"I'm fed up with standing in line for all kinds of junk. I'm fed up with wearing stocking with holes. I'm fed up with getting excited about beef sausages... What's holding you back? The Hermitage, the Neva River, birch trees?" "I couldn't care less about birch trees." "Then what?" "Language. In a foreign tongue we lose eighty per cent of our personality. We lose our ability to joke, to be ironic. This alone terrifies me." "I don't have time for jokes. Think about [our daughter]. Imagine what awaits her." "You are blowing everything out of proportion. Millions of people live, work and are perfectly happy." "Let these millions stay. I am talking about you. Either way, you are not published." "But my readers are here. While over there ... Who needs my stories in Chicago?" "And who needs them here? The waitress at The Seashore who hasn't even read the menu?" "Everyone. They just don't know it yet."Pushkim Hill by Sergei Dovlatov, and translated by his daughter Katherine Dovlatov was a finalist for the 2015 Best Translated Book Awards.The novel is narrated by Boris Alikhanov, a alcoholic and unsuccessful author, who takes a job as a tour guide at Pushkin Hills, a museum estate dedicated to Alexander Pushkin. Boris is a comic figure and the novel is full of his one-liners and sardonic observations:"You know I've read so much about the dangers of alcohol I've decided to give it up ... reading, that is.""On the drive to Trigorskoye [the Caucasian tourists] lovingly gazed at the sheep. Evidently they were able to identify their potential as kebabs."and the world of Pushkin Hill is itself a humorous microcosm of Soviet society with a array of memorable characters.In the meantime his wife is trying to take advantage of an opportunity to move to the west - the exchange above is from the middle of the novel when she visits and tries to persuade Boris to come with them.The observations on the loss of exile and the fate of the author abroad are all the more poignant because Dovlatov himself was an émigré and wrote this novel in 1983, 5 years after he left the USSR for America.However Boris suggest to himself that his true reasons for not going are different:"But at the same time I knew that all my rationalisations were lies. It wasn't about that. I simply couldn't make this decision. Such a serious and irreversible step frightened me. After all, it would be like being reborn. And at one's own will. Most people can't even get married properly ... All my life I had detested active behaviour. To my ear, the word "activist" sounds like an insult. I lived in the passive voice, so to speak...Any decisive step imposes responsibility. So let others take responsibility. Inactivity is the only moral condition."Boris, working of course in a museum dedicated to an author, is also vocal on the way that society first rejects but then, post their death, lionises famous writers. He asks whether the objects in the museum are truly authentic - the curator points out that they are of a period ("we are trying to recreate the colour, the atmosphere"), but not Pushkin's actual personal effects, given "the museum was created decades after his death." Boris retorts:"First they drive the man into the ground and then begin looking for his personal effects. That's how it was with Dostoevsky, that's how it was with Yesenin, and that's how it'll be with Pasternak."Boris does at times assume a greater familiarity with not only Pushkin's work but also his life and times than most English readers will possess, necessitating that curse of the translated novel, footnotes. However, readers would be best advised to skip these until the end of the novel, and instead immerse themselves in the flow of Boris's prose.Katherine Dovlatov is to be generally commended on the translation, particularly given that Dolvatov (via Boris) gives the cast he encounters a range of idiosyncratic voices, and she successfully transfers the effect into English.However, by her own admission, the novel's title rather defeated her. The original title Zapovednik "can mean a number of things—an animal sanctuary, or a tract of land set aside for people, such as a Native American tribe, which can carry negative connotations, or a museum-estate, which is a very Soviet concept. So it is a delineated zone of sorts, designed by man to keep things in, and it is a museum, the idea of which was unnatural, to my father.". The world Boris portrays fits neatly with all aspects of this concept - and by extension Soviet society as well - but the English title Pushkin Hills fails to do so.Dovlatov also wrote according to his own self-imposed Oulipan-type constraint; he never had two words in a sentence start with the same letter, although his daughter explains this was intended to slow him down, and presumably carefully consider word choice, rather than for artistic effect. Unfortunately, albeit understandably, she baulked at trying to reproduce this in English.Overall, a worthwhile read, and Boris is a very memorable character, often genuinely funny. On the downside, the novel didn't quite cohere for me; it's a relatively short work (135 not particularly dense pages) and I was left wanting a bit more substance.
I love this book, the author, the whole ironic "almost dissident" voice. Funny and compassionate, the writer Boris Alikhanov (based on Dovlatov) cannot get published in Soviet Russia. He has left his wife and daughter to work as a tour guide at the Pushkin Hills Preserve, staffed by very strange devotees to Pushkin. The writing is hilariously understated and brimming with sad truths. When Boris gets to the Preserve he has not yet been trained as a guide. Here is a slice of excellence:"Do look at the guidelines. Also, here is a list of books. They are available in the reading room. And report to Galina Alexandrovna that the interview went well."I felt embarrassed."Thank you," I said. "I'm sorry I lost my temper."I rolled up the brochure and put it in my pocket."Be careful with it - we only have three copies."I took the papers out and attempted to smooth them with my hands."And one more thing," Marianna lowered her voice. "You asked about love…""It was you who asked about love.""No, it was you who asked about love…As I understand, you are interested in whether I am married? Well, I am!""You have robbed me of my last hope," I said as I was leaving.If you don't laugh at this, don't read this book. If you pick it up, know that there is a lovely little piece by James Wood in the back. I wish I could write like Dovlatov. I wish he were still alive.
Do You like book Pushkin Hills (2014)?
"Заповедник" - это именно такой Довлатов, которого я обожаю.Книга посвящена тому периоду жизни писателя, когда он водил экскурсии в музее Пушкина в селе Михайловское. Автор говорит не только о своей тогдашней работе, но и весьма откровенно рассказывает о той стороне своей жизни, которая не была видна экскурсантам. И всё это - в фирменном довлатовском ироничном тоне. Число острот здесь превышает все мыслимые пределы, практически на каждой странице хочется смеяться в голос. А потом, дочитав книгу, испытываешь грусть...На мой взгляд, недостаток у "Заповедника" только один - небольшой объём. Осталась недосказанность. Хотя, может быть, в этом и заключался авторский замысел...
—Sergey Artamonov
“Pushkin Hills” has a simple plot that really doesn’t go anywhere. Boris Alikhanov is an unpublished writer with an alcohol dependency, who is recently divorced from Tatyana and in need of money. To make matters worse, Tatyana is planning to emigrate to America with their daughter, Masha. Boris takes a job as a tour guide at the Pushkin Hills Preserve. Notwithstanding the thin plot, this autobiographical novella has much strength. Its tone is dark and ironic; it is filled with insightful observations on the Soviet culture, writing, censorship and emigration; there are humorous asides and crisp dialogue; and of course many delightful characterizations of the people Boris interacts with at the Preserve.
—Greg
3.5 Boris is a failure, he is an alcoholic, an unpublished author, recently divorced and is not sure where his life will take him. So he takes a job as a guide at the Pushkin preserve, where everyone loves Pushkin. This is a very quick read, so much of the book is dialogue, both ironic and pithy observations of dialogue. Seems he is a rarity at the preserve, he is male and many of the women seem to love him. Will he find his sense of self there? First read for me by this author, will definitely look for more of his books.
—Diane S.✨
