Russian Lit Fever
The Possessed by Elif Batuman is her story of how she fell in love with Russian literature — became one of “the possessed” — and where that love led her. It led her to places I could never imagine myself going, like Samarkand for the summer, and to places I’d love to go, like the International Tolstoy Conference in Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy’s estate in Russia. The Possessed is a fun read but not a light one; some of the paragraphs reek of academia (“Although I am not convinced that mimetic desire is the fundamental content of the novelistic form, or that humans’ mimetic desires can be channeled productively only by imitating Christ, Girard’s theory unquestionably explains a great deal in the work of certain novelists”) and some background knowledge of Russian literature and of terms of literary criticism is assumed. To enjoy the collection of Batuman’s essays, you don’t have to understand the significance of Babel on Russian literature, or know the plot ofAnna Karenina, or translate phrases such as “mimetic desire” into common English, but it helps.
Batuman is engaging and intelligent and very, very funny. She willingly reveals silly and/or interesting personal stories to move along her thesis of being possessed by Russian literature. I especially loved her chapter on Tolstoy and the conference of Tolstoy scholars. The chapter on Babel is hilarious. But I never really felt the love or the supposed possession by her of the Russian literature she studies. She is witty and dry, but never hot with emotion or pumping with enthusiasm. I already love Tolstoy and the short stories and plays of Chekhov, which is a good thing because her book would not inspire me to go out and read Anna Karenina or The Kreutzer Sonata, much less attend a production of Uncle Vanya. Her exploration of Uzbek literature is fascinating but a bit snarky. I rather liked some of the verses but Batuman seemed more interested in poking fun at them, or at herself studying them.
I enjoyed The Possessed but I was not convinced of Batuman’s possession nor assured of the greatness of Russian literature. Fortunately, I already know how great it is (my sister is a Tolstoy scholar and she studied at Stanford with Professor Freidin, same as Batuman). I suspect most people likely to pick up The Possessed in the first place will be fans of Russian literature. Batuman is singing to the choir, and it is a light-hearted song. The irony is that “light-hearted” might be the last term one would use to describe Russian literature. At least no one can accuse Batuman of being “mimetic” of the literature that inspires her.
