“The Snake Charmer”
by Varlam Shalamov
Page 9 —
Platonov lay down in his former spot. Almost everyone was asleep, huddled together in groups of two or three because it was warmer that way.
‘It’s so boring my legs are getting longer,’ mourned Fedya. ‘If only someone could tell a novel. When I was in Kosoy…’
‘Fedya, hey Fedya, how about the new one? Why don’t you try him?’
‘That’s an idea.’ Fedya came to life. ‘Wake him up.’
Platonov was awakened.
‘Listen,’ said Fedya almost obsequiously, ‘I shot my mouth off a little.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Platonov through clenched teeth.
‘Listen, can you tell novels?’
Something flashed across Platonov’s face. Of course, he could! The cell-full of men awaiting trial had been entranced by his retelling of Count Dracula. But those were human beings there. And here? Should he become a jester in the court of the duke of Milan, a clown who was fed for a good joke and beaten for a bad one?
“The Snake Charmer” is one of 34 stories collected in Varlam Shalamov’s Kolmya Tales, which are based on his experiences in Soviet-era Siberian labor camps in the 1930s and 40s.
Shalamov, whose stories follow Chekov’s format of devoting a short plot to a single incident, is considered on of the greatest Russian writers to survive the camps, on par with the more famous Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
You can freely read this story in its entirety here; or it can be found along with 33 other short stories in this collection (Kindle, paperback, and hardcover.)
About This Collection:
“Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.” — Ford Madox Ford
But what short story could pass that test?
This collection applies Ford’s test to the 9th page of a wide range of short stories, old and new. To do so, I take short stories, put them in the format of a standard mass-market paperback, and excerpt page nine.
If you have a suggestion for a story, or if you’ve published one that you’d like considered (4000–8,000 words) please contact me directly: @E_H_Carpenter (Twitter) and let me know.
“9” graphic created by The Australian Graphic Supply Co