Chapter 15 Russian point of view

Since we have often doubted whether the French or the Americans, who have so much in common with us, can understand English literature, we should admit that we are even more skeptical that the English, with all their enthusiasm for it, can understand Russian literature.What exactly we mean by "understanding" may be debated without certainty.Everyone will recall the examples of those American writers, especially those who, in their writings, have the highest recognition of our literature and ourselves; Subjects of His Majesty George.Still, do they understand us?Aren't they foreigners to the last moments of their lives?Who can believe that the novels of Henry James were written by a man who grew up in the society he describes, or that his criticisms of English writers were written by such a man, He had read Shakespeare, but had no idea of ​​the Atlantic and the two or three hundred years on the other side of the Atlantic that separated his culture from ours?Foreigners often acquire a peculiar acuity and detachment, a sharp-edged perspective; but they lack that sense of unselfishness, of ease, of fellowship, of shared values. feelings that contribute to the formation of intimate relationships, good judgment, and close association with the rapid exchange of information.

It is not only all these defects that separate us from Russian literature, but a far more serious obstacle—the difference of language.Of all the readers who have enjoyed the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov in the past twenty years, perhaps no more than one or two can read the Russian original.Our assessment of their quality is made by critics who have never read a single Russian word, or been to Russia, or heard Russians speak Russian; they have to rely blindly and absolutely on translations. We are then saying that we pass judgment on the whole of Russian literature apart from its style.When you convert every word in a sentence from Russian to English, thus slightly changing its meaning, completely changing its sound, its weight, and the center of gravity of the words relative to each other, then besides the poorness of its meaning, Nothing has survived except the rough translation.Treated in this way, the great Russian writers, as if in an earthquake or a railway accident, lost not only all their clothes but something subtler and more important—their manners, their character traits.The British testify with their fanatical admiration of Russian literature that what survived the catastrophe is very powerful and moving; How sure can we be that we ourselves are not criticizing, misinterpreting these works, imposing on them a false importance.

We say they lost their clothes in some terrible catastrophe, because some such image can be used to describe that simple, human quality All the efforts of the human nature are revealed in panic, and this is the impression that Russian literature-either through translation or some deeper reason-makes on us.We find that these qualities permeate Russian literature completely, and are as evident in lesser writers as in more important ones. "Learn to make yourself flesh and blood with people, brotherhood. I would even add: Make yourself indispensable to them. But do not sympathize with your head—for it is easy to do—but Come from your heart and sympathize with love for them." Wherever you happen to read this quote, you'll immediately say, "It's from a Russian." Simple, unadorned style, flowing , posits that our chief call to us in a world of misery is to understand our fellow-suffering fellow-creatures, and to "sympathize not with the head—for it is still easy to do—but with the heart" —this is the cloud that hangs over the whole of Russian literature, and its charm draws us away from our own eclipsed situation and scorched path to stretch under the shadow of that cloud—and The consequences are of course unimaginable.We become embarrassed, restrained; denying our own qualities, we write with a style of sham benevolence and simplicity that is extremely disgusting.We cannot call others "brothers" with unsophisticated self-confidence.In one of Galsworthy's short stories, one character refers to another in this way (they are both deeply troubled by misfortune).In an instant, everything feels forced and contrived.The English equivalent of "brother" is "dude"—a very different word, with a sarcasm, a subtle humor that is hard to articulate.Although those two Englishmen met and greeted each other in this way in the depths of their misfortune, we can be sure that they will find jobs, become rich, live in luxury in the last years of their lives, and stay The next fortune to keep the poor poor from fraternizing on the banks of the Thames.But it was that shared suffering, not shared happiness, effort or desire, that produced that brotherhood.It is that profound "sorrow" - which Dr. Hagberg-Wright found typical of the Russians - that creates their literature.

A theoretical generalization of this kind, even if it contains a certain degree of truth when applied to the body of literature, would of course change it profoundly if a writer of genius began to work upon it.Immediately many other problems arose.As can be seen, a creative "attitude" is not simple; it is very complex.People devastated by a traffic accident, who have lost their clothes and their grace, say things that are harsh, harsh, unpleasant, awkward, even if they speak with the laissez-faire, frankness that disaster has wrought upon them. Attitude.Our first impression of Chekhov's work is not plain but bewildering.What is its significance?Why did he write this into a short story?As we read one after another of his works, we ask such questions.A man falls in love with a woman, they break up and then meet again, and the two end up talking about their situation and how they can break free from "this terrible bondage."

"'What to do? What to do?' he asked, cupping his head tightly, . This is the end of the novel.A postman drove a student to the post in a carriage. The student tried to talk to the postman along the way, but he remained silent.Suddenly, unexpectedly, the postman said: "It is against the rules to let anyone ride the mail car." So he paced up and down on the platform with a sullen face. "Who is he angry with? At people? At poverty? At that autumn night?" And so the story ends. We asked: Is this the end?We always have the feeling of running ahead of the rest; or rather, it's a bit like a tune that ends abruptly before the expected ending chord is played.We say that these novels are inconclusive, and then we form our critique on the basis of the assumption that the short story should end in a way we accept.In doing so, we raise the question of our own fitness to serve as readers.If the tune were familiar and the ending emphatic - lovers remarried, villains in disarray, plots unmasked - as most Victorian novels are, we would be less likely to be mistaken; , if the tune is unfamiliar and the note at the end is a question mark, or simply indicates that the characters are going to talk about it, as in Chekhov's short stories, we need a very bold and acute literary sensibility to Let us hear the tune, especially the last few notes that complete the harmony.Perhaps we have to read a large number of short stories to feel this way, and this ability to feel is very necessary for us to obtain a satisfactory conclusion. When we summarize the various parts of the novel, we will find that Chekhov’s writing is not loose , Not coherent, but consciously playing this note for a while, and playing that note for a while, the purpose is to fully express the ideological meaning of his works.

We have to search carefully to discover exactly where in these strange short stories their emphasis occurs.Chekhov's own words point us in the right direction.He said: "...conversations like ours were unimaginable to our parents. At night, they were silent, but they slept soundly; Talks a lot, always trying to decide whether we're right." The social satire and psychographic techniques of our literature come from restless sleep and constant conversation; but, between Chekhov and Henry James, in Chekhov After all, there is a huge difference between Khove and Shaw.Significant difference - but where does it come from?Chekhov was also aware of the ugliness and injustice of the social situation; he was horrified by the dire condition of the peasantry; but he did not have the zeal of a reformer—this is by no means a sign of rest for us to pause for conclusions.He was deeply interested in the mind; he was the most delicate analyst of human relations.But again we say, no, the conclusion is not there.Was his fundamental interest not in the relation of the soul to other souls, but in the relation of the soul to health—in the relation of the soul to benevolence?These novels always reveal to us something artificial, pretentious, and very insincere.A certain woman is caught in an illicit relationship, a certain man is corrupted by his inhuman conditions.The soul is sick; the soul is healed; the soul is not healed.These are the main points of his short stories.

Once our eyes get used to these tones, half of the original "conclusion" of the novel is a puff of smoke; they look like slides with a light behind them - tacky, dazzling, shallow .As the general ending of the last chapter of the novel, the characters in the book either forge a happy relationship or die, and the author's values ​​are publicly declared and emphasized, which has become the most basic type.We feel that nothing is solved, nothing is properly generalized.On the other hand, what seemed to us at first to be careless, inconclusive, and full of tedious details, now appears to be the result of an elegant and delicate originality and an exquisite artistic taste, which boldly chooses the subject matter. , properly arranged, and governed by an attitude of sincerity such qualities as we find nowhere else but in Russian writers.Perhaps these questions are unanswerable, yet let us not falsify evidence to create something proper, orthodox, and in keeping with our vanity.The Russian method may not appeal to the ears of our public; after all, they are used to louder music, stronger beats; but since that is what the tune sounds like, he wrote it down.As a result, our eyes are opened and our souls gain an amazing sense of freedom as we read these little stories without conclusions.

When reading Chekhov, we find ourselves repeating the word "soul" over and over again.It sprinkled his pages.Old drunkards use the word casually; "... you are high above the executive, unattainable, but without a real soul, my dear boy... there is no power in it." Indeed, The soul is the main character in Russian novels.In Chekhov the soul is delicate, susceptible to endless humor and sullenness; in Dostoevsky it has greater depth and volume, it is prone to drama. disease and high fever, but it is still the dominant factor.Perhaps it is for this reason that an English reader takes so much effort to read The Brothers Karamazov and The Devil twice.For him, that "soul" is alien.It's even repulsive.It has little to no humor and no comedy at all.It is amorphous.It has very little to do with reason.It is chaotic, trivial, tumultuous, and seems unable to accept the control of logic and the rhythm of poetry.Dostoevsky's novels are churning eddies, storms of flying sand and rocks, hissing, seething drains into which we are sucked.It is completely composed of the soul as raw material.Against our will, we were sucked in and whirled inside, dazed, almost suffocated, and at the same time filled with a kind of dizzying ecstasy.There is nothing more exciting to read than Shakespeare.We opened the door and found ourselves in a room crowded with Russian generals, the general's governess, the general's wife's daughter by her ex-husband, the general's cousins, and a whole host of miscellaneous characters, all in Enlarging their throats to talk about their most intimate affairs.But where exactly are we?It is, of course, the job of the novelist to tell us whether this is in a hotel, an apartment, or a rented house.However, no one thought of explaining it in any way.Our souls, tormented, wretched souls, the only thing they have to do is to talk, to expose, to confess, to pluck from the wounds of flesh and nerves those indistinguishable sins that writhe on the sands of our hearts. Drag it out.But when we listened to their talk, our tumultuous hearts calmed down.A rope was thrown at us; we caught a monologue; we gripped the rope with our teeth and were hastily dragged through the water; The moment we come out of the water, the moment we see the scene, we understand it more clearly than we ever have before, and we gain the kind of revelation that we usually only get when the stress of life is the most stressful.We saw it all inadvertently as we went on at full speed—the names of the people and their relationships; The Marquis of Rioux was involved in a conspiracy together—but, compared with the soul, what a secondary matter these are!What matters is the soul, with its passions, its turmoil, its astonishing smorgasbord of beauty and evil.What could be more natural than if we burst out laughing shrillly, or if we sobbed bitterly? — which hardly attracts attention.The pace of our lives is so amazing that sparks shoot out from our wheels as we race along.Moreover, when the tempo of life is thus quickened, we see the elements of the soul, not separately in scenes of humor or of passion, as our slower English minds imagine. , but intertwined layer by layer, indissolubly mixed into a mass, thus revealing a new overview of the human mind.Factors that were previously separate are now fused together.Men are villains and saints at the same time; their actions are both good and vile.We love them and hate them at the same time.There is no such clear dividing line between good and evil as we are used to.Those whom we love most are often the greatest criminals, and it is often the poorest sinners who move us to the strongest admiration and admiration.

Rising suddenly to the top of the waves, and being sucked into the bottom of the sea and smashed to pieces on the rocks, an English reader can hardly feel at ease.The procedure to which he was accustomed in his own native literature was reversed.According to our custom, if we want to relate the love anecdote of a general (we will find it difficult not to laugh at a general at first), we must begin by describing his mansion; we must make his surroundings concrete. change.Only when everything is in place can we describe the general himself.Moreover, it is not the Russian samovar that reigns in England but our teapot; time is limited; space is crowded; and we can feel the influence of different views in other writings—even other times.Society is divided into low, middle, and high classes, each with its own traditions, its own rules, and, to some extent, even its own language.Whether he himself likes it or not, an English novelist is constantly pressured to admit these frames, with the result that an inherent order and a certain form are imposed on him; Examine society as a whole rather than understanding individuals themselves.

Dostoevsky was not subject to such restrictions.It made no difference to him whether you were noble or commoner, tramp or dame.Whoever you are, you are the vessel for this complex fluid, this fuzzy, bubbling, precious quality - the soul.It overflows, flows, and merges with other souls.Before we could figure out what was going on, the mundane story of a bank clerk who couldn't afford a bottle of wine spread like wildfire to his father-in-law and his five mistresses who treated them horribly in the lives of the postman, the servants, and the princesses who lived in the same apartment; nothing was beyond the realm of Dostoevsky's fiction; Don't stop, but keep writing.He cannot limit himself.The human soul - steaming, scorching, mixed, amazing, terrible, oppressively overflowing - rolls toward us.

What remains undiscussed is the greatest of all novelists—for what else can we call the author of the novel than that?Shall we also find Tolstoy an alien, incomprehensible foreigner?Is there also some quirk in his point of view, which, with doubts and perplexities, avoids us at all costs until we become his disciples and lose our way?From his first few words we can at least be sure of one thing—here is a man who sees what we see, and writes as we are used to, not from the heart to the outside, But write from the outside to the heart.Here is a world in which the postman knocks at eight o'clock and people go to bed between ten and eleven o'clock.Here is a man who is not a savage, a child of nature; he is educated; he has had all kinds of experiences.He was one of those people who were born noble and took full advantage of their privilege.He is a metropolitan rather than a suburban figure.His senses, his intellect, were accurate, powerful, and well-cultivated.There is something gloriously proud, magnificent about such a mind and body assailing life.No one, therefore, could so express to a strong young man the excitement of physical activity, the beauty of a horse, and all that he craves in this world.Every branch, every feather is attracted by his magnetism.He noticed the blue or scarlet tint of a child's clothes, the moulting of a horse's tail, the sound of a cough, the movement of a man trying to thrust his hand into a sewn pocket.His precise gaze recorded a cough and the slight movement of his hands, and his precise mind attributed these phenomena to some hidden factors in the characters' personalities. Therefore, we are familiar with his characters not only through their love. , political views and immortality of the soul, and also by the way they sneeze and choke.Even in a translation we feel that we have been placed on top of a mountain and that a telescope has been delivered to us.Everything is amazingly clear and absolutely sharp.Just as we were in ecstasy, taking deep breaths of fresh mountain air, feeling refreshed and cleansed, suddenly a detail—perhaps a man's head—was removed from the picture in a startling way. Standing out of the midst of it, it looms toward us, as if ejected from it by the mighty force of its own life. "I suddenly encountered a strange thing: at first my sight was blocked, and I couldn't see the surrounding scene; then his face seemed to disappear slowly, until at last only a pair of eyes remained, shining before my eyes; Then the eye seemed to penetrate into my skull, and all was confused—I could see nothing, and was forced to close my eyes, in order to get rid of the joy and terror his gaze produced on me. Feeling..." Time and time again, we shared the feelings of the character Martha in the novel "Family Happiness".You have to close your eyes to escape the feeling of joy and fear.Often it is the feeling of joy that predominates.In this novel there are two descriptions, one of a girl walking in the garden with her lover at night, and the other of a newlyweds striding into their living room, which bring out the strong The sense of happiness conveyed so successfully that we close the book to appreciate it better.But there is always a sense of dread that makes us, like Martha, want to escape Tolstoy's gaze on us.Is it the feeling that might disturb us in real life—the feeling that the happiness he describes is too intense to last, that we are on the verge of a catastrophe?Or does it feel that our intense joy is somehow a little dubious and compels us to ask, along with Poznetshev in the Kreutzer Sonata: "But why live?" Life rules Tolstoy , as the soul dominated Dostoevsky.At the center of all those glittering petals there always lies the scorpion: "Why live?" At the center of his writings there is always an Olenin, Pierre, or Levin who has achieved all They can deal with the world as they please, but they keep asking, even when they are enjoying life, what is the meaning of life and what should be our purpose in life.It is not the priest or the monk who dispels our desires most effectively, but he who has known them himself and loved them.And when he also mocks them, the whole world is indeed reduced to a heap of dust and ashes at our feet.In this way fear and our delight are mingled; and of the three Russian writers it is Tolstoy who most fascinates us and most revolts us. Our thought, however, carries its prejudices from its birth, and there is no doubt that when it comes to a literature as alien as Russian literature, it must be far from the truth.