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VASILY GROSSMAN'S ARMENIAN SKETCHBOOK FINALLY DEBUTS IN ENGLISH
Jewish Daily Forward
May 1 2013
Travel Memoir Was Author's Most Personal Work
By Malcolm Forbes
Published May 01, 2013, issue of May 03, 2013.
â-~O An Armenian Sketchbook
By Vasily Grossman
NYRB Classics, 160 pages, $14.95
In 1961 Vasily Grossman traveled to Armenia from Moscow to edit a long
war novel by Rachiya Kochar. Grossman was not the first renowned
Russian writer to make such a trip; Osip Mandelstam had visited before
him, recording his observations in "Journey to Armenia" (1931); and
almost 100 years earlier, Pushkin had made his own Caucasus
expedition, joining the Russian military campaign against Turkey and
later chronicling it in "A Journey to Arzrum." Grossman did more than
just edit during his two-month sojourn; like Pushkin and Mandelstam,
he wrote about his experiences in the country. The result, "An
Armenian Sketchbook" -- published in English for the first time, and
expertly translated by Robert Chandler -- is arguably Grossman's most
personal work.
Vasily Semyonovich Grossman was born in 1905 in Ukraine. His early
literary efforts garnered praise from the likes of Maxim Gorky and
Mikhail Bulgakov. During World War II he switched to journalism,
reporting for Red Star on crucial battles and events, including
Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin. His seminal eyewitness piece "The
Hell of Treblinka" helped open the world's eyes to Nazi atrocities. He
returned to fiction after the war, but incurred the wrath of the
Soviet authorities with his two masterpieces, "Everything Flows" and
"Life and Fate." Both novels were deemed anti-Soviet (as indeed was
the author) and were published only in 1988, twenty-four years after
Grossman's death.
"Journey to Armenia" takes us from Grossman's arrival in the country
to his departure. Some of the 12 chapters are little more than
anecdote-filled vignettes, whereas others delve deeper and are
accompanied by Grossman's tangential thoughts and reflections.
Alighting in Yerevan, he masterfully conveys a traveler's first
impressions of an unfamiliar city: He is disoriented, but also endowed
with a heightened awareness, a "visual equivalent of nuclear energy."
He explores the capital, lingering to survey its colossal statue of
Stalin before deciding that Yerevan's soul is to be found in its inner
courtyards.
"Here we see the city as a living organism, its outer skin stripped
away," he writes.
It is this eye for quirky detail that makes "Sketchbook" such a
delight to read. As Grossman travels he engages the natives in
conversation (despite supposedly being able to speak only two words of
their language) in an attempt to understand the country's psyche.
Many Armenians share wine and stories with him. Some are survivors of
the gulags and resemble Grossman's protagonist in "Everything Flows,"
a former camp prisoner struggling to readjust to normal life after 30
years of incarceration. Chats with others lead in turn to
conversations with himself, an enlightening series of
question-and-answer sessions that reveal Grossman just as eager to
explore his own mindset as that of his subjects.
When Grossman ventures off the beaten track and takes us down a side
avenue of thought, the book is elevated from mere travelogue into
literature. His mission to disprove the stereotype of the Armenian as
"a huckster, a voluptuary, a bribe-taker" results in a fascinating
disquisition on nationalism and national identity. A funeral prompts
him to muse on mortality, suicide and the Turkish genocide. And after
marveling at architecture -- from humble collective farmhouses to grand
monasteries hewn from mountains -- we are regaled with penetrating
insights on beauty and art.
Best of all are the meditations on religion. At one point, Grossman,
"an unbeliever," admires a church and thinks, "But perhaps God does
exist." He is prepared, however, to concede only so much, and believes
we should "call on the Creator to show more modesty." After all, "In
whose image were Hitler and Himmler created?" He comes to the
mordantly witty conclusion that God created the world too hastily:
"Instead of revising his rough drafts, he immediately had his work
printed." Thus "Siberian permafrost" and "the soul of Eichmann" are
"typing errors, inconsistencies in the plot."
There are several "inconsistencies" in Grossman's prose. For example,
some descriptions are flatly mechanical (although to be fair, this
could be more a translation problem). But these are rare lapses. In
the main, Grossman impresses, at times dazzles, when highlighting
local color or crystallizing ideas. Mount Ararat "seems to grow not
out of the earth but out of the sky." Sheep eyes are "glass grapes"
(whereas real grapes in a market are like "Baltic amber"). During one
sober reflection, he explains how the Gestapo took away Jewish women
and children to not be "killed" but rather "destroyed."
Grossman writes just as candidly about himself as he does about the
country he is visiting. On the way to a wedding, after a meal of
mutton and vodka, his bowels begin to protest, and he confesses to
feeling more afraid than he was during the Battle of Stalingrad. After
a night spent drinking a particularly potent cognac he wakes in a
sweat: "I was dying." The meticulous description of his hangover
should be amusing, but instead it is poignant, for, unbeknown to
Grossman, he was in fact dying: The cancer that would kill him three
years later had already stealthily taken hold.
Grossman died a dissident and never got to see his book in print. "An
Armenian Sketchbook" fell afoul of the Soviet censors and, like his
two masterpieces, was published only posthumously. At first glance,
"Sketchbook" seems a trivial work when compared with the rest of his
oeuvre. A hodgepodge collation of Armenian customs, rituals and
picture-postcard views can't compete with those searing depictions of
Stalingrad, the Shoah and the Ukrainian Terror Famine. Grossman,
however, emerges as a cross between an informative tour guide and a
captivating travel companion, showcasing a wonderful acuity in all
that he sees, and revealing a disarming intimacy in each of his
considered digressions. We follow him and hear him -- and in the
process, not only does Armenia come alive, but also Grossman himself.
Malcolm Forbes is a freelance writer and critic. Born in Edinburgh, he
currently lives in Berlin.
http://forward.com/articles/175387/vasily-grossmans-armenian-sketchbook-finally-debut/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Jewish Daily Forward
May 1 2013
Travel Memoir Was Author's Most Personal Work
By Malcolm Forbes
Published May 01, 2013, issue of May 03, 2013.
â-~O An Armenian Sketchbook
By Vasily Grossman
NYRB Classics, 160 pages, $14.95
In 1961 Vasily Grossman traveled to Armenia from Moscow to edit a long
war novel by Rachiya Kochar. Grossman was not the first renowned
Russian writer to make such a trip; Osip Mandelstam had visited before
him, recording his observations in "Journey to Armenia" (1931); and
almost 100 years earlier, Pushkin had made his own Caucasus
expedition, joining the Russian military campaign against Turkey and
later chronicling it in "A Journey to Arzrum." Grossman did more than
just edit during his two-month sojourn; like Pushkin and Mandelstam,
he wrote about his experiences in the country. The result, "An
Armenian Sketchbook" -- published in English for the first time, and
expertly translated by Robert Chandler -- is arguably Grossman's most
personal work.
Vasily Semyonovich Grossman was born in 1905 in Ukraine. His early
literary efforts garnered praise from the likes of Maxim Gorky and
Mikhail Bulgakov. During World War II he switched to journalism,
reporting for Red Star on crucial battles and events, including
Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin. His seminal eyewitness piece "The
Hell of Treblinka" helped open the world's eyes to Nazi atrocities. He
returned to fiction after the war, but incurred the wrath of the
Soviet authorities with his two masterpieces, "Everything Flows" and
"Life and Fate." Both novels were deemed anti-Soviet (as indeed was
the author) and were published only in 1988, twenty-four years after
Grossman's death.
"Journey to Armenia" takes us from Grossman's arrival in the country
to his departure. Some of the 12 chapters are little more than
anecdote-filled vignettes, whereas others delve deeper and are
accompanied by Grossman's tangential thoughts and reflections.
Alighting in Yerevan, he masterfully conveys a traveler's first
impressions of an unfamiliar city: He is disoriented, but also endowed
with a heightened awareness, a "visual equivalent of nuclear energy."
He explores the capital, lingering to survey its colossal statue of
Stalin before deciding that Yerevan's soul is to be found in its inner
courtyards.
"Here we see the city as a living organism, its outer skin stripped
away," he writes.
It is this eye for quirky detail that makes "Sketchbook" such a
delight to read. As Grossman travels he engages the natives in
conversation (despite supposedly being able to speak only two words of
their language) in an attempt to understand the country's psyche.
Many Armenians share wine and stories with him. Some are survivors of
the gulags and resemble Grossman's protagonist in "Everything Flows,"
a former camp prisoner struggling to readjust to normal life after 30
years of incarceration. Chats with others lead in turn to
conversations with himself, an enlightening series of
question-and-answer sessions that reveal Grossman just as eager to
explore his own mindset as that of his subjects.
When Grossman ventures off the beaten track and takes us down a side
avenue of thought, the book is elevated from mere travelogue into
literature. His mission to disprove the stereotype of the Armenian as
"a huckster, a voluptuary, a bribe-taker" results in a fascinating
disquisition on nationalism and national identity. A funeral prompts
him to muse on mortality, suicide and the Turkish genocide. And after
marveling at architecture -- from humble collective farmhouses to grand
monasteries hewn from mountains -- we are regaled with penetrating
insights on beauty and art.
Best of all are the meditations on religion. At one point, Grossman,
"an unbeliever," admires a church and thinks, "But perhaps God does
exist." He is prepared, however, to concede only so much, and believes
we should "call on the Creator to show more modesty." After all, "In
whose image were Hitler and Himmler created?" He comes to the
mordantly witty conclusion that God created the world too hastily:
"Instead of revising his rough drafts, he immediately had his work
printed." Thus "Siberian permafrost" and "the soul of Eichmann" are
"typing errors, inconsistencies in the plot."
There are several "inconsistencies" in Grossman's prose. For example,
some descriptions are flatly mechanical (although to be fair, this
could be more a translation problem). But these are rare lapses. In
the main, Grossman impresses, at times dazzles, when highlighting
local color or crystallizing ideas. Mount Ararat "seems to grow not
out of the earth but out of the sky." Sheep eyes are "glass grapes"
(whereas real grapes in a market are like "Baltic amber"). During one
sober reflection, he explains how the Gestapo took away Jewish women
and children to not be "killed" but rather "destroyed."
Grossman writes just as candidly about himself as he does about the
country he is visiting. On the way to a wedding, after a meal of
mutton and vodka, his bowels begin to protest, and he confesses to
feeling more afraid than he was during the Battle of Stalingrad. After
a night spent drinking a particularly potent cognac he wakes in a
sweat: "I was dying." The meticulous description of his hangover
should be amusing, but instead it is poignant, for, unbeknown to
Grossman, he was in fact dying: The cancer that would kill him three
years later had already stealthily taken hold.
Grossman died a dissident and never got to see his book in print. "An
Armenian Sketchbook" fell afoul of the Soviet censors and, like his
two masterpieces, was published only posthumously. At first glance,
"Sketchbook" seems a trivial work when compared with the rest of his
oeuvre. A hodgepodge collation of Armenian customs, rituals and
picture-postcard views can't compete with those searing depictions of
Stalingrad, the Shoah and the Ukrainian Terror Famine. Grossman,
however, emerges as a cross between an informative tour guide and a
captivating travel companion, showcasing a wonderful acuity in all
that he sees, and revealing a disarming intimacy in each of his
considered digressions. We follow him and hear him -- and in the
process, not only does Armenia come alive, but also Grossman himself.
Malcolm Forbes is a freelance writer and critic. Born in Edinburgh, he
currently lives in Berlin.
http://forward.com/articles/175387/vasily-grossmans-armenian-sketchbook-finally-debut/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress