These philosophical, melancholic, darkly funny tales merit a place beside those of Kafka, Borges, and Calvino.
In these 18 short stories, written between 1920 and 1940, Russian writer Krzhizhanovsky turns a sardonic eye on history, God, philosophy, the early days of the Soviet Union, and the writer's fate.
After the title character dies in "Comrade Punt," his pants continue to perform his office job so well they are given a promotion. In "The Gray Fedora," a nihilistic thought jumps from a man's head into his new hat. When the fedora is mistakenly worn by the wife's lover, it causes his suicide, then floats downriver and continues to infect anyone who puts it on with a feeling of utter pointlessness. In these stories, thoughts and ideas have lives of their own. Literally. ("Only half-inhabited, like a hamlet after the plague, the old man's brain was thinly populated with thought-invalids and thought-pensioners.") In "The Life and Opinions of a Thought," the struggle of putting an idea into words is told from the point of view of a line by Immanuel Kant. In "Paper Loses Patience," the letters of the alphabet stage a rebellion, abandoning their posts in books, in newspapers, on signs. In "God is Dead," Nietzsche's statement is taken literally; the Almighty dies, long after people have stopped believing in Him, in the year 2204, with surprising consequences. Erudite, playful, wry, these stories are concerned with human failure and the failure of language itself: "We all understand each other by syllables...we don't know how to read someone else's feelings, the essence hidden in the word." They are also darkly funny. A parrot that sings “La Marseillaise,” subjected to the vicissitudes of war, is described as having "the look of an atheist selling indulgences." In the title story, a narrator who eschews the title of writer sends letters to strangers. "What, you may ask, makes me drink? A sober attitude toward reality." He addresses an unknown fellow insomniac whose window stays lighted throughout the night: "This new socialist property must be carefully and exhaustively studied. I'm doing this as best I can." Krzhizhanovsky died in 1950, his work all but unpublished in his lifetime. We are lucky to have the fruit of his exhaustive study available now; as his letter writer says, "We all live on history's Unwitting Street."
These philosophical, melancholic, darkly funny tales merit a place beside those of Kafka, Borges, and Calvino.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68137-488-8
Page Count: 184
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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