Ádám Bodor
Bookless in Russia
From the report in the daily paper Népszabadság about the contribution made
by Hungarian writers to the 2004 Moscow Book Fair back in December, any
reader might have been forgiven for supposing that this was all delightful encounters
in the bleak midwinter, and that it must have warmed the cockles of the
heart to be a Hungarian writer there. To mark the publication of a Russian translation
of my novel Sinistra District, I was a guest over the several days that the
programme was held, so let me, by way of a supplement to that report, recount
several particular circumstances which, although forming part of the meat of the
subject, were for some inscrutable journalistic reason omitted from the record.
Let me start with the fact - even if it may sound like hair-splitting by an overpedantic
author - that since there was no valid contract, signed by myself, to
underpin said Russian edition of my novel, I hastened to Moscow in the dead of
winter for the festive launch of what, in point of fact, was a pirate edition. It was
possibly as a result of this awkward circumstance that both the book's translator
and all of the publisher's employees felt constrained to hide themselves from my
presence, for believe it or not I did not have the pleasure of meeting a single one
of the people who had a hand in the book's publication.
Given the nature of the place, I had not been counting on any excessive pomp
or disagreeable, formality-ridden ceremoniousness, yet all the same the puritanical
exiguousness of arrangements for the events was intriguing. For instance,
the ingenuity by which, with a strong enough will, it is possible to put on a book
launch even without a book. As regards the prospect of the book launch in the town of Aleksandrov, it turned out en route, in the passenger compartment of the
car, that not one copy of my book was to be found at the venue; moreover, we
had not brought one along with us either, but as to where copies of the Russian
version of my novel might be concealed - that was information to which very few
in that vast country were privy at that moment. Yet even had the geographic coordinates
of an existing copy been known, there would have been little sense in
asking for a few pages to be faxed over to the office of the event's organiser, as
we had not the slightest reason to count on there being a person who would be
prepared to read them out. It was possible to count on a moderator for the
evening, given that I was travelling with him, and he, harking to the insistent
voice of the passage of time, was attempting, in the car's rumble, to gather from
me, as the person responsible, what, broadly speaking, the novel that was to be
presented was about and, above all, what it's title might be. Why, in the end, were
we bowling along at a crazy speed in a north-easterly direction out of Moscow in
a wild Russian winter? The answer was slumbering somewhere out there in the
frozen, mute wilderness, in the murk of the twilight that happened to be descending
on it, perhaps lodged in the depths of vanished centuries, in eternal night.
It became clear soon enough that it was really me who ought to be ashamed
on account of my pathological lack of faith, my moments of despair, for in the
end, thanks to solidarity, exemplary fraternal collaboration and boundless
human patience, the book presentation was not cancelled even in the absence of
the material perquisites.
As for the status of the copies, several of them mysteriously turned up the next
day at the Book Fair, on the stand of the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Moscow.
Although I had disclosed my identity in due time, seeing that the pall of indifference
around me was showing no inclination to lift, and not a single soul was
beating a path toward me with my novel in hand, a gleam of appreciation in the
eyes; after some brief dickering I purchased a copy - before it was too late! - for
forty roubles. My own complimentary copy. Because I suppose that is what one
may rightly call a copy with which an author, in his infinite narcissism, compliments
himself at a certain cost.
As far as further compliments go, the encounter with V. Erofeyev was a definitive
compliment by world literary standards. Though no one had ever asked me
whether I placed any confidence in the success of an impromptu exchange of
views with a writer whose forte, in my view, lies more in the realm of light literature,
the programme in principle offered the prospect of a roughly one-hour
conversation involving my fellow Hungarian writer Lajos Parti Nagy, my humble
self and the aforesaid personality, whom Népszabadság's reporter referred to,
with the casualness of an insider, as "the enfant terrible of world literature." Well,
it soon transpired that there was not the slightest reason for any anxiety: the
aforesaid personality effortlessly brushed aside any expectations the invitation
might have aroused by cutting himself off from any possible form of personal commerce, while equally the organiser - mark you well! - was also evidently not
concerned to press for any rapport between the impending discussants.
Celebrated in his own land, the writer, having discharged himself of a brief fiveor
six-minute exposé, stood up from the table and, without dignifying his interlocutors
with so much as a word, or at least a fleeting handshake, took himself
off to one knows not where. Registering this turn of events, the moderator of the
thwarted conversation directed a question relating to my novel at me, but without
waiting for an answer, no doubt under the influence of the preceding, he likewise
rose from his seat and made himself scarce.
I have figured in my fair share of farcical situations before in the course of my
precarious life, so these somewhat incongruous encounters did not exactly upset
me. Since, in one's striving for better global understanding, a chap is anyway
constrained to laugh at himself in his agony, one sneaks away onto the street and
saunters one's lonely way to another event, the tap-room of some watering hole,
let us say and the warm fug of cordiality slowly evaporates, vanishes, in the frigid
Arctic wind. What's left is numb resignation, a dash of pity, and a dash of shame.
As well as the undeniable magic and awe-inspiring beauty of the foreign scenery.
Because outside, to be sure, icy spikes of hoarfrost are already hanging in the
evening air, preparing bountifully to encrust the muck of the day gone by; to coat
with an ashen jacket what, not long ago, were ostentatiously glistening brown
little jobbies that an attractive little doggie left behind in the snow.
Translated by Tim Wilkinson
Ádám Bodor
is a highly acclaimed novelist and author of short stories. In 1982 he came to live in
Budapest from his native Transylvania where, when still a schoolboy, he had served
a prison term for "subversive activities". For the same reason he was not admitted to
university, so he studied Calvinist theology instead. Out of his ten-volume oeuvre, several
works appeared in almost a dozen foreign languages.
