pilnjak: absurdistische schrijvers, die met volslagen bizar proza reageerden op de al even bizarre Russische realiteit van de jaren '20 en '30 van de vorige eeuw. Ik hou van al die schrijvers, dus was ik blij om een met hen verwante schrijver tegen te komen. Bovendien vond ik die verhalen van Krzjizjanovski echt heel fraai. Dat hij tijdens zijn leven volkomen onbekend was snap ik wel: zijn volkomen ongeremde en bizarre fantasie was binnen het socialistisch realisme van zijn tijd natuurlijk ontoelaatbaar. Maar waarom is hij niet alsnog wereldberoemd geworden, al was het maar postuum? Geen idee, maar wat maakt het ook uit: dankzij deze bundel heb ik tot mijn vreugde Krzjizjanovski alsnog ontdekt, terwijl Uitgeverij Vleugels recentelijk ook een ander boek van hem uitgegeven heeft, "De letterdodersclub", en er blijken eerder ook nog twee korte romans van hem te zijn vertaald. Feest!
Krzjizjanovski lezen betekent jezelf overgeven aan andere werelden waarin onze wetten niet tellen, en aan het ongerijmde in onze eigen wereld. Wat soms beklemmend is, maar vaak juist inspirerend en geestverruimend, en soms zelfs ronduit hilarisch. De titel van het titelverhaal, "Autobiografie van een lijk", is bijvoorbeeld meteen al een heerlijke paradox: intrigerend genoeg gaat het verhaal bovendien inderdaad grotendeels over reflecties van een levende dode, die "duidelijk [kon] horen hoe met een fijn, scherp geluidje, druppel voor druppel, mijn ziel de leegte binnenlekte". Iets wat hij benoemt als "psychorree" of "zielloop", dus als een naar de ziel verplaatste vorm van diarree of buikloop. Dat is vrij komisch en vrij macaber tegelijk, en dat macabere wordt nog versterkt met diverse surrealistische verwijzingen naar een mistig soort oorlog, en door de steeds vreemder en poreuzer wordende grens tussen de levenden hier en de (oorlogs)doden daar. Of door passages waarin de ik- figuur -dus het lijk- opmerkt wel diverse identiteitsbewijzen te hebben, maar geen identiteit.... Bovendien gaat zijn psychorree gepaard met een volstrekte ontworteling en een al even volstrekt existentieel isolement: "Daarmee brak ook die laatste eenzaamheid aan, die slechts weinigen onder de levenden kennen: wanneer je niet alleen zonder anderen bent overgebleven, maar ook zonder jezelf". Dit verhaal is uit 1925: de associaties met de Russische tijden van toen lijken mij zonneklaar. Maar vooral opvallend is voor mij vooral hoe die bizarre tijden vorm krijgen in een verhaal dat qua inhoud, vorm en stijl voortdurend de grenzen van het realisme overschrijdt. Bovendien spreekt dit bizarre verhaal ook mij, veilig levende westerling, nadrukkelijk aan: natuurlijk heb ik geen last van psychorree, maar het weglekken van de ziel en de eenzaamheid waarin je ook zonder jezelf overblijft fascineren mij wel. Net als diverse suggestieve passages over het niets, het vacuüm, de leegte. Al was het maar mogelijkheid, als pregnante beschrijving van iets wat mij ooit onder andere omstandigheden zou kunnen overkomen, of van iets wat anderen wellicht wel degelijk overkomt.
Andere verhalen in deze bundel zijn minstens zo vreemd. Zoals het verhaal "De weggelopen vingers", waarin de vingers van een pianist nog tijdens een concert op de loop gaan en op de dool gaan langs de smerige straten van de stad. Dat kun je lezen als allegorie over de benarde tijden van musici in de vroege communistische tijden, of als metafoor van de in losse lichaamsdelen uiteenvallende mens die zo ongeveer het tegendeel is van de mens uit één stuk, maar vooral ook als demonstratie van ongeremde fantasie. Of het verhaal "Quadraturine", waarin een nijpend kleine kamer door de magische vloeistof Quadraturine tot in het oneindige groeit in de lengte en breedte, en uiteindelijk verandert in een woestijn van duisternis waarin de hoofdpersoon helemaal verdwaalt. Ook dat is weer een mooie metafoor van existentiële eenzaamheid en leegte, voor mijn gevoel. Of het verhaal "Gele steenkool", waarin de wereld gans anders wordt zodra men ontdekt dat haat en nijd kunnen worden getransformeerd tot een nieuwe energiebron. Zodat hoffelijk en liefdevol gedrag niet wenselijk is, want dat heeft geen energie. De onderwerpen van Krzjizjanovski zijn kortom aanstekelijk ongewoon, en die ongewoonheid wordt in zijn verhalen extra op smaak gebracht door hun vernuftige, verrassende en ook weer ongewone plot. Bovendien trakteert Krzjizjanovski ons op de ene bizarre prachtzin na de andere. Bijvoorbeeld: "Maar overal om hem heen strekten zich eindeloze zwarte vensters uit, als de nissen van een gigantisch crematorium". Of: "Plotseling botste hij bijna op de volgende, uit de nevel opklinkende woorden: 'Ach, mijnheer, uit uw appartement... Ik ben zelfs uit mijn eigen hoofd gezet, en met mij gaat het prima. Terwijl u...'". En, niet te vergeten: "Het hese gegil van claxons rinkelde en rammelde in de ruiten en het zachte vlees van de mensenmassa, dat zich uit alle mogelijke spleten naar buiten leek te blijven persen, werd gekneed tussen de muren van de straat".
Al deze bizarre fantasie stimuleert mij zeer om anders te gaan kijken naar de vreemdheid van de wereld om mij heen en in mijn eigen hoofd. Bovendien word ik vrolijk en geïnspireerd van Krzjizjanovski's filosofische passages. Zo zegt een zeer bijziend personage bijvoorbeeld: "[In]middels heb ik achtenhalve dioptrie. Dat betekent dat vijfenvijftig procent van de zon voor mij niet bestaat. Ik hoef mijn biconcave ovalen maar in hun foedraal te stoppen en de wereld wordt op slag kleiner en waziger, alsof ook die in een donker, krap foedraal is gestopt. Rondom mijn ogen bevinden zich bewegende grijze vlekken, een troebel floers en lange draden van ronde doorzichtige stipjes. Soms, wanneer ik met een zeemdoek mijn bestofte glazen afveeg, krijg ik een curieus gevoel: stel dat de hele wereld, samen met de stofjes die de glazerige krommingen beslaan, zomaar verdwijnt, alsof ook die zich erop had vastgezet?". De ik- figuur oppert hier dus serieus dat de wereld zou kunnen verdwijnen zodra de bril verdwijnt waardoor hij die wereld ziet. Dat lijkt vreemd, maar meerdere filosofen dachten inderdaad dat de taal en de waarneming de grenzen zijn van mijn wereld, of op zijn minst van de voor mij kenbare wereld. Waardoor die wereld zeer voorlopig is, en precies die voorlopigheid krijgt bij Krzjizjanovski nog extra nadruk door al zijn surrealistische zinnen, beelden en verhaalwendingen. Zoals, bijvoorbeeld, het beeld van de psychorree. En ook het steeds terugkerende motief van de leegte, het vacuüm, het niets: het niet- zijn dat gaapt onder al het zijn.
Krzjizjanovski speelt ook met dit soort filosofische denkbeelden in het verhaal "De ongebeten elleboog". Dit tamelijk hilarische verhaal draait om een man die steeds in zijn elleboog poogt te bijten maar daar continu net niet in slaagt, en die door het volharden in deze onmogelijke poging uitgroeit tot een wereldwijd de aandacht trekkende circusattractie. Een attractie die zelfs de aandacht krijgt van een filososoof, een "ellebogist" die de onbijtbaarheid van de elleboog ziet als een belangrijk filosofisch principe. "De gedachtegang van de filosoof was: iedere vorm van het concept dat in de taal der grote Duitse metafysici wordt aangeduid als Begriff stamt in zowel lexicaal als logisch opzicht van greifen af, wat 'grijpen, vatten, zich vastbijten' betekent, maar ieder Begriff of logisme verandert, eenmaal ten einde gedacht, in een Grenzbegriff, oftewel iets wat ons verstandelijk bereik ontglipt een niet kan worden gevat door kennis, precies zoals de elleboog niet kan worden gevat door de tanden". Behoorlijk absurdistisch, deze passage, maar de analogie tussen "Begriff" en "greifen" is ook ooit door Hegel opgemerkt (al dacht Hegel uiteraard niet aan bijten en ellebogen), en iets na deze passage jongleert Krzjizjanovski op weliswaar eigenzinnige maar wel gemotiveerde wijze met Kant. In onnavolgbare zinnen als: "[H]et immanent- transcendente is altijd in het 'hier', uiterst dicht bij het verstandelijk bereik, bijna binnen de grenzen van het apprecipiërend apparaat, zoals de elleboog bijna te bereiken is door de grijpinspanningen van de kaken, maar 'al is de elleboog dichtbij, bijten zul je hem nooit', en het Ding an Sich zit in ieder 'zich' maar het is onbereikbaar". Je kunt nooit het "ding op zich" kennen, zei Kant inderdaad, want je kent de dingen alleen via de interpretatierasters van je zintuiglijke waarnemingen en je verstandelijke vermogens. En dus, zegt Krzjizjanovski, is elk "begrip" alleen maar een "Grenzbegriff", en is elke poging om voorbij de grenzen van het Grenzbegriff te komen - en het onbereikbare Ding an sich toch te bereiken- even vergeefs als het willen bijten in je elleboog.....
Ik bewonder hoe elegant en humorvol Krzjizjanovski dat alles in dit verhaal zegt. En nog mooier vind ik hoe hij de in het begrip "Grenzbegriff" aangeduide ongrijpbaarheid thematiseert in al zijn verhalen. Ik vind het dus fascinerend hoe Krzjizjanovski ons in elk verhaal opnieuw meevoert in een wereld waarin elk begrip een "Grenzbegriff" is, en waarin de onbereikbaarheid van de dingen zo nadrukkelijk op de voorgrond staat. Een wereld waarin vingers gewoon zelf aan de wandel kunnen gaan, waarin nijd een energiebron kan zijn, waarin ook zilverlingen een eigen dynamisch leven kunnen lijden, waarin de ziel door psychorree leeg kan lekken in de leegte, en waarin iemand niet alleen uit zijn huis kan worden gezet maar zelfs ook uit zijn eigen hoofd. Heel aanstekelijk vond ik de voortdurende ongewoonheid van inhoud, stijl en plot. Bovendien vond ik de verhalen zowel macaber als grappig, zowel aanstekelijk fantasievol als filosofisch uitdagend, en even beklemmend als inspirerend en geestverruimend. Krzjizjanovski is kortom een ontdekking voor mij, zoals ik al zei. Dus ik ga meteen op zoek naar meer!
Krzjizjanovski lezen betekent jezelf overgeven aan andere werelden waarin onze wetten niet tellen, en aan het ongerijmde in onze eigen wereld. Wat soms beklemmend is, maar vaak juist inspirerend en geestverruimend, en soms zelfs ronduit hilarisch. De titel van het titelverhaal, "Autobiografie van een lijk", is bijvoorbeeld meteen al een heerlijke paradox: intrigerend genoeg gaat het verhaal bovendien inderdaad grotendeels over reflecties van een levende dode, die "duidelijk [kon] horen hoe met een fijn, scherp geluidje, druppel voor druppel, mijn ziel de leegte binnenlekte". Iets wat hij benoemt als "psychorree" of "zielloop", dus als een naar de ziel verplaatste vorm van diarree of buikloop. Dat is vrij komisch en vrij macaber tegelijk, en dat macabere wordt nog versterkt met diverse surrealistische verwijzingen naar een mistig soort oorlog, en door de steeds vreemder en poreuzer wordende grens tussen de levenden hier en de (oorlogs)doden daar. Of door passages waarin de ik- figuur -dus het lijk- opmerkt wel diverse identiteitsbewijzen te hebben, maar geen identiteit.... Bovendien gaat zijn psychorree gepaard met een volstrekte ontworteling en een al even volstrekt existentieel isolement: "Daarmee brak ook die laatste eenzaamheid aan, die slechts weinigen onder de levenden kennen: wanneer je niet alleen zonder anderen bent overgebleven, maar ook zonder jezelf". Dit verhaal is uit 1925: de associaties met de Russische tijden van toen lijken mij zonneklaar. Maar vooral opvallend is voor mij vooral hoe die bizarre tijden vorm krijgen in een verhaal dat qua inhoud, vorm en stijl voortdurend de grenzen van het realisme overschrijdt. Bovendien spreekt dit bizarre verhaal ook mij, veilig levende westerling, nadrukkelijk aan: natuurlijk heb ik geen last van psychorree, maar het weglekken van de ziel en de eenzaamheid waarin je ook zonder jezelf overblijft fascineren mij wel. Net als diverse suggestieve passages over het niets, het vacuüm, de leegte. Al was het maar mogelijkheid, als pregnante beschrijving van iets wat mij ooit onder andere omstandigheden zou kunnen overkomen, of van iets wat anderen wellicht wel degelijk overkomt.
Andere verhalen in deze bundel zijn minstens zo vreemd. Zoals het verhaal "De weggelopen vingers", waarin de vingers van een pianist nog tijdens een concert op de loop gaan en op de dool gaan langs de smerige straten van de stad. Dat kun je lezen als allegorie over de benarde tijden van musici in de vroege communistische tijden, of als metafoor van de in losse lichaamsdelen uiteenvallende mens die zo ongeveer het tegendeel is van de mens uit één stuk, maar vooral ook als demonstratie van ongeremde fantasie. Of het verhaal "Quadraturine", waarin een nijpend kleine kamer door de magische vloeistof Quadraturine tot in het oneindige groeit in de lengte en breedte, en uiteindelijk verandert in een woestijn van duisternis waarin de hoofdpersoon helemaal verdwaalt. Ook dat is weer een mooie metafoor van existentiële eenzaamheid en leegte, voor mijn gevoel. Of het verhaal "Gele steenkool", waarin de wereld gans anders wordt zodra men ontdekt dat haat en nijd kunnen worden getransformeerd tot een nieuwe energiebron. Zodat hoffelijk en liefdevol gedrag niet wenselijk is, want dat heeft geen energie. De onderwerpen van Krzjizjanovski zijn kortom aanstekelijk ongewoon, en die ongewoonheid wordt in zijn verhalen extra op smaak gebracht door hun vernuftige, verrassende en ook weer ongewone plot. Bovendien trakteert Krzjizjanovski ons op de ene bizarre prachtzin na de andere. Bijvoorbeeld: "Maar overal om hem heen strekten zich eindeloze zwarte vensters uit, als de nissen van een gigantisch crematorium". Of: "Plotseling botste hij bijna op de volgende, uit de nevel opklinkende woorden: 'Ach, mijnheer, uit uw appartement... Ik ben zelfs uit mijn eigen hoofd gezet, en met mij gaat het prima. Terwijl u...'". En, niet te vergeten: "Het hese gegil van claxons rinkelde en rammelde in de ruiten en het zachte vlees van de mensenmassa, dat zich uit alle mogelijke spleten naar buiten leek te blijven persen, werd gekneed tussen de muren van de straat".
Al deze bizarre fantasie stimuleert mij zeer om anders te gaan kijken naar de vreemdheid van de wereld om mij heen en in mijn eigen hoofd. Bovendien word ik vrolijk en geïnspireerd van Krzjizjanovski's filosofische passages. Zo zegt een zeer bijziend personage bijvoorbeeld: "[In]middels heb ik achtenhalve dioptrie. Dat betekent dat vijfenvijftig procent van de zon voor mij niet bestaat. Ik hoef mijn biconcave ovalen maar in hun foedraal te stoppen en de wereld wordt op slag kleiner en waziger, alsof ook die in een donker, krap foedraal is gestopt. Rondom mijn ogen bevinden zich bewegende grijze vlekken, een troebel floers en lange draden van ronde doorzichtige stipjes. Soms, wanneer ik met een zeemdoek mijn bestofte glazen afveeg, krijg ik een curieus gevoel: stel dat de hele wereld, samen met de stofjes die de glazerige krommingen beslaan, zomaar verdwijnt, alsof ook die zich erop had vastgezet?". De ik- figuur oppert hier dus serieus dat de wereld zou kunnen verdwijnen zodra de bril verdwijnt waardoor hij die wereld ziet. Dat lijkt vreemd, maar meerdere filosofen dachten inderdaad dat de taal en de waarneming de grenzen zijn van mijn wereld, of op zijn minst van de voor mij kenbare wereld. Waardoor die wereld zeer voorlopig is, en precies die voorlopigheid krijgt bij Krzjizjanovski nog extra nadruk door al zijn surrealistische zinnen, beelden en verhaalwendingen. Zoals, bijvoorbeeld, het beeld van de psychorree. En ook het steeds terugkerende motief van de leegte, het vacuüm, het niets: het niet- zijn dat gaapt onder al het zijn.
Krzjizjanovski speelt ook met dit soort filosofische denkbeelden in het verhaal "De ongebeten elleboog". Dit tamelijk hilarische verhaal draait om een man die steeds in zijn elleboog poogt te bijten maar daar continu net niet in slaagt, en die door het volharden in deze onmogelijke poging uitgroeit tot een wereldwijd de aandacht trekkende circusattractie. Een attractie die zelfs de aandacht krijgt van een filososoof, een "ellebogist" die de onbijtbaarheid van de elleboog ziet als een belangrijk filosofisch principe. "De gedachtegang van de filosoof was: iedere vorm van het concept dat in de taal der grote Duitse metafysici wordt aangeduid als Begriff stamt in zowel lexicaal als logisch opzicht van greifen af, wat 'grijpen, vatten, zich vastbijten' betekent, maar ieder Begriff of logisme verandert, eenmaal ten einde gedacht, in een Grenzbegriff, oftewel iets wat ons verstandelijk bereik ontglipt een niet kan worden gevat door kennis, precies zoals de elleboog niet kan worden gevat door de tanden". Behoorlijk absurdistisch, deze passage, maar de analogie tussen "Begriff" en "greifen" is ook ooit door Hegel opgemerkt (al dacht Hegel uiteraard niet aan bijten en ellebogen), en iets na deze passage jongleert Krzjizjanovski op weliswaar eigenzinnige maar wel gemotiveerde wijze met Kant. In onnavolgbare zinnen als: "[H]et immanent- transcendente is altijd in het 'hier', uiterst dicht bij het verstandelijk bereik, bijna binnen de grenzen van het apprecipiërend apparaat, zoals de elleboog bijna te bereiken is door de grijpinspanningen van de kaken, maar 'al is de elleboog dichtbij, bijten zul je hem nooit', en het Ding an Sich zit in ieder 'zich' maar het is onbereikbaar". Je kunt nooit het "ding op zich" kennen, zei Kant inderdaad, want je kent de dingen alleen via de interpretatierasters van je zintuiglijke waarnemingen en je verstandelijke vermogens. En dus, zegt Krzjizjanovski, is elk "begrip" alleen maar een "Grenzbegriff", en is elke poging om voorbij de grenzen van het Grenzbegriff te komen - en het onbereikbare Ding an sich toch te bereiken- even vergeefs als het willen bijten in je elleboog.....
Ik bewonder hoe elegant en humorvol Krzjizjanovski dat alles in dit verhaal zegt. En nog mooier vind ik hoe hij de in het begrip "Grenzbegriff" aangeduide ongrijpbaarheid thematiseert in al zijn verhalen. Ik vind het dus fascinerend hoe Krzjizjanovski ons in elk verhaal opnieuw meevoert in een wereld waarin elk begrip een "Grenzbegriff" is, en waarin de onbereikbaarheid van de dingen zo nadrukkelijk op de voorgrond staat. Een wereld waarin vingers gewoon zelf aan de wandel kunnen gaan, waarin nijd een energiebron kan zijn, waarin ook zilverlingen een eigen dynamisch leven kunnen lijden, waarin de ziel door psychorree leeg kan lekken in de leegte, en waarin iemand niet alleen uit zijn huis kan worden gezet maar zelfs ook uit zijn eigen hoofd. Heel aanstekelijk vond ik de voortdurende ongewoonheid van inhoud, stijl en plot. Bovendien vond ik de verhalen zowel macaber als grappig, zowel aanstekelijk fantasievol als filosofisch uitdagend, en even beklemmend als inspirerend en geestverruimend. Krzjizjanovski is kortom een ontdekking voor mij, zoals ik al zei. Dus ik ga meteen op zoek naar meer!
September 30, 2014
“Man is to man a ghost”
This is a collection of short stories written by surely the most difficult to spell author of all-time, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. Writing under the Soviet regime in the early part of last century, most of his work didn’t get past the censors and remained unpublished until the period of Glasnost in the late ’80s. The stories are quirky and imaginative, sometimes fantastical, usually satirical, and often witty; and there are common themes of individual and social identity, reality and abstraction, life and death, space and time. Some of the stories are quite clearly political, concerning the submergence and alienation of the individual under Soviet rule – soul seepage, as he terms it. There is a good deal of word-play in the stories, so the excellent translation by Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov is essential to letting the reader grasp the author’s intention.
By morning many-hued military flags were hanging over building entrances and gateways. Men with newspapers held up to their eyes were walking down the sidewalks; men with rifles on their shoulders were walking down the roadways. Thus from the very first day newspapers and rifles divided us all into those who would die and those for whom they would die.
Like most collections, this one is variable – some of the stories are interesting and enjoyable, while in others Krzhizhanovsky lets his philosophising tendencies run away with him, making them overly wordy while not being quite as profound he presumably intended them to be. However, none of them are less than thought-provoking and they give an insight into the difficulties of plain-speaking in a time of censorship and worse.
There are 11 stories in the collection, plus a short introduction by Adam Thirlwell, giving brief biographical details of the author. There are fairly extensive notes at the back, and in some of the stories these are quite important as the people and institutions the author refers to are often no longer household names – at least, not in my household.
A philosophizing Not once said, “Being cannot not be without becoming Nothing, while Nothing cannot be without becoming Being.” This is so very reasonable it’s hard to believe that a Not, a nonexistent being, could – in little more than a dozen words – have come so close to the truth.”
The title story sets the scene for much of what is to follow – through the letters of a man written in the three consecutive nights before committing suicide, Krzhizhanovsky introduces his main subject of identity as an individual within, or more often outside, society. The next story takes us straight to the fantastical as a man becomes fascinated by his own image reflected back to him from the eye of his lover – until one day the reflection disappears. We are told the story of this ‘little man’ who finds he has fallen into a space in the lover’s head where the ‘little men’ of all her former lovers are gathered, telling each other the story of their relationship with her. Humorous and quirky, but still with the theme of identity at the fore, we begin to get a feel for how Krzhizhanovsky uses the fantastic as a vehicle for philosophising and satire. This shows through strongly in another story, The Unbitten Elbow, where the author takes a sharply ironic look at politics, celebrity, the media and most of all the tendency of philosophers to try to read meaning into the meaningless – which is in itself ironic, since I felt Krzhizhanovsky wasn’t immune from falling into that trap himself.
It turned out that the energy of a potential fistfight, if sucked promptly into the pores of a street absorberator, could heat an entire floor for twelve hours. Even without adopting any matrimoniological measures, simply by giving porous double beds to two million “happily married” couples, you could support the work of an enormous sawmill.
Overall I enjoyed most of the stories enough that they made up for the over-stuffed ones. I think my favourite is Yellow Coal – a satire based on the idea that sources of energy are running out and, in response to a competition, an inventor suggests powering things with human spite – bile, known as yellow coal. This works amazingly well as supplies are inexhaustible, until gradually everyone becomes contented and well-fed… Unfortunately the last story, Postmark: Moscow, was the most incomprehensible to me, since it relied to some extent on the reader getting references to the ideas of many philosophers who were no more than names to me, if that. But even so, it rounded off the recurring theme throughout the book of ‘I’s and ‘Not’s – the alienation of the individual and the disconnect from society. A thought-provoking collection where the best of the stories are highly entertaining and the worst are still quite readable – recommended.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, NYRB.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
This is a collection of short stories written by surely the most difficult to spell author of all-time, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. Writing under the Soviet regime in the early part of last century, most of his work didn’t get past the censors and remained unpublished until the period of Glasnost in the late ’80s. The stories are quirky and imaginative, sometimes fantastical, usually satirical, and often witty; and there are common themes of individual and social identity, reality and abstraction, life and death, space and time. Some of the stories are quite clearly political, concerning the submergence and alienation of the individual under Soviet rule – soul seepage, as he terms it. There is a good deal of word-play in the stories, so the excellent translation by Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov is essential to letting the reader grasp the author’s intention.
By morning many-hued military flags were hanging over building entrances and gateways. Men with newspapers held up to their eyes were walking down the sidewalks; men with rifles on their shoulders were walking down the roadways. Thus from the very first day newspapers and rifles divided us all into those who would die and those for whom they would die.
Like most collections, this one is variable – some of the stories are interesting and enjoyable, while in others Krzhizhanovsky lets his philosophising tendencies run away with him, making them overly wordy while not being quite as profound he presumably intended them to be. However, none of them are less than thought-provoking and they give an insight into the difficulties of plain-speaking in a time of censorship and worse.
There are 11 stories in the collection, plus a short introduction by Adam Thirlwell, giving brief biographical details of the author. There are fairly extensive notes at the back, and in some of the stories these are quite important as the people and institutions the author refers to are often no longer household names – at least, not in my household.
A philosophizing Not once said, “Being cannot not be without becoming Nothing, while Nothing cannot be without becoming Being.” This is so very reasonable it’s hard to believe that a Not, a nonexistent being, could – in little more than a dozen words – have come so close to the truth.”
The title story sets the scene for much of what is to follow – through the letters of a man written in the three consecutive nights before committing suicide, Krzhizhanovsky introduces his main subject of identity as an individual within, or more often outside, society. The next story takes us straight to the fantastical as a man becomes fascinated by his own image reflected back to him from the eye of his lover – until one day the reflection disappears. We are told the story of this ‘little man’ who finds he has fallen into a space in the lover’s head where the ‘little men’ of all her former lovers are gathered, telling each other the story of their relationship with her. Humorous and quirky, but still with the theme of identity at the fore, we begin to get a feel for how Krzhizhanovsky uses the fantastic as a vehicle for philosophising and satire. This shows through strongly in another story, The Unbitten Elbow, where the author takes a sharply ironic look at politics, celebrity, the media and most of all the tendency of philosophers to try to read meaning into the meaningless – which is in itself ironic, since I felt Krzhizhanovsky wasn’t immune from falling into that trap himself.
It turned out that the energy of a potential fistfight, if sucked promptly into the pores of a street absorberator, could heat an entire floor for twelve hours. Even without adopting any matrimoniological measures, simply by giving porous double beds to two million “happily married” couples, you could support the work of an enormous sawmill.
Overall I enjoyed most of the stories enough that they made up for the over-stuffed ones. I think my favourite is Yellow Coal – a satire based on the idea that sources of energy are running out and, in response to a competition, an inventor suggests powering things with human spite – bile, known as yellow coal. This works amazingly well as supplies are inexhaustible, until gradually everyone becomes contented and well-fed… Unfortunately the last story, Postmark: Moscow, was the most incomprehensible to me, since it relied to some extent on the reader getting references to the ideas of many philosophers who were no more than names to me, if that. But even so, it rounded off the recurring theme throughout the book of ‘I’s and ‘Not’s – the alienation of the individual and the disconnect from society. A thought-provoking collection where the best of the stories are highly entertaining and the worst are still quite readable – recommended.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, NYRB.
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September 30, 2021
kooky characters and fun premises. occasional references to russian society and philosophy, which my eyes sometimes skipped over. but every story was enjoyable to some degree. yay!
April 7, 2017
I've read Krzhizhanovsky before (Memories of the future), and didn't care for his writing style or material in that volume. However, I can say without a doubt, this is one of my favorite collections of short stories that I have ever read. First off, I would reccomend the Kindle version, as it makes it much easier to keep track of all the various footnotes, as Krzhizhanovsky makes numerous references to philosophers, philosophical teachings, religions, latin, various Russian folklore, locations, and plays-on-words, and much more, which would have caused me a great deal of annoyance to constantly flip to the back of the book to locate.
The stories in this volume are bizarre and fantastic, and also, from my outside perspective towards the Soviet Era, show the loneliness and non-person status of Krzhizhanovsky as an author, and a Soviet Citizen. It really is hard to explain without quoting at length from the book, so I'll leave it up to you to explore and learn.
Some of my favorite short stories in the collection are: "In the Pupil," about memory, and little people living in the reflections of their lover's eyes, "The Collector of Cracks," a fascinating and mind-bending tale, "The Land of Nots," "The Runaway Fingers," about a pianists fingers which leap off his hand mid concert and go on an adventure, "Thirty Pieces of Silver," about the travels of the 30 coins which Judas received for selling out Jesus Christ, and finally, my absolute favorite, "The Unbitten Elbow," about a man whose sole goal in life is to be able to bite his own elbow and the ways people try to rationalize it.
It is an AMAZING collection of short stories for those who like particularly strange stories, or who have a fascination with Soviet Era fiction (published, or in this case, suppressed).
The stories in this volume are bizarre and fantastic, and also, from my outside perspective towards the Soviet Era, show the loneliness and non-person status of Krzhizhanovsky as an author, and a Soviet Citizen. It really is hard to explain without quoting at length from the book, so I'll leave it up to you to explore and learn.
Some of my favorite short stories in the collection are: "In the Pupil," about memory, and little people living in the reflections of their lover's eyes, "The Collector of Cracks," a fascinating and mind-bending tale, "The Land of Nots," "The Runaway Fingers," about a pianists fingers which leap off his hand mid concert and go on an adventure, "Thirty Pieces of Silver," about the travels of the 30 coins which Judas received for selling out Jesus Christ, and finally, my absolute favorite, "The Unbitten Elbow," about a man whose sole goal in life is to be able to bite his own elbow and the ways people try to rationalize it.
It is an AMAZING collection of short stories for those who like particularly strange stories, or who have a fascination with Soviet Era fiction (published, or in this case, suppressed).
January 4, 2014
Not to be read prior to Memories of the Future or Letter Killers Club, this collection of short works does the same as NYRB's previous two editions of K's short stories; it shows the fusion of engineering and literature in short outbursts of Soviet-era stories. Think something like Zoschenko's social satire meets Verne's love of machination and you've arrived at this point. Grin's dreamy adventure lit is also a salient point of comparison and K. makes it clear he's read his Grin. I must admit that the first group of stories bogged a bit but The Unbitten Elbow had a Voinovich-like abundance of humor that reeled me back in. But humor aside - it might be the mediation on death in the Bridge...that is most important here.
This is an important writer that pales in comparison to most of those I've mentioned above, and in no way is as important as Platonov if you're cruising the NYRB Russians - but he's great, fun, witty and should please most readers. It reads easy and the length will intimidate no serious scholar. This is a book I'd find easy to suggest to even the most casual reader.
This is an important writer that pales in comparison to most of those I've mentioned above, and in no way is as important as Platonov if you're cruising the NYRB Russians - but he's great, fun, witty and should please most readers. It reads easy and the length will intimidate no serious scholar. This is a book I'd find easy to suggest to even the most casual reader.
October 28, 2025
There is little doubt in my mind that Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky is a major writer. He even referred to himself as "known for being unknown.” At his death in 1950, very little of his work had ever been published. Fortunately, many of his manuscripts were discovered in 1976 in the Soviet State Archives and are only now coming into print.
Autobiography of a Corpse is a collection of philosophical short stories. They do not make for easy reading, as the reader is expected to be able to handle quotes in Russian, Latin, Greek, French, and German. Fortunately, there are a lot of footnotes -- and one will have to be diligent about reading them to see where the author is going.
My favorite story is "Yellow Coal," which, fortunately, you can read on the Internet here. It begins with a very realistic picture of ecological decline -- and it was written in 1939!
I intend to tackle Krzhizhanovsky's other works, as I find reading him to be surprisingly rewarding.
Autobiography of a Corpse is a collection of philosophical short stories. They do not make for easy reading, as the reader is expected to be able to handle quotes in Russian, Latin, Greek, French, and German. Fortunately, there are a lot of footnotes -- and one will have to be diligent about reading them to see where the author is going.
My favorite story is "Yellow Coal," which, fortunately, you can read on the Internet here. It begins with a very realistic picture of ecological decline -- and it was written in 1939!
I intend to tackle Krzhizhanovsky's other works, as I find reading him to be surprisingly rewarding.
May 11, 2015
Though Krzhizhanovsky wrote these stories in the 1920s and 1930s they weren't actually published until the Soviet Union was on its last legs. It's no wonder then that he is not a well-known writer in the west. I hadn't heard of him until a few months ago.
The stories in this volume are surreal, fantastic tales; they remind me of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Franz Kafka as well as others - at times he's like Samuel Beckett. But Krzhizhanovsky has his own very distinctive style; he's obsessed with topics such as identity, especially with how it changes over time but also what it means when we say 'I' - in short I guess we can say he's an 'existentialist'. He's also interested in scientific topics (in particular psychology) and some of the stories are like science-fiction.
The stories included here are a bit of a mix; a mix of styles, topics and quality as well. So I thought I'd give a rating for each story as well as a bit of a 'taster' for some of them. I should state that I read the book quite slowly and ended up re-reading some of the stories as I went. I've just re-read 'In the Pupil' before writing this review and I must say that every story that I've re-read has improved on a second reading.
Anyway here goes:
The title story Autobiography of a Corpse (4/5): A journalist from the provinces comes to Moscow and takes a room in a boarding house. Not long after he's arrived he receives a notebook from the previous occupant who killed himself in the room. There's a lot of brilliant imagery in this story as the 'corpse' relates his existential concerns. He's concerned that his soul is seeping away drop by drop and calls this effect soul seepage - brilliant! He hopes that his 'I' will seep into the new occupant's brain.
I didn't really like the second story much when I first read it, but on a re-read I much preferred it. The problem is that In the Pupil (4/5) does sort of lose its way about half-way through. It's about a man who falls in love with a woman and he notices a little version of himself in his lover's eye. One day he sees this little man wave to him and then disappear. The rest of the story is the little man's story of what happened. It's actually quite good but Krzhizhanovsky seems to have this habit of completely changing direction whilst telling a story, which is good, but you end up reading a different story than you started.
I can't remember too much about Seams but I remember thinking it was ok - so (3/5) though a re-read may change that.
The Collector of Cracks (4/5) is really strange: An author reads a recently written fairy tale to a small group of people. The tale is about a hermit who asks God for power over cracks!...yes cracks. Anyway the tale sort of peters out but one of the listeners is a Gottfried Lovenix who is interested in cracks, but he's more interested in cracks in time rather than cracks in space. He ponders over whether time is actually continuous or discrete and is concerned that people may be flickering in and out of existence...oh he has a thing about the time 1:27 and he doesn't trust the Universe....you'll just have to read it.
I liked The Land of Nots (4/5) but this was probably the strangest of the stories. It concerns Adsum from the Nation of Ises who is describing the inhabitants from the Land of Nots (humans I assume) and in particular Not philosophers who shut themselves away in a darkened room to prove that they exist. They are obsessed with death - until they die that is. It's a great satire on western philosophy and then it digresses into a strange mythological story before returning, sort of, to the initial narrative. Very playful, very strange and very funny.
The Runaway Fingers (3/5) was quite amusing. A pianist's fingers one day separate from his hand in the middle of a performance. They lead their own life before returning.
I really loved The Unbitten Elbow (5/5). By this point in the book I was realising that Krzhizhanovsky didn't always know how to end a story or rather they seem to just end abruptly. This one had a brilliant ending (which I won't reveal). The story is simple, but absurd: A man comes to the attention of a magazine when they send out a questionnaire and his answer to their question 'What is your goal in life?' is 'To bite my elbow'. Ha! Ha! He ends up becoming a celebrity, philosophers (Kint and Tnik) debate the ramifications of this new phenomenon. So, does he bite his elbow? You'll just have to read it.
And on to the next one, Yellow Coal (5/5). Again, I liked this one because it was simple, silly and worked well as a story. In short: there's an energy crisis! But not if you can harvest human spite and bile (the yellow coal)! There's a never-ending supply of that! BE ANGRY OR GO HUNGRY! The police have to arrest people that won't stop smiling, it's outrageous! But can it last?
The stories sort of fizzle out from here though. Bridge Over Styx and Thirty Pieces of Silver were ok, so (3/5) each. But Postmark: Moscow (1/5) was painful to read. It has a subtitle Thirteen Letters to the Provinces and is probably an amusing read for anyone who's familiar with pre-war Moscow but for the rest of us it's just dull. I think it's a bit cruel of me to criticise Krzhizhanovsky for writing it because as far as he was concerned no-one was actually reading his stories outside of his friends and family. But I'm not sure why it was included in this collection - it's expendable.
Overall this is a brilliant collection by an amazing, inventive writer. He's not polished or slick...his stories are very rough and a bit hit-or-miss but when he hits it's brilliant. In that respect he's very similar to E.T.A. Hoffmann who's one of my favourite authors. I'll definitely have to read some other material from Krzhizhanovsky.
The stories in this volume are surreal, fantastic tales; they remind me of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Franz Kafka as well as others - at times he's like Samuel Beckett. But Krzhizhanovsky has his own very distinctive style; he's obsessed with topics such as identity, especially with how it changes over time but also what it means when we say 'I' - in short I guess we can say he's an 'existentialist'. He's also interested in scientific topics (in particular psychology) and some of the stories are like science-fiction.
The stories included here are a bit of a mix; a mix of styles, topics and quality as well. So I thought I'd give a rating for each story as well as a bit of a 'taster' for some of them. I should state that I read the book quite slowly and ended up re-reading some of the stories as I went. I've just re-read 'In the Pupil' before writing this review and I must say that every story that I've re-read has improved on a second reading.
Anyway here goes:
The title story Autobiography of a Corpse (4/5): A journalist from the provinces comes to Moscow and takes a room in a boarding house. Not long after he's arrived he receives a notebook from the previous occupant who killed himself in the room. There's a lot of brilliant imagery in this story as the 'corpse' relates his existential concerns. He's concerned that his soul is seeping away drop by drop and calls this effect soul seepage - brilliant! He hopes that his 'I' will seep into the new occupant's brain.
I didn't really like the second story much when I first read it, but on a re-read I much preferred it. The problem is that In the Pupil (4/5) does sort of lose its way about half-way through. It's about a man who falls in love with a woman and he notices a little version of himself in his lover's eye. One day he sees this little man wave to him and then disappear. The rest of the story is the little man's story of what happened. It's actually quite good but Krzhizhanovsky seems to have this habit of completely changing direction whilst telling a story, which is good, but you end up reading a different story than you started.
I can't remember too much about Seams but I remember thinking it was ok - so (3/5) though a re-read may change that.
The Collector of Cracks (4/5) is really strange: An author reads a recently written fairy tale to a small group of people. The tale is about a hermit who asks God for power over cracks!...yes cracks. Anyway the tale sort of peters out but one of the listeners is a Gottfried Lovenix who is interested in cracks, but he's more interested in cracks in time rather than cracks in space. He ponders over whether time is actually continuous or discrete and is concerned that people may be flickering in and out of existence...oh he has a thing about the time 1:27 and he doesn't trust the Universe....you'll just have to read it.
I liked The Land of Nots (4/5) but this was probably the strangest of the stories. It concerns Adsum from the Nation of Ises who is describing the inhabitants from the Land of Nots (humans I assume) and in particular Not philosophers who shut themselves away in a darkened room to prove that they exist. They are obsessed with death - until they die that is. It's a great satire on western philosophy and then it digresses into a strange mythological story before returning, sort of, to the initial narrative. Very playful, very strange and very funny.
The Runaway Fingers (3/5) was quite amusing. A pianist's fingers one day separate from his hand in the middle of a performance. They lead their own life before returning.
I really loved The Unbitten Elbow (5/5). By this point in the book I was realising that Krzhizhanovsky didn't always know how to end a story or rather they seem to just end abruptly. This one had a brilliant ending (which I won't reveal). The story is simple, but absurd: A man comes to the attention of a magazine when they send out a questionnaire and his answer to their question 'What is your goal in life?' is 'To bite my elbow'. Ha! Ha! He ends up becoming a celebrity, philosophers (Kint and Tnik) debate the ramifications of this new phenomenon. So, does he bite his elbow? You'll just have to read it.
And on to the next one, Yellow Coal (5/5). Again, I liked this one because it was simple, silly and worked well as a story. In short: there's an energy crisis! But not if you can harvest human spite and bile (the yellow coal)! There's a never-ending supply of that! BE ANGRY OR GO HUNGRY! The police have to arrest people that won't stop smiling, it's outrageous! But can it last?
The stories sort of fizzle out from here though. Bridge Over Styx and Thirty Pieces of Silver were ok, so (3/5) each. But Postmark: Moscow (1/5) was painful to read. It has a subtitle Thirteen Letters to the Provinces and is probably an amusing read for anyone who's familiar with pre-war Moscow but for the rest of us it's just dull. I think it's a bit cruel of me to criticise Krzhizhanovsky for writing it because as far as he was concerned no-one was actually reading his stories outside of his friends and family. But I'm not sure why it was included in this collection - it's expendable.
Overall this is a brilliant collection by an amazing, inventive writer. He's not polished or slick...his stories are very rough and a bit hit-or-miss but when he hits it's brilliant. In that respect he's very similar to E.T.A. Hoffmann who's one of my favourite authors. I'll definitely have to read some other material from Krzhizhanovsky.
January 17, 2020
This was fine. Some imaginative stories, none of which did a lot for me in execution. I was much more fascinated but the foreword and how close the author was to never actually being published; taken with my recent reading of Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet I have to wonder how much stuff from the last century actually remains undiscovered/unpublished (I’m sure it’s a ton).
June 28, 2021
As happens with most collections, a bit of a mixed bag here. Overwhelmingly, I liked the short stories and did not like the novelette/novella length works, they became incredibly rambling and philosophical. My favorites were Yellow Coal, The Unbitten Elbow, and Thirty Pieces of Silver.
Autobiography of a Corpse - A man enters a room and finds a journal, it is the autobiography of a corpse, the mundane to the strange. I think this one was too abstract and rambling for me.
In the Pupil - A man falling in love with a woman leans close for a kiss, and deep in the hollow of her pupil a tiny man waves to him. This is a strange dreamy exploration of love and the way we internalize those we love.
Seams - A man beings to realize he is restrained by seams, the seams in his jacket, buttons. His pencil pushing stopped by a seam in the paper. Another long one that becomes very philosphical.
The Collector of Cracks - An author writes a fairytale about when all the cracks of the world gather... then suffers the realization that cracks are everywhere, (tiny) yawning abysses waiting to swallow us up. I'm not sure I got this one, but I liked the tone, bit Lovecraftian ominous without actually saying anything.
The Land of Nots - A brief almost alt-biblical mythology.
The Runaway Fingers - Mid performance, a famed pianist's fingers decide they will no longer be constrained to the keys, and run away (taking the right hand with them). The fingers soon learn the cold, damp pavement is very different from the silky keys.
The Unbitten Elbow - A man determined to bite his elbow, an exercise in futility perhaps. His determination gains him an invitation to join a circus sideshow, where his pursuit gins some note, attracting an off following and mythos, a bit cult-like belief in his ability or argument against it.
Bridge over the Styx - In the night a toad is lost en route to cross the river Styx, it winds up on someone's nightstand asking for directions.
Yellow Coal - There is a search for alternate and renewable energy sources, the most promising experiment has uncovered the potential for powering the world on human spite.
Thirty Pieces of Silver - The story of the coins paid to Judas for his betrayal, where they go after and the effect they have. This is a very short story, it is a great example of how compelling a story can be in just a couple pages.
Autobiography of a Corpse - A man enters a room and finds a journal, it is the autobiography of a corpse, the mundane to the strange. I think this one was too abstract and rambling for me.
In the Pupil - A man falling in love with a woman leans close for a kiss, and deep in the hollow of her pupil a tiny man waves to him. This is a strange dreamy exploration of love and the way we internalize those we love.
Seams - A man beings to realize he is restrained by seams, the seams in his jacket, buttons. His pencil pushing stopped by a seam in the paper. Another long one that becomes very philosphical.
The Collector of Cracks - An author writes a fairytale about when all the cracks of the world gather... then suffers the realization that cracks are everywhere, (tiny) yawning abysses waiting to swallow us up. I'm not sure I got this one, but I liked the tone, bit Lovecraftian ominous without actually saying anything.
The Land of Nots - A brief almost alt-biblical mythology.
The Runaway Fingers - Mid performance, a famed pianist's fingers decide they will no longer be constrained to the keys, and run away (taking the right hand with them). The fingers soon learn the cold, damp pavement is very different from the silky keys.
The Unbitten Elbow - A man determined to bite his elbow, an exercise in futility perhaps. His determination gains him an invitation to join a circus sideshow, where his pursuit gins some note, attracting an off following and mythos, a bit cult-like belief in his ability or argument against it.
Bridge over the Styx - In the night a toad is lost en route to cross the river Styx, it winds up on someone's nightstand asking for directions.
Yellow Coal - There is a search for alternate and renewable energy sources, the most promising experiment has uncovered the potential for powering the world on human spite.
Thirty Pieces of Silver - The story of the coins paid to Judas for his betrayal, where they go after and the effect they have. This is a very short story, it is a great example of how compelling a story can be in just a couple pages.
June 23, 2014
modernist, involved short stories to author's lover, moscow, and shes a cold bitch he can't leave. so how to live in the city on 10 kopeks a day (no booze, tobacco, or mass trans for you, just walk until you hallucinate)
amazing that his stories were never published, never. until after gorbachev. they stayed in his lover;s closet for all those years. god blees her.
(see aidans reivew for some of the zingers of this collection, just when you thought you have read it all, read krxhizhanovsky )https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
amazing that his stories were never published, never. until after gorbachev. they stayed in his lover;s closet for all those years. god blees her.
(see aidans reivew for some of the zingers of this collection, just when you thought you have read it all, read krxhizhanovsky )https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
March 7, 2014
Krzhizhanovsky was largely unpublished in his lifetime.
I expect that I know why...
I expect that I know why...
March 2, 2014
These intellectual fantastic tales can be heavy going, as they should be coming from an author whose name is so exquisitely unpronounceable. Krzhizhanovsky came to Moscow in the 1920’a from Kiev via a European tour that introduced him to the avant garde movements of the day. He worked in the theater and became a member of the writers’ union, but his fiction was unpublishable under the reign of Soviet censorship. His stories first met the public in 1989.
His work reminds me most of Edgar Allan, but the not the scary Poe we learned about through Roger Corman films in the 1960’s. Think of Poe in his darkly playful mood of “Descent into the Maelstrom,” “The Man in the Crowd,” or “The Imp of the Perverse.” Krzh…takes an idea and spins it out to either its inevitable or a surprising conclusion. Footnotes in this current edition help you with Moscow geography and the philosophical and scientific references, but some stories left me ungrounded and slightly bored. Then there were those that were brilliant, funny, and in ways horrifying.
A man becomes a celebrity when he states his desire to bite his own elbow, then feels a horrible need to satisfy his audience. The simmering anger of city dwellers proves to be a new source of cheap energy. A master pianist’s right hand tires of performing and runs off to find a life of its own. A man who treasures his reflection in his lover’s eyes one night sees the little fellow turn and run away.
When I feel up for more, I look forward to the other Krzh… titles NYRB has brought into print.
His work reminds me most of Edgar Allan, but the not the scary Poe we learned about through Roger Corman films in the 1960’s. Think of Poe in his darkly playful mood of “Descent into the Maelstrom,” “The Man in the Crowd,” or “The Imp of the Perverse.” Krzh…takes an idea and spins it out to either its inevitable or a surprising conclusion. Footnotes in this current edition help you with Moscow geography and the philosophical and scientific references, but some stories left me ungrounded and slightly bored. Then there were those that were brilliant, funny, and in ways horrifying.
A man becomes a celebrity when he states his desire to bite his own elbow, then feels a horrible need to satisfy his audience. The simmering anger of city dwellers proves to be a new source of cheap energy. A master pianist’s right hand tires of performing and runs off to find a life of its own. A man who treasures his reflection in his lover’s eyes one night sees the little fellow turn and run away.
When I feel up for more, I look forward to the other Krzh… titles NYRB has brought into print.
November 28, 2023
Bundel bizarre donkere verhalen.
De verhalen Autobiografie van een lijk, Gele steenkool en De ongebeten elleboog verdienen minstens 4 sterren voor vindingrijkheid en absurditeit. De weggelopen vingers en Quadraturine zijn ook heel bijzonder (3,5 sterren).
De verhalen Autobiografie van een lijk, Gele steenkool en De ongebeten elleboog verdienen minstens 4 sterren voor vindingrijkheid en absurditeit. De weggelopen vingers en Quadraturine zijn ook heel bijzonder (3,5 sterren).
January 10, 2019
“Varlık tarafından baltalanıp sil baştan başlatılan bu inatçı ve uzun var olma çabaları, sözüm ona hayatların özüdür.”
April 16, 2022
Thank you NYRB for publishing so many of his brilliant works.
August 25, 2025
Sort of like if a few of Calvino’s cutting-room-floor Cosmicomics were narrated by the Notes from Underground guy. Although these little parables are interesting in places, Krzhizhanovsky’s efforts to lash his more whimsical stories to stodgy philosophical discursions make the whimsy less engaging and the stodginess less heady. This blend really works in places (“The Unbitten Elbow”) and really falls flat in others (“In the Pupil”).
September 10, 2024
Will recommend the author, not necessarily the love of all the stories, but the imagination.
I blame the translation for some of the stories that I find difficult to follow or care, but the good ones are clever, never through about the ran away fingers, the little man live in the eyes, Ises vs nots, something like Kafka and Swift. Definitely an author whom should be more famous now.
I blame the translation for some of the stories that I find difficult to follow or care, but the good ones are clever, never through about the ran away fingers, the little man live in the eyes, Ises vs nots, something like Kafka and Swift. Definitely an author whom should be more famous now.
February 26, 2019
Üslûp olarak pekalâ kusursuz olarak nitelendirecek olsam da bu kitabı, içerik olarak aynı şeyi söyleyemeyeceğim. Tabii genelgeçer bir söylemde bulunmak yersiz, eminim kitap dahilindeki on bir öyküyü okuyup hepsine bayılanlar olmuştur/olacaktır, fakat benim için fazla soyut ve gerçek dışıydı. Gerçekle ufak da olsa bir bağı olan halüsinatif öyküler de mevcut, tamamen rüyaları andıran öyküler de.
Sovyet Edebiyatı'ndan bahsederken kapalı anlatımları, soyut sunumları özel olarak değerlendirmek gerekiyor. Kitaptaki öykülerin kaleme alındığı 20'li 30'lu yıllar, Sovyet Sosyalist Cumhuriyetler Birliği dahilinde baskı ve sansürün tavan yaptığı, insanların bırakın yazdıklarını, düşündüklerinden ve konuştuklarından ötürü dahi gulaglara gönderildiği seneler. Belki görmek konusunda sıkıntı yaşadım, bilemiyorum, belki de başta dediğim gibi benim için fazla gerçek dışıydı.
Ömrüm el verirse ilerleyen yıllarda tekrardan okuyacağım bir eser, buna şüphe yok. Hatta bunu yapmadan önce yazarın hayatını da araştırmak faydalı olacaktır diye düşünüyorum, tıpkı Kafka örneğinde olduğu gibi.
Değerlendirmeyi bitirmeden Gözbebeğinde adlı öyküye methiye dizmek istiyorum çok fazla uzatmadan. Çünkü kurgu, içerik, üslûp, konunun işlenişi, tek kelimeyle mükemmel. Günümüz şartlarında bir yayınevi tarafından basılması bir yanadursun, herhangi bir yazar tarafından kaleme dahi alınamayacak nitelikte bir eser, zira postmodern faşizmin bir enstrümanı olan politik doğruculuk kapsamında pek kolayca "cinsiyetçi" olarak etiketlenebilecek türden.
"Bazen önemsiz bir şeye alışırsınız, ona anlam yüklersiniz, felsefesini yaparsınız -sonra senin haberin olmadan, o önemsiz şey, önemli ve gerçek olanla çelişmeye, yüzsüzce daha fazla mevcudiyet ve meşrutiyet istemeye, bir tehdit olmaya başlar."
"Bir kadını kazanmak için her erkeğin kendince yolları vardır. Benimkisi her türlü küçük, tercihen masrafsız hizmetlerde bulunmaktı: 'Falan filanın, şu şu kitabını okudun mu?' 'Hayır, ama okumak isterim...' Ertesi sabah bir kurye kitabın sayfaları kesilmemiş bir bir kopyasını teslim eder. İçine girmek istediğiniz gözler, kitabın başındaki boş sayfada yazılı isminizin üzerinde dokunaklı bir yazı bulur. Bir şapka iğnesinin ucu ya da gaz ocağı temizlemede kullanılan iğne kaybolmuştur falan, tüm bu saçmalıkları unutmamalısınız ki bir dahaki buluşmanızda, fedakârca sırıtarak yeleğinizin cebinden bir gaz ocağı iğnesi, bir şapka iğnesi ucu, bir opera bileti, aspirin kapsülleri ve başka kim bilir neler çıkartabilesiniz. Gördüğünüz gibi, bir kişi başka birisini, yeterli sayıda toplandıklarında bilinci ele geçiren minik, neredeyse görünmeyen adamlarla yalnızca dakikalar içinde fethedebilir. Onların arasında her zaman bir tanesi vardır, diğerleri gibi acınacak derece küçüktür ama eğer o giderse, anlam da gider. Tüm o atomizm geri dönülemez bir şekilde hemen dağılır. Ama zaten bunu size açıklamama gerek yok, yoldaş göz mahkûmlarım."
"Gerçek aşk objesi daimi olarak değişir ve bugün birisi seni, ancak dünkü sana ihanet ederek sevebilir."
"Kadınlar için bilimin, diğer her şey gibi, kişileştirildiğini fark etmemiştim."
Neyse, tadında bırakayım, yoksa ucun sonu öykünün çeyreğini buraya aktarmaya kadar gidiyor. Eğer ki soyut metinlere ve düşsel anlatımlara ilginiz varsa, sizin için biçilmiş kaftan olabilir bu kitap. Daha "doğru" bir zaman tekrar okumak üzere diyorum.
Sovyet Edebiyatı'ndan bahsederken kapalı anlatımları, soyut sunumları özel olarak değerlendirmek gerekiyor. Kitaptaki öykülerin kaleme alındığı 20'li 30'lu yıllar, Sovyet Sosyalist Cumhuriyetler Birliği dahilinde baskı ve sansürün tavan yaptığı, insanların bırakın yazdıklarını, düşündüklerinden ve konuştuklarından ötürü dahi gulaglara gönderildiği seneler. Belki görmek konusunda sıkıntı yaşadım, bilemiyorum, belki de başta dediğim gibi benim için fazla gerçek dışıydı.
Ömrüm el verirse ilerleyen yıllarda tekrardan okuyacağım bir eser, buna şüphe yok. Hatta bunu yapmadan önce yazarın hayatını da araştırmak faydalı olacaktır diye düşünüyorum, tıpkı Kafka örneğinde olduğu gibi.
Değerlendirmeyi bitirmeden Gözbebeğinde adlı öyküye methiye dizmek istiyorum çok fazla uzatmadan. Çünkü kurgu, içerik, üslûp, konunun işlenişi, tek kelimeyle mükemmel. Günümüz şartlarında bir yayınevi tarafından basılması bir yanadursun, herhangi bir yazar tarafından kaleme dahi alınamayacak nitelikte bir eser, zira postmodern faşizmin bir enstrümanı olan politik doğruculuk kapsamında pek kolayca "cinsiyetçi" olarak etiketlenebilecek türden.
"Bazen önemsiz bir şeye alışırsınız, ona anlam yüklersiniz, felsefesini yaparsınız -sonra senin haberin olmadan, o önemsiz şey, önemli ve gerçek olanla çelişmeye, yüzsüzce daha fazla mevcudiyet ve meşrutiyet istemeye, bir tehdit olmaya başlar."
"Bir kadını kazanmak için her erkeğin kendince yolları vardır. Benimkisi her türlü küçük, tercihen masrafsız hizmetlerde bulunmaktı: 'Falan filanın, şu şu kitabını okudun mu?' 'Hayır, ama okumak isterim...' Ertesi sabah bir kurye kitabın sayfaları kesilmemiş bir bir kopyasını teslim eder. İçine girmek istediğiniz gözler, kitabın başındaki boş sayfada yazılı isminizin üzerinde dokunaklı bir yazı bulur. Bir şapka iğnesinin ucu ya da gaz ocağı temizlemede kullanılan iğne kaybolmuştur falan, tüm bu saçmalıkları unutmamalısınız ki bir dahaki buluşmanızda, fedakârca sırıtarak yeleğinizin cebinden bir gaz ocağı iğnesi, bir şapka iğnesi ucu, bir opera bileti, aspirin kapsülleri ve başka kim bilir neler çıkartabilesiniz. Gördüğünüz gibi, bir kişi başka birisini, yeterli sayıda toplandıklarında bilinci ele geçiren minik, neredeyse görünmeyen adamlarla yalnızca dakikalar içinde fethedebilir. Onların arasında her zaman bir tanesi vardır, diğerleri gibi acınacak derece küçüktür ama eğer o giderse, anlam da gider. Tüm o atomizm geri dönülemez bir şekilde hemen dağılır. Ama zaten bunu size açıklamama gerek yok, yoldaş göz mahkûmlarım."
"Gerçek aşk objesi daimi olarak değişir ve bugün birisi seni, ancak dünkü sana ihanet ederek sevebilir."
"Kadınlar için bilimin, diğer her şey gibi, kişileştirildiğini fark etmemiştim."
Neyse, tadında bırakayım, yoksa ucun sonu öykünün çeyreğini buraya aktarmaya kadar gidiyor. Eğer ki soyut metinlere ve düşsel anlatımlara ilginiz varsa, sizin için biçilmiş kaftan olabilir bu kitap. Daha "doğru" bir zaman tekrar okumak üzere diyorum.
September 6, 2021
More of a miss than Memories of the Future, but there's still a few exemplary Krzhizhanovsky texts for the eager metaphysician. I wouldn't go in with such high expectations though.
Autobiography of a Corpse - 2
In the Pupil - 3.5
Seams - 2
The Collector of Cracks - 2
The Land of Nots - 3.5
The Runaway Fingers - 0.5
The Unbitten Elbow - 3
Yellow Coal - 2.75
Bridge Over the Styx - 1
Thirty Pieces of Silver - 1
Postmark: Moscow - 2
Autobiography of a Corpse - 2
In the Pupil - 3.5
Seams - 2
The Collector of Cracks - 2
The Land of Nots - 3.5
The Runaway Fingers - 0.5
The Unbitten Elbow - 3
Yellow Coal - 2.75
Bridge Over the Styx - 1
Thirty Pieces of Silver - 1
Postmark: Moscow - 2
July 26, 2020
“An old Indian folktale tells of a man forced to shoulder a corpse night after night- till the corpse, its dead but moving lips pressed to his ear, has finished telling the story of its long finished life. Don’t try to throw me to the ground like the men in the folktale, you will have to shoulder the burden of my three insomnias and listen patiently, till the corpse has finished its biography.’
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Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s collection of short stories is a waking nightmare of the odd and intellectual, combined to force a Kafkaesque psyche mixed with a Borges philosophical repugnance. Coining his own term “pyschorrhea” or soul seepage, the overwhelming feel of these ominous and paranoia filled tales spin an implicit mania that questions our own sanity. Testing the limits of Soviet Russia Sigizmund was never published till after his death, with philosophical differences towards the government cited as a main assumption for this delay in his work
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The title story tells of a man finding an apartment in Moscow only to discover a manuscript of the previous tenant telling of the three days leading up to his suicide. A German pianists right hand stops mid concerto and runs away to return ravaged but with relief. A man tells of his lifelong goal to bite his own elbow which lead to odd reactions to his claims. A woman traps the men she sleeps with inside of her pupil to almost haunt the next lover in line. A story about the coins Caiaphas paid Judas for his betrayal. All sources of energy are depleted and an inventor toils with the use of human spite, or bile known as yellow coal to replace things as there is no shortage of these ill feelings in Russia. A daring and fantastical collection rich with satire and the strange really convincing me that truly “man is to man a ghost”
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I will be further reading Krzhizhanovsky’s other collections
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Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s collection of short stories is a waking nightmare of the odd and intellectual, combined to force a Kafkaesque psyche mixed with a Borges philosophical repugnance. Coining his own term “pyschorrhea” or soul seepage, the overwhelming feel of these ominous and paranoia filled tales spin an implicit mania that questions our own sanity. Testing the limits of Soviet Russia Sigizmund was never published till after his death, with philosophical differences towards the government cited as a main assumption for this delay in his work
.
.
The title story tells of a man finding an apartment in Moscow only to discover a manuscript of the previous tenant telling of the three days leading up to his suicide. A German pianists right hand stops mid concerto and runs away to return ravaged but with relief. A man tells of his lifelong goal to bite his own elbow which lead to odd reactions to his claims. A woman traps the men she sleeps with inside of her pupil to almost haunt the next lover in line. A story about the coins Caiaphas paid Judas for his betrayal. All sources of energy are depleted and an inventor toils with the use of human spite, or bile known as yellow coal to replace things as there is no shortage of these ill feelings in Russia. A daring and fantastical collection rich with satire and the strange really convincing me that truly “man is to man a ghost”
.
I will be further reading Krzhizhanovsky’s other collections
Read
April 9, 2020This is a kind of paranoiac nightmare collections of Soviet fables from the 1920s written in Russian and published in the early days of the country. Recently, when I read the Nabokov uncollected nonfiction collection I was pleased to find a very grumpy and critical Nabokov being asked to review a handful of pro-Party Communist literature from the 1920s (and maybe 1930s I forget) and he hated it. The plots and examples he showed unveiled a truly disgusting, servile, craven set of literature. Imagine pro-Trump fiction.
This is different. Early Soviet days (like early Chinese Revolution days) is a reminder that the country fell in chunks, not all at once and so the resulting dozen or so years was a nightmarish kind of time. Krzhizhavoksy’s fiction tries to narrate that nightmare in these tales. It’s not that different from the novels that the Strugatsky brothers would get around to writing in the decades to come. It’s a weird paranoid kaleidoscope of stories, fractured languages, secret texts, almost Kafka-esque moments — but where Kafka has the supposed structures of a functioning society that he’s lampooning and satirizing, this set is looking at chaos and trying to make sense of it. I can’t say that it quite spoke to me in any kind of convincing or recognizable way. Certainly translation plays a part in all this, as does the experimental aspect of the stories. Some of them I did really like, but I often found myself drifting in what felt not quite opaque text, but text that lacked clear anchors for me.
This is different. Early Soviet days (like early Chinese Revolution days) is a reminder that the country fell in chunks, not all at once and so the resulting dozen or so years was a nightmarish kind of time. Krzhizhavoksy’s fiction tries to narrate that nightmare in these tales. It’s not that different from the novels that the Strugatsky brothers would get around to writing in the decades to come. It’s a weird paranoid kaleidoscope of stories, fractured languages, secret texts, almost Kafka-esque moments — but where Kafka has the supposed structures of a functioning society that he’s lampooning and satirizing, this set is looking at chaos and trying to make sense of it. I can’t say that it quite spoke to me in any kind of convincing or recognizable way. Certainly translation plays a part in all this, as does the experimental aspect of the stories. Some of them I did really like, but I often found myself drifting in what felt not quite opaque text, but text that lacked clear anchors for me.
February 24, 2014
This was my first introduction to Krzhizhanovsky and, to be honest, the collection started off incredibly slow for me. Many of these feel like tales of lonely weirdos wandering through Moscow wondering about existence vs. the Void. I'm not a philosophy expert, so even with the footnotes, most of the headier themes were lost on me. Still, "The Unbitten Elbow" is one of my new favorite stories of all time, right up there with Kafka's "The Hunger Artist". "Yellow Coal," "The Collector of Cracks" and "The Runaway Fingers" were other favorites--thrillingly weird and surreal enough to make up for some of the other pieces that felt more like philosophical curios than stories. It's also impressive to note that most of these pieces were written in the 1920s and 30s, yet they have a distinctively postmodern feel to them. Krzhizhanovsky was certainly ahead of his time and in a class of his own.
March 4, 2021
"Een doosje met 7 kortverhalen: bijzondere bonbons. [...] Zoals echte bonbons: ééntje opsnoepen en dan nagenieten. In mijn geval: zeker geen 2e dezelfde dag" valt te lezen in de eerder geplaatste recensie van Kris en gelijk heeft hij. De kortverhalen van Krzjizjanovski lezen niet als een trein: zijn heel poëtische en uiterst beeldende taal dwingen je om de tijd te nemen, wat nog versterkt wordt door het absurd-magische van de verhalen zelf en het feit dat heel veel elementen verscholen gaan achter metaforen die de censuur moeten omzeilen. Ongelooflijk dat het oeuvre van Krzjizjanovski enkele tientallen jaren stof heeft liggen vergaren in de sovjetarchieven. Automatisch vraag je je bij het lezen dan ook af: wat als zo'n talent zich ongeremd, zonder het keurslijf van een strenge censuur, had kunnen ontwikkelen?
January 21, 2014
Whereas Perec and his intellectual games leave me cold, these have me page turning like a thriller. OK I'm not sure how much you get out of these if you haven't read much philosophy, but for lovers of fantasy, mind games and stories that want you to work a little at them, these are fantastic. As a couple of reviewers have mentioned it takes a while for the collection to get moving - The Collector of Cracks did it for me. In fact for a newbie it might be best to start with one of the earlier collections from NYRB. But once it does a re-read of the early stories is well worth it. A marker of quality in this kind of fiction for me is whether the time of its writing is obvious - in this it isn't and in fact it's rather stunning to reflect that these were written almost a century ago!
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