This is one of those books that just do not sit well with me. This book did not cause mixed emotions or even flickering enjoyment. No, this book was not for me by page 2. I love books based on and in Russia, which is why I picked this book up 6 years ago and thought for sure I would enjoy it. Well that was before I meticulously researched books and authors, had I done so then I would not own this book. Why did I not like it? Let me explain.The writing style in this book can only be described as flowery and vague. I generally dislike books that are "flowery" (I'm sure there is a more appropriate description for the book but flowery is the only thing coming to mind, not that I feel it is very fair to flowers--which are something I actually enjoy as opposed to this book). But flowery and vague? That is just too much. Then you add in the John Crowley factor and we have a major issue. Where did Crowley lose me completely? On page 27. That's right, only ten percent into the book. The following scene is on page 27 and as far as I can tell it adds nothing to the story beyond a creepy factor, and not creepy in a Stephen King way, creepy in a that-old-man-is-leering-at-me sort of way.The day before school started she came to her mother and told her this weird thing had happened and she was scared: her stomach hurt and there was blood in her underwear.Well that's not something to be scared of, her mother said. She began an explanation, saying Now you know you have this hole there, not the peepee one but the other one. Kit nodded and listened to the rest of what her mother said [...] then went back to her room; and as though she were catching a bright centipede in its damp crevice she discovered what she had in fact not known before, that she had a hole htere: not how far it went, though, or where it led.A male author wrote this. Creepy. Disgusting. I believe no male writer should venture into this realm period. But when one does they should tread lightly and Crowley did not in my opinion tread lightly. This should reiterate why a male writer should never EVER write about a young girl's period or self discovery. I have not been so disturbed by a book in quite awhile, that much I'll give Crowley.I do not recommend this book. It did absolutely nothing for me, aside from creeping me out. The story is vague throughout and I cared absolutely nothing about any of the characters and despite the book being just about 300 pages long, that was just about 300 pages too many. Good riddance.
I really enjoyed this book. It focuses on the relationship between a dissident Russia poet who is a professor at a midwestern college and his student, a female undergrad who helps him translate his work from Russian to English one summer. It is also a study of the early 1960's in America. During the course of the novel the Cold War is on, America is getting involved covertly in Viet Nam, the Cuban Missile Crisis takes place, and JFK is assassinated. These events are an integral part of the story. The characters were never as alive for me as I would have liked, but I was blown away by the poems and the description of what translating them was like. Not only did English words have to be found for Russian ones, but rhythm and meter had to be maintained. More difficult yet to handle were Russian phrases that would trigger automatic cultural connections among Russian readers but which had no counterpart in English. If this was the work of an American novelist who was also a poet I would have been impressed. But John Crowley is know for his large body of fantasy writing. I am both mystified and bowled over by his choice of subject matter and the manner in which he carried it off. =
This novel takes us to the Midwest during the buildup to the Cuban Missile Crisis. An exiled Russian poet, modeled on Joseph Brodsky, is offered a teaching position at a midwestern university. His poetry seminar is really only for upperclassmen, and only within the department. But a young woman with a troubled past, a freshman, is admitted to the course, and through her encounters with the poet both their lives are changed.Though when she met him she knew no Russian at all, she ends up translating his poetry into English, succeeding because she and the poet are simpatico.An undercurrent of suspicion runs through the story: why is he allowed to teach? to be in the US at all? Is he really in exile, or is he a spy? and if so, for whom?Snippets of his background in Russia surface one by one, giving us appallin glimpses into the chaos of the Soviet Union during and after World War II.Crowley, a master at weaving the familiar with the mysterious, has produced another wondrous tapestry of words.
—NC Weil
I was captivated by this book. It is the story of a girl, Kit, who is disconnected from her peers and life. At college she becomes involved with a Russian expatriate poet, also disconnected from his life, and works with him to translate his poems. The story moves back and forth from Kit’s childhood to her college years to a much later period when she attends a conference in Russia honoring the poet. The time frame of the early 1960’s and the Cuban missile crisis almost overwhelms the beautiful story of Kit and Falin and poetry – and I did wish that the political setting had been downplayed a bit more, but perhaps it is necessary for the story to work. I particularly liked the poems and the discussion of translation and poetry; I suspect this enjoyment was rooted in my poetic naiveté. Crowley writes beautifully.
—Diane
A naive, but somehow still mature college student in 1961 has a close relationship with an exiled Soviet poet who is her professor. This is an interesting story in an interesting era fraught with US-Soviet tension. The writing is quite beautiful and the writer uses a deliberate, effective sort of non-punctuation in his dialogue which I like a lot. Also--what it says about translation and understanding and clarity-or not... Who here is the translator? Who makes clear for whom? Who really understands the other when his or her past is so foreign?And also--"forced into exile" or sent into exile or asked by the government to go into exile to report back to them...? All different.The only thing is I wish it had ended with the penultimate chapter.----------------(Practice invisibility.)"And he said that's what poetry is, the saying of nothing. The Nothing that can't be said.""I told you," she said. "I've given up writing poetry.""You would not be first to have tried that and yet not succeeded," he said. "Certain people give up poetry but poetry does not give them up.""Hardest thing," he said, not to her. "Is not suffering. Much harder is to remember what you did to avoid suffering. What you were willing to do. This cannot be erased.""Simply, he loved you.""Yes. Maybe.""He was one of that kind, it is easy to think, who to those he loved might give all he had, at once, without thought of gain.""Yes," she said. "Yes he was. He was one of that kind.""Sometimes to give away is the only way to keep.""Yes it is.""So then it was he who was truly the translator," said Gavril.
—Daisy
