The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Works and Days of Svistonov by Konstantin Vaginov
Paul Maliszewski

Konstantin Vaginov. The Works and Days of Svistonov. Creative Arts, 2001. 161 pp. Paper: $14.95.

Originally written in 1929 and here translated into English for the first time, Vaginov’s novel follows Andrey Svistonov, a fictional writer, as he mixes with Bolshevisk-era literary circles, attending the writers’ union, parties, and readings. This mixing comprises Svistonov’s research for a sprawling, many-charactered novel that encompasses all of life as it’s experienced, or at least overheard. One moment Svistonov’s wife is reading him newspaper clippings. The next moment, he’s hastily transferring and lightly transforming the news into his novel. Did someone just quote Pushkin at that party? One of Svistonov’s characters will surely repeat it moments later. In the manner of Pirandello, Svistonov’s works and days could be summed up as one author in search of a novel. Like Nabokov, Vaginov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. Unlike Nabokov, Vaginov remained in Russia, where he was conscripted into the Red Army, served at the Polish front, and returned to Petrograd, his renamed hometown. Where Nabokov is a stylist, complex and unabashedly lyrical, Vaginov, writing under considerable political pressure, conceals his complexity-his subtle parody and satire, his barbs and dismay for his present day-beneath an innocuous, almost unremarkable surface. What both these sons of St. Petersburg share is a lifelong, painful attachment to the past and its partial recovery through their imaginations. Vaginov never read Nabokov’s suggestion that nostalgia is an insane companion, but he probably wouldn’t have disagreed. His Svistonov is not merely desperate for characters, plot, and pages, he’s racing to capture the people, places, and objects of a world disappearing around him. Svistonov doesn’t enter a room without inspecting the books on the shelves, and like the conservator of a vanishing culture and heritage, he records their titles, details of their binding, and briefly appraises their content. Bakhtin was an admirer of Vaginov and his acts of literary preservation; now the publisher has preserved his work for us. [Paul Maliszewski]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction The Works and Days of Svistonov by Konstantin Vaginov Paul Maliszewski Konstantin Vaginov. The Works and Days of Svistonov. Creative Arts, 2001. 161 pp. Paper: $14.95. Originally written in 1929 and here translated into English for the first time, Vaginov’s novel follows Andrey Svistonov, a fictional writer, as he mixes with Bolshevisk-era literary circles, attending the writers’ union, parties, and readings. This mixing comprises Svistonov’s research for a sprawling, many-charactered novel that encompasses all of life as it’s experienced, or at least overheard. One moment Svistonov’s wife is reading him newspaper clippings. The next moment, he’s hastily transferring and lightly transforming the news into his novel. Did someone just quote Pushkin at that party? One of Svistonov’s characters will surely repeat it moments later. In the manner of Pirandello, Svistonov’s works and days could be summed up as one author in search of a novel. Like Nabokov, Vaginov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. Unlike Nabokov, Vaginov remained in Russia, where he was conscripted into the Red Army, served at the Polish front, and returned to Petrograd, his renamed hometown. Where Nabokov is a stylist, complex and unabashedly lyrical, Vaginov, writing under considerable political pressure, conceals his complexity-his subtle parody and satire, his barbs and dismay for his present day-beneath an innocuous, almost unremarkable surface. What both these sons of St. Petersburg share is a lifelong, painful attachment to the past and its partial recovery through their imaginations. Vaginov never read Nabokov’s suggestion that nostalgia is an insane companion, but he probably wouldn’t have disagreed. His Svistonov is not merely desperate for characters, plot, and pages, he’s racing to capture the people, places, and objects of a world disappearing around him. Svistonov doesn’t enter a room without inspecting the books on the shelves, and like the conservator of a vanishing culture and heritage, he records their titles, details of their binding, and briefly appraises their content. Bakhtin was an admirer of Vaginov and his acts of literary preservation; now the publisher has preserved his work for us. [Paul Maliszewski]

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