From: Paul Cockshott (clyder@GN.APC.ORG)
Date: Fri May 25 2007 - 16:16:52 EDT
His player Piano was also a very insightful critique of 1950s or 60s USA despite being published in 1948 Jurriaan Bendien wrote: > Russian readers, perhaps, mourn Kurt Vonnegut more than others. > > By Victor Sonkin > > Published: Moscow Times, April 20 2007 > > When Kurt Vonnegut died last week, it sent powerful ripples through > Russia, > even in these days of declining readership. The generation that grew > up in > the Soviet Union in the 1970s and '80s listed Vonnegut among their > favorite > authors. There were at least four reasons for that. > > One was Vonnegut's life story and his aversion to war. Enlisted in the > U.S. > Army during World War II, he was captured by the Germans and was one of a > handful of American POWs who survived the Allied bombing of Dresden in > 1945; > he was later freed by Soviet troops. This experience formed the core > of his > novel "Slaughterhouse-Five." Throughout the postwar era, both official > Soviet propaganda and popular feelings were strongly antiwar (even the > infamous Afghan campaign was never heralded in belligerent terms), so > Vonnegut was in tune with the nation's mood. > > Another reason was that he wrote science fiction, one of the few ways for > writers to address important issues that would have been censored in > other > genres. "Cat's Cradle" was about scientists' (and society's) > responsibility; > the seminal short story "Harrison Bergeron" showed how egalitarianism > could > turn into tyranny. Such issues, taboo in everyday Soviet writing, > could be > smuggled in through science fiction and enjoyed considerable success. > > Third was Vonnegut's style. This usually gets lost in translation, but > Vonnegut was lucky to have Rita Rait-Kovalyova as his translator. In > one of > Sergei Dovlatov's satirical sketches, someone asks him who has the best > prose style in Russian. He says, "Rita Rait," and the reaction is, > "You mean > Vonnegut in Russian is better than Fedin? How awful." (Konstantin > Fedin was > an official Soviet writer and bureaucrat.) > > Finally, it was just sheer chance. No book by a living foreign author, > especially an American, could appear in the Soviet Union without the > blessing of the Party. Vonnegut was, in a sense, authorized. This > explains > the extent of his popularity, which other authors of a comparable > caliber, > such as Saul Bellow or Joseph Heller, did not achieve here. > > In a 2006 interview, he said: "The Army kept me on because I could > type, so > I was typing other people's discharges and stuff. And my feeling was, > 'Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?' > That's what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. > Please, I've > done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now?" > > Vonnegut has gone home. Russians, perhaps, mourn him more than others; > his > books have been encouraging and educating them for several decades. > > http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/04/20/112.html >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Apr 30 2007 - 00:00:17 EDT