Who Let The Dogs Out?

Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis will have noticed that there has been an (unintentional) focus on animals recently.  There was a book about a rather clever Soviet guard dog, a magical tale about a colourful fox in the Icelandic snow, and - of course - a delightful story about travels with a long-eared companion.  So, today's offering, unusual as it is, should just be seen as a continuation of this trend :)

*****
Five Russian Dog Stories (review copy from Hesperus Press) is... well, what do you think it is?  For linguistic pedants, let me assure you that (with one exception) both the stories and the dogs are Russian.  Anthony Briggs, a notable Russian-to-English translator (amongst other things, he has tackled War and Peace...), is the man responsible for this collection, selecting, translating and commenting on the stories in an excellent introduction.

The stories in question, while chosen primarily for their dogginess, are all by accomplished Russian writers, and the first of them, Ivan Turgenev's Mumu, is a famous story in its own right.  Mumu is the tale of a gigantic, deaf-mute serf, Gerasim, who is thwarted in his hope of marrying a fellow servant.  While walking one day, he rescues a dog from drowning in a river, and gradually becomes attached to the little black-and-white Spaniel.  Sadly for owner and dog, Gerasim's own mistress soon puts up an obstacle to the unlikely pair's happy existence...

Another writer you'll undoubtedly have heard of is Anton Chekhov, and while Chestnut Girl may not be one of his more famous stories, anything coming from the pen of the short-story specialist is bound to be good.  In this story, a chestnut Spaniel gets separated from her drunken, boorish master and ends up finding a new home with a much kinder man - and his menagerie of talented animals.  With a new name (and a new bag of tricks), our canine friend is ready to start a new life; however, what will happen when she is reminded of the past?

The title of Mikhail Saltykov's Good Old Trezor is intended to evoke memories of a book I read recently, Faithful Ruslan (also called Good Old Ruslan).  However, where Ruslan's tale is a lengthy, heart-breaking one, Saltykov's story is a humorous, ten-page romp detailing the life of a hard-working guard dog.  It's a dog's life alright, but Trezor seems to accept that this is his lot in life, and that there's no point in complaining.  After all, he is a dog.

The two stories making up the quintet are Arthur the White Poodle by Alexander Kuprin and Ich Bin from Head to Foot by satirists Ilf and Petrov.  Kuprin's story is probably the weakest of the bunch, a children's tale about a quest to get back a kidnapped dog, but Ilf and Petrov's clever parody of a poor German circus performer being retrained in a Socialist model is well worth a read :)

*****
As mentioned above, this is definitely Briggs' show, and he has done a fine job.  The translations are easy to read, albeit more faithful to the original in terms of language than some would like (especially those who prefer modern language to finding English expressions from the equivalent time period).  In addition to the stories, there are also some bonus poems slotted between the main acts, most running for a just a few lines, each on the topic of you-know-what ;)

The biggest sign that this is a labour of love though is Briggs' introduction, in which he gives a brief summary of each of the stories (and puts it in its literary and historical context), as well as talking about dogs in literature more generally.  His claims that Russian literature is especially rich in dog-related stories would seem to stand up on the basis of these stories; my only criticism of the collection is that it would have been nice to have a few more of them included in its pages...

Still, it's a lovely idea and one well worth a look, whether you're a big fan of dogs or not.  Indeed, the inside sleeve makes the claim that Five Russian Dog Stories is a "...delight for dog-lovers, with a passing interest for dog-haters...".  As a reader who falls somewhere between the two camps, I can heartily recommend it.

Of course, I'm sure there many of you out there who are much more interested in dogs than I am.  As Briggs says, humans and dogs have been companions for thousands of years, and the two species share a special bond.  An anecdote the translator gives at the start of his introduction puts this nicely into perspective.  One day, he and a friend visited an old pub in England and asked the landlord whether he would let the dogs into his establishment.  His response?

"Sir, I prefer dogs." p.vii

To which I can only say "woof" ;)

Growing Old Disgracefully

Translated literature can often have a reputation for being worthy, solid and dull, so it's good to occasionally stumble across a book which takes itself a little less seriously.  On which note, let me introduce Swedish writer Jonas Jonasson's novel The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared, a title which immediately tells you that the contents are probably not going to be overly concerned with existential angst and the play of light across dusty tables.  I was (obviously) intrigued by this title and requested a review copy from Hesperus Press.  I didn't regret it - this is a great book to liven up a bleak Melbourne winter :)

*****
The Hundred-Year-Old Man... (translated by Rod Bradbury) is about Allan Karlsson, an aimiable old fellow who decides to abscond from his nursing home hours before a party planned to celebrate his centenary.  Sprightly for his age, he manages to make it to the nearby bus station, where he sits down to wait for the next available bus (destination not important).  A man desperate for the toilet then asks Allan to look after his suitcase while he rushes to the little boy's room.  Unfortunately, by the time he gets back, the bus has come and gone - and there is no sign of either Allan or the suitcase...

As you may already have guessed, there was more inside the suitcase than a few shirts and ties, and the rather angry young man is very eager to track our geriatric friend down, and possibly put a dampener on his birthday celebrations.  Allan, however, is not your average pensioner, and is able to get by with a little help from his friends - and Allan has some very influential friends...

The Hundred-Year-Old Man... is, to put it bluntly, a romp.  A picaresque adventure in the style of Don Quixote, the book alternates between the mad-cap adventures Allan and a motley crew of shady characters and animals experience, and sections telling us about Allan's earlier life.  And if you think his modern-day adventures are fascinating, just wait until you hear about what he got up to in his youth...

After his father's unfortunate demise over in Russia (don't ask), Allan takes stock of his life, in a short passage which shows both the dry humour and sense of understatement that pervades the novel:

"...he understood that his father was dead, that his mother coughed and that the war was over.  As for himself, by the age of thirteen he had acquired a particular skill in making explosions by mixing nitroglycerine, cellulose nitrate, ammonium nitrate, sodium nitrate, wood flour, dinitrotoluene and a few other ingredients.  That ought to come in handy some day, thought Allan..." p.35 (Hesperus Press, 2012)

As you may have guessed, this talent will stand him in very good stead one day, particularly when some very famous men ask him for help :)

Allan is a wonderful character, a man with absolutely no moral or ideological compass who, left to his own devices, would like nothing more than to sit on the beach with just a comfortable chair, a bottle of vodka and the occasional opportunity to blow something up.  Alas, the twentieth century was a turbulent one, and anyone who happened to be caught up in the Spanish Civil War or the Korean conflict is bound to have little chance of a quiet life.  As Allan quietly floats from one disaster to the next, we really begin to wonder how he made it to the age of one hundred at all...

The Hundred-Year-Old Man... is an excellent novel, a wonderful example of dry, sardonic humour that occasionally had me bursting out in laughter, but it's not perfect.  It's not the most literary of novels, and I doubt it will be in the running for many prizes (although Bradbury's translation is a very good one).  It could also be argued that it's not exactly original in some aspects; anyone who has seen (or preferably read) Forrest Gump will see the influence of the American story running right through this one.  I also found that it lost momentum a little towards the end, understandable after the frenetic pace of some of the earlier episodes.

The fact remains though that whenever I put the book down, I wanted to pick it up again as quickly as possible to see what antics Allan and his friends were up to, which historical figure would make a cameo appearance next, and whether Allan could finally find a decent vodka to enjoy.  Not that Allan himself worries too much about any of these things.  Right to the end, he lives by the motto (the book's preface) he inherited from his mother in his childhood:

"Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."

Sometimes, even as a reader, you just have to go with the flow...