The Review of Contemporary Fiction
The Funeral Party by Ludmila UlitskayaMichael Pinker
Ludmila Ulitskaya. The Funeral Party. Trans. Cathy Porter. Schocken, 2001. 160 pp. $18.95.
In this novel, her first in English, Ulitskaya chronicles events surrounding the death of Alik, a Russian artist living in exile in New York, with exquisite irony and tenderness. His wives’ and lovers’ plaintive history of concern for him and themselves manifests the sensibility of a Russian genius whose mere presence is an occasion for happiness. The diverse yet congenial company of friends and neighbors crowding Alik’s painting-strewn rooms during his last illness further suggest his variety and charm. And if dealers won’t admit it while he’s alive, Alik has created something indefinable, a perspective uniquely his own. Unaffectedly gifted and charismatic, Alik is also charmed: he brings laughter, sincerity, reconciliation. He cannot help himself; it is his nature. This clever, red-haired émigré is forgiven, doted-on, lovingly attended at his deathbed; none of the score of well-wishers arriving at his flat ever seems to leave. Then, as the shenanigans of Gorbachev and Yeltsin abruptly herald change for Russia, attention shifts to the television. Alik behaves better by fading faster. Cares and worries wash over him, who rests at peace in his dreams. As his world dims, Alik lives in memories, times past. When wife Nina wants to bring a priest, Alik responds by also demanding a rabbi. As a messenger of joy and savoir faire, Alik is nonpareil, for who else can say "life’s excellent for me wherever I am" and mean it? Some loved ones may pine, but even that will end. The Russia of suffering is not for Alik, who is nonetheless wise. Ulitskaya’s touching portrayal of Russian émigrés coming to grips with change transforms Alik’s obsequies into liberation. For while Alik’s magic "had built his Russia around him," when his dance of death ceases, his flock can conceive of anything. [Michael Pinker]