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Предел забвения
Сергей Лебедев - повое имя в русской интеллектуальной прозе, которое уже очень хорошо известно на Западе. "Предел забвения" - первый роман Лебедева, за право издать который только в Германии "сражались" 12 издателей! Он был на "ура" встречен во Франции и Чехии и продолжает свое триумфальное шествие среди европейских читателей.
Это - роман-странствие, рассказывающий непростую историю юноши - нашего современника, - вдруг узнавшего, что его дед был палачом в лагере. Как жить с таким знанием и как простить любимого человека? "Предел забвения" написан в медитативной манере, вызывающей в памяти имена Марселя Пруста и Генри Джеймса. Он сочетает в себе достоинства настоящей качественной литературы и яркость исторической проблематики и придется по душе не только любителям "лагерной" темы, но и тем, кто ценит современный зарубежный роман с элементами триллера и мелодрамы!
Это - роман-странствие, рассказывающий непростую историю юноши - нашего современника, - вдруг узнавшего, что его дед был палачом в лагере. Как жить с таким знанием и как простить любимого человека? "Предел забвения" написан в медитативной манере, вызывающей в памяти имена Марселя Пруста и Генри Джеймса. Он сочетает в себе достоинства настоящей качественной литературы и яркость исторической проблематики и придется по душе не только любителям "лагерной" темы, но и тем, кто ценит современный зарубежный роман с элементами триллера и мелодрамы!
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
92 people are currently reading
1,889 people want to read
About the author
Sergei Lebedev
14books42followersSergei Lebedev was born in Moscow in 1981 and worked for seven years on geological expeditions in northern Russia and Central Asia. Lebedev is a poet, essayist and journalist. His novels have been translated into many languages and received great acclaim in the English-speaking world.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
August 23, 2022
The language is lush and metaphoric� And the book has a power of murky allegory.
Oblivion is about human memory� There are things we wish to remember and there are things we wish to forget�
An old man dies� And the boy, to whom the old blind man was like his real grandfather, grows up and decides to investigate the life of the dead man� So he submerges into the dark past of his false relative� And he becomes a prisoner of the sinister past�
The past is memory and oblivion� Many mysteries and secrets are irrevocably buried in the past� The past is always a tragedy�
Time is merciless and the rapacious past swallows everything.
Oblivion is about human memory� There are things we wish to remember and there are things we wish to forget�
The darkness of winter days multiplies the lacunae of memory, confined to the circle of light from the desk lamp; you travel from one memory to the next as if from village to village in the snow, sinking, losing the road, barely hearing the guiding thread � the hum of the power lines.
An old man dies� And the boy, to whom the old blind man was like his real grandfather, grows up and decides to investigate the life of the dead man� So he submerges into the dark past of his false relative� And he becomes a prisoner of the sinister past�
But there was no real scale either � he was not great, but small, a blind old man who knew how to do only one thing � elicit fear, not fright which we often confuse with fear, especially as children, but fear � the oppressive living essence that forces the psyche into an unnatural state and forces a person to stifle himself; fear, the optical lenses of fear increased Grandfather II’s figure, gave it a demonic, creepy glow. The real horror was in the useless keys, the saucers from beat-up tea sets, in worn coins � in the anonymity of existence, in the impossibility of learning anything morally from these remains, which could have been caught in an archaeologist’s sieve, about a person who seemed to blend into the general background of an era, lost amid the trifles, who had taken on the quotidian as a scheme, or even more accurately, had always lived by it; a person about whom you sensed great evil but whom you could never call great or even having scale in that evil.
The past is memory and oblivion� Many mysteries and secrets are irrevocably buried in the past� The past is always a tragedy�
I sensed that oblivion does not come in gradualness, extension, or postponement, but that it is an integral part of time itself, whose unreasoning force makes it happen here and now; blind Cronus is continually devouring his children, and every new moment does not try to add to the last one but to destroy it. Only memory can resist forgetting; of course, not always.
Time is merciless and the rapacious past swallows everything.
December 12, 2022
Абсолютни пет звезди!
Тази книга е капан. Разбираш го, след като вече си отхвърлил стотина страници. Наострил си уши още с анонса, с темата на романа, а корицата те е завела доброволно в капана. Оттук насетне няма измъкване. Не искаш да се измъкваш, това е капанът, от който винаги си имал нужда.
Изчитайки безкрайните томове „лагерна проза� � книгите на Солженицин, на Варлам Шаламов и Евгения Гинзбург, един въпрос все си оставаше без отговор, колкото и често да си го задавах. Ясна е съдбата на жертвите. Томовете са техен монумент. Какво се е случило обаче с палачите? С онези хиляди хора от плът и кръв, които са съпровождали конвоите обречени към Далечния Север. Къде в белите петна на историята потъват те?
Роденият през 1981 г. Сергей Лебедев дава отговор на този въпрос с първия си роман „Предел на забравата�. Веднъж попаднал в капана на неговата интелектуална проза, привлечен от обещанието за отговор, не успях да спра, докато не изчетох всичките 450 страници. Отне ми цял уикенд почти непрестанно четене, за да развия заедно с автора нишката на забравата, да я проследя чак до самия предел. Пътешествие, което се отпечата ярко в съзнанието ми със силата на изключително добрата литература.
Цялото ревю тук:
Тази книга е капан. Разбираш го, след като вече си отхвърлил стотина страници. Наострил си уши още с анонса, с темата на романа, а корицата те е завела доброволно в капана. Оттук насетне няма измъкване. Не искаш да се измъкваш, това е капанът, от който винаги си имал нужда.
Изчитайки безкрайните томове „лагерна проза� � книгите на Солженицин, на Варлам Шаламов и Евгения Гинзбург, един въпрос все си оставаше без отговор, колкото и често да си го задавах. Ясна е съдбата на жертвите. Томовете са техен монумент. Какво се е случило обаче с палачите? С онези хиляди хора от плът и кръв, които са съпровождали конвоите обречени към Далечния Север. Къде в белите петна на историята потъват те?
Роденият през 1981 г. Сергей Лебедев дава отговор на този въпрос с първия си роман „Предел на забравата�. Веднъж попаднал в капана на неговата интелектуална проза, привлечен от обещанието за отговор, не успях да спра, докато не изчетох всичките 450 страници. Отне ми цял уикенд почти непрестанно четене, за да развия заедно с автора нишката на забравата, да я проследя чак до самия предел. Пътешествие, което се отпечата ярко в съзнанието ми със силата на изключително добрата литература.
Цялото ревю тук:
January 18, 2025
Пределът на душата - дали може да претопи, осмисли и излекува вътре в самата себе си цяла епоха и цяла нация?
Думите имат предел, отвъд който се превръщат в неясни частици от вселената, незнайни, недоловими, но подчинени на свой вътрешен закон, чакащ тепърва да бъде открит.
Лебедев определено е добър спелеолог - носи се из дълбините на руската по-нова история и обитавалите я и все още обитаващи я безсъзнания. Именно безсъзнания - онова, което на повърхността е добре оформен пейзаж или архитектура, крие черни дълбини, от които обитателите на горния слой се пазят като дявол от тамян. Не желаят да знаят какво се крие в мрака и не желаят друг да надникне в собствения им, грижливо избутван извън мислимия свят мрак.
Човечеството обаче се отличава с богато разнообразие на достъпни възприятия, някои от които сякаш граничат с мистичното, но всъщност фино, прецизно, но пък крайно мъчително (когато са лишени от контекст и послание), долавят точно маяка, излъчващ скритото. За мъка и на усещащия, който често е безсилен да разтълкува или да промени, и на обекта, който е неподатлив и дори не съзнава изцяло самия себе си. Това дълго есе за дебрите на противоестественото в привидно малките битовизми на живота е тъкмо такова пътешествие. Не е за всеки, и определено не е за мен.
Лагерите на СССР, колективното умишлено издребняване на спомените за епохата с цел размиване на всяка възможна вина и касателство, нежеланието или неумението да се извади на бял свят поне част от радиокативния отпадък и даде преработи в нещо не толкова токсично, влияещо на всеки ежедневен детайл като почнем от възпитанието на едно дете са само част от темите.
Лебедев гради един по същество изцяло свят на сенки и отражения. Допирателните линии с обектите му са доста бегли, често липсващи или размити зад воали и пластове думи и редуващи се бегли впечатления, които къдрят образи, но после се разбягват като случайни сенки без особено послание.
Може би това е онзи сегмент от литературата, който винаги ще ме вълнува само “н� теория�, но никога няма да докосне нещо по-съществено у мен. Сред толкова много различни и несекващи огледала накрая се губи смисълът на всички тези отражения. Предпочитам добре прицелените, прецизни изстрели на Шаламов, Солженицин, Довлатов и Гросман. Метафизиката е твърде тесен инструмент за историческите несправедливости, когато ги лишава от ясни очертания и плът. Кошмарите често остават неясни и се забравят, ако останат заключени в непроницаем, лишен от указващи нишки свят като този на Лебедев. Твърде херметично. Иначе да - думите, сами за себе си и поотделно - са красиви. Но съвкупността им е крайно давеща в хаотичността и абстракцията си. Ако беше в по-кратка форма и по-малко страници, бих усетила въздействието му много по-концентрирано.
—ĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔ�-
▶️ Цитати:
"…вярваше в законите на физиката, устроени така, че изстрелът да стане възможен.�
"…помни� не онова, което е било, а спомена за спомена и миналото се отдалечава…�
“Миналото…беш� малко, уредено - всеки старателно го укрепваше, обработваше парцела на личната си памет - и никой не помнеше всичко за всички.�
“…разсеяността, в която ме обвиняваха, всъщност е признак за друг вид внимание: не естествено, а разширено, обхващащо и възприемащо някакви очертания на случващото се, онова, което не се вмества във фокусната леща.�
“…чове� може да бъде скулптурен отпечатък на гордостта си.�
“…виждам� не хората, а това, как хората се отразяват в нас…�
“…призивът да не се лъже, съпроводен със страх, само умножава лъжата и те кара да се усъвършенстваш в нея.�
“…свестн� хора - тоест хора, за които по различни причини никой не мoже да каже нищо лошо.�
“…зрящият не вижда това разрушение като разрушение, той вижда само промяната, а слепият е по-близо до истинското разбиране за нещата: новото е смърт, обновяването е убийство…�"
“…тоз� текст е като паметник, като стена ма плача, ако мъртвите и оплакващите няма къде другаде да се срещнат, освен до стената на думите - стената, съединяваща мъртвите и живите.�
“Времето е светлина, както казват физиците, светлината влиза в човека през очите; може би те са орган на времето�
“Кат� че ли имах две памети, малка и голяма, почти непроницаеми една за друга…�
“Н� бива живият дори мислено да се слага на мястото на мъртвия - това създава противоестествена връзка и хвърля в бъдещето сянка на мнимо предопределение, което никога няма да се сбъдне, но ще завърже връзки, които човек ще бъде принуден да развързва със собствения си живот�
“Н� се страхуваше от това, което бе сторил; беше се уплашил, когато се е оказало, че той, началникът на разстрелната бригада, е никой в съвременния свят.�
“Изпитва� страх и той бе предизвикан не от това обезобразено пространство само по себе си, а от реалността на вътрешния свят на онези хора, не с чиито усилия и старания, а обратното - с отсъствието на усилия и каквито и да е старания бе породено то..�
“…дух� на сегашното време, утвърждаващ вече не равенство, а тъждественост на хората.�
“…повика� си и можеш само да се вглъбиш в собствения си потрес, да тръгнеш по пътя му - без да се опитваш да разбереш, да го разложиш на съставните му части - не, именно да се вживееш в потреса до такъв предел […], отвъд който спира вътрешният кръговрат на думите. Едва тогава […] ще се превърне в нещо по-дълбоко от образ, от метафора - ще се превърне в отваряща се врата, в проход […].�
“Тов� би могло да се нарече престъпление против реалността.�
“Животъ� не налага друго наказание освен лишаване от човечност […].�
January 16, 2021
4.5
една от най-хубавите книги, които четох тази година
Д��бютният роман на руския писател Сергей Лебедев „Предел на забравата� вече се радва на немалка популярност сред читателските кръгове у нас и сред чуждестранната критика, въпреки относителната тишина и маргинализация, която търпи в родната си страна. Писана когато авторът е eдва на 26, книгата впечатлява с монументалния размах на езика си и дълбочините, до които той е доведен.
Още .
една от най-хубавите книги, които четох тази година
Д��бютният роман на руския писател Сергей Лебедев „Предел на забравата� вече се радва на немалка популярност сред читателските кръгове у нас и сред чуждестранната критика, въпреки относителната тишина и маргинализация, която търпи в родната си страна. Писана когато авторът е eдва на 26, книгата впечатлява с монументалния размах на езика си и дълбочините, до които той е доведен.
Още .
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May 31, 2021Отново греда и няма да я довърша.
Има книги, които при цялото си богатство и ерудиция, ми въздействат страшно угнетително. Дори не е тъга, всъщност бих предпочела да е тъга, да пусна сълза и да ми мине. Както и при "Памет на паметта", и тук се почувствах в плен на твърде литературното и изсмукано от живот писане, сгъстяване и нагнетяване, психологизиране на ежедневния ужас и тоталната невъзможност за спасение.
Има книги, които при цялото си богатство и ерудиция, ми въздействат страшно угнетително. Дори не е тъга, всъщност бих предпочела да е тъга, да пусна сълза и да ми мине. Както и при "Памет на паметта", и тук се почувствах в плен на твърде литературното и изсмукано от живот писане, сгъстяване и нагнетяване, психологизиране на ежедневния ужас и тоталната невъзможност за спасение.
December 14, 2020
Un viaggio nei luoghi più oscuri della Russia e dell’animo umano per ricostruire la vita di un uomo anziano e cieco, Nonno due, cui il protagonista deve la vita. Dal silenzio ostinato del vecchio riguardo alla propria vita alla ricerca ossessiva di parole che evochino, raccontino, materializzino ricordi per evitare l’oblio. Serve a costruire un muro che colleghi i vivi e i morti, serve a portare a galla un passato scomodo, fatto di gulag, lavori forzati, gelo, crudeltà, sofferenza. La memoria ha bisogno delle parole, non bastano le immagini. E l’autore scopre la propria identità nella lingua russa, che lo aiuta a tenersi lontano dall’oblio, da quel confine che tanta Storia ha spesso attraversato.
È un libro forte, doloroso, il cui stile denso e ricco (a volte troppo) sottolinea l’ossessione per la verità ancora oggi rifiutata da molti.
È un libro forte, doloroso, il cui stile denso e ricco (a volte troppo) sottolinea l’ossessione per la verità ancora oggi rifiutata da molti.
June 21, 2023
“Предел на забравата� за мен е поредната висока литература, която се занимава с човешкия микросмос. Книгата се спуска вертикално по тази плоскост през един малък географски разрез - Русия; и пропуква хоризонтално цялата повърхност на това понятие - в географски, политически и постмодерно-обществен смисъл.
Трудно ми беше да осмисля, че автор на толкова крехка възраст може да напише нещо такова. После се сещам, че е руснак и всичко си идва на мястото.
Трудно ми беше да осмисля, че автор на толкова крехка възраст може да напише нещо такова. После се сещам, че е руснак и всичко си идва на мястото.
March 18, 2021
Сергей Лебедев е журналист и писател, известно име в руските интелектуални среди с вече 4 романа зад гърба си. „Предел на забравата� е неговият дебютен роман, който се възприема с голям интерес извън Русия, особено в Чехия и Франция.
Лебедев е от семейство на геолози и често придружава родителите си по време на геоложки експедиции из руския Север и Казахстан. Това се оказва ключово при създаването на дебютния му роман. Местата, които посещава по време на тези експедиции, се намират в бивши територии на ГУЛАГ. Там все още се срещат опустели горски пътеки, рудни мини, разрушени лагерни бараки и безименни гробища, които изчезват безследно поради суровия климат.
Първоначално Лебедев не е имал идеята да пише роман, посветен на достатъчно експлоатираната тема ГУЛАГ, но всичко се преобръща в момента, когато случайно научава една семейна тайна. Оказва се, че вторият съпруг на баба му е бил подполковник и началник на трудов лагер. Това е преломен момент за творческия път на Лебедев. По този повод той споделя: „Ак� не водиш случаен живот, твоите книги сами те намират�.
Така писателят ползва тази история като ядро за своя роман.
Лебедев е от семейство на геолози и често придружава родителите си по време на геоложки експедиции из руския Север и Казахстан. Това се оказва ключово при създаването на дебютния му роман. Местата, които посещава по време на тези експедиции, се намират в бивши територии на ГУЛАГ. Там все още се срещат опустели горски пътеки, рудни мини, разрушени лагерни бараки и безименни гробища, които изчезват безследно поради суровия климат.
Първоначално Лебедев не е имал идеята да пише роман, посветен на достатъчно експлоатираната тема ГУЛАГ, но всичко се преобръща в момента, когато случайно научава една семейна тайна. Оказва се, че вторият съпруг на баба му е бил подполковник и началник на трудов лагер. Това е преломен момент за творческия път на Лебедев. По този повод той споделя: „Ак� не водиш случаен живот, твоите книги сами те намират�.
Така писателят ползва тази история като ядро за своя роман.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 23, 2016
I want to thank the publisher and the ŷ Giveaway program for sending me this book in return for an honest review. I give this book 3.5 stars(rounded up to 4) out of 5.
This was a book overwhelmed with imagery. Much of the book takes place in dream sequences or in the narrator's mind. The premise of the book is the narrator trying to find out more about the man he knew as "Grandfather II." This man was not his actual grandfather, but did watch over him as he grew up. "Grandfather II" dies and leaves the narrator his small house and everything in it. He finds some letters and decides to find the man who wrote the letters.
His quest leads him into the remains of former Soviet gulags.
Some examples of imagery: "He sought it in questions--he must have heard not only the words but also how they bumped into one another, head on or obliquely..."
"The objects stood there, huddled in bunches like sheep without a shepherd."
I took a long time to read this book, starting it on Feb 16, reading it for 6 days, then putting it aside until March 19 and finishing it on March 23.
The translation was excellent.
This was a book overwhelmed with imagery. Much of the book takes place in dream sequences or in the narrator's mind. The premise of the book is the narrator trying to find out more about the man he knew as "Grandfather II." This man was not his actual grandfather, but did watch over him as he grew up. "Grandfather II" dies and leaves the narrator his small house and everything in it. He finds some letters and decides to find the man who wrote the letters.
His quest leads him into the remains of former Soviet gulags.
Some examples of imagery: "He sought it in questions--he must have heard not only the words but also how they bumped into one another, head on or obliquely..."
"The objects stood there, huddled in bunches like sheep without a shepherd."
I took a long time to read this book, starting it on Feb 16, reading it for 6 days, then putting it aside until March 19 and finishing it on March 23.
The translation was excellent.
January 18, 2025
Разкошно пътешествие из меандрите на паметта, по детски наситено и впечатлително, и едновременно с това по старчески изстрадало, оплитащо се в детайли и скачащо от тема на тема. По всяка вероятност тук главен герой е езикът, който аха-аха да те да задуши, да те смаже, но дори тогава е непремерено красив. Метафори, страхове, чувства и бягства са се натрупали като стратиграфски пластове, и е едновременно предизвикателство, но и удоволствие да минаваш през тях поетапно, докато стигнеш до онова ужасяващо откровение, което всеки носи в себе си.
July 23, 2016
In "One Hundred Years of Solitude" Gabriel Márquez tells how in Macondo three thousand workers are machine-gunned at the behest of a ruthless banana company. Their corpses are thrown into the sea and relatives are told that there haven’t been any dead bodies: “You must have been dreaming� Nothing has happened in Macondo, nothing has ever happened…This is a happy town.�
Residents accept the official account and dismiss the testimony of the only survivor. But subsequently the town sinks into ruin. Such is the story of Macondo, and of all world dictatorships, which leave a destructive, lasting, and demoralizing legacy.
The brutal Stalinist regime left Russia depopulated and suffering from collective loss of memory. Millions were destroyed in the Gulag and during the Terror Famine. But in Putin’s Russia, the history of Communist terror has been replaced with the myth of the country’s great past. There is no national monument to the numerous victims; instead, there are calls to restore monuments and museums honoring Stalin. Recently, in her Nobel lecture Svetlana Alexievich called Russia “a country without memory, the space of total amnesia.�
The loss of Russia’s national memory is the main theme in Sergei Lebedev’s insightful debut novel, "Oblivion." It belongs to a new generation literature examining the impact of Stalinism on Russia today. The novel is masterfully translated by Antonina W. Bouis, whose list comprises 80 titles––writings by famous Soviet and post-Soviet authors as diverse as Mikhail Bulgakov and the Nobel Prize Laureates Alexievich and Andrei Sakharov. Lebedev’s compressed metaphorical novel is the prose of a poet, and Bouis renders his original style effortlessly and artfully.
Lebedev’s writing benefited from his training as a geologist: he can read the story in a rock or the tundra permafrost. As a poet, he tells it through imagery, creating sensual portraits of objects: “It was through a break in the fog that I saw the barracks in a mountain pass� The barracks stood like plywood cargo crates in which people were stacked... The outlines felt like a long scream…� Having traveled widely in Siberia and Russia’s north, Lebedev had come across the many decaying barracks of the Gulag Archipelago. Soviet labor camps were constructed in desolate places with no witnesses, at the “limit of the inhabited world,� as Lebedev aptly puts it. Russia’s vastness helped conceal the existence of prison camps where conditions were similar to the Mauthausen. Scientists, philosophers, writers, dispossessed peasants, and international communists shared a single and horrible fate. Branded as “enemies of the people,� they were starved and worked to death in uranium and gold mines or constructing railroads and canals. Lebedev creates a collective portrait of the generation, which vanished without a trace, of people whose lives were “smashed� by the will of the state. His novel traces their experiences through visions and dreams––of people becoming prisoners instantaneously; of freight cars with barred windows; of a train engineer unaware he is transporting his own brother to the Gulag. Robbed of names, families, and freedom, multitudes were banished to places where everything from landscape to speech was meant to dehumanize. Their destruction was complete: branded as “enemies of the people,� they were crossed out of contemporary records and died in anonymity, so that “their deaths took place in geography, not in history.�
The Soviet State viewed its people as dispensable and their lives as subordinate to production targets. But the gigantic construction projects, devised by the Party and built by slave labor, such as the White Sea canal and railways constructed beyond the Polar Circle, proved useless. Lebedev alludes to this through the story of an abandoned railroad he saw in the mountains near the Arctic Ocean. He makes the reader feel the anguish of prisoners who cleared the rock with bare hands, only to realize futility of their labor. The railway line was left unfinished: “the ends of rusty rails hung over the emptiness.� The mountain, where prisoners toiled, opens a view to the lake with striking contours: “A mean trick of nature, a joke that had waited several million years: the lake looked like Lenin’s profile, which was imprinted on us by medals, badges, stamps, statues, paintings, and drawings in books.�
Numerous lives were sacrificed to the socialist dogma. Soviet history was a series of falsifications, its ideals were stillborn, and the end of the Soviet era spelled out their demise. Soviet textbooks and insignia with Lenin’s profile were discarded; paper money, too toxic to be burned, was dumped in plastic bags in a northern mine. But Stalinism did not end there: the old guard resisted the change.
"Oblivion" is a first person account, a meditation on the memory of millions, and on personal memory. The narrator recalls his family’s neighbor at their dacha, whom he had met in childhood and whom he named Grandfather II. The old man is hiding his past, so his story unwinds slowly, until it becomes apparent that Grandfather II was a warden in a Gulag camp where prisoners dug radioactive ore; he had “administered death through labor.� For this service the state rewarded him with a luxury apartment. Grandfather II is blind, and his secretiveness and blindness are suggestive of Russia’s suppression of facts about the past. Having outlasted his epoch, “dead inside,� the old man wants to continue living through the boy. The episode of Grandfather II saving the boy’s life by donating his “scrawny� blood is symbolic. The transfusion takes place in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the new era dawned. Grandfather II dies, and the boy, saved by his blood, grows “like a graft on old wood.� This is a fitting image for an embryonic Russian democracy, grafted on Stalinist stock.
The Stalinist legacy is pervasive in contemporary Russia: “There were barriers everywhere, warning signs, ‘no entry� symbols, guard booths…Man � was not master in these lands, and the guard booths were the architectural descendants of prison camp guardhouses; this land was infected with a fungus, the fungus of the watchman, and all of this, the fences, wire, barricades, was like a single never-ending shout: ‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’�
The northern town, where Grandfather II had lived supervising prisoners in a nearby uranium mine, was built by slave labor. Every brick tells the story of working under duress. Love of labor has been destroyed here forever, which is why “the whole town drank,� its residents bent on self-destruction. The town’s self-isolation is a part of the Soviet legacy and of Russia’s present. The town “cut off its own path to the outside, destroyed the window to the big world.�
Russia’s failure to deal with its Stalinist legacy, to establish the truth by remembering the millions who died, has invited the past to return.
Lebedev’s imaginative novel is thoroughly pessimistic, as it’s meant to be: “This text is a memorial, a wailing wall, for the dead and the mourners have no other place to meet, except by the wall of words...� An insightful and soulful tale about Russia’s historical amnesia, "Oblivion" speaks of the need for us to remember and to renounce evil regimes with their man-made calamities.
Residents accept the official account and dismiss the testimony of the only survivor. But subsequently the town sinks into ruin. Such is the story of Macondo, and of all world dictatorships, which leave a destructive, lasting, and demoralizing legacy.
The brutal Stalinist regime left Russia depopulated and suffering from collective loss of memory. Millions were destroyed in the Gulag and during the Terror Famine. But in Putin’s Russia, the history of Communist terror has been replaced with the myth of the country’s great past. There is no national monument to the numerous victims; instead, there are calls to restore monuments and museums honoring Stalin. Recently, in her Nobel lecture Svetlana Alexievich called Russia “a country without memory, the space of total amnesia.�
The loss of Russia’s national memory is the main theme in Sergei Lebedev’s insightful debut novel, "Oblivion." It belongs to a new generation literature examining the impact of Stalinism on Russia today. The novel is masterfully translated by Antonina W. Bouis, whose list comprises 80 titles––writings by famous Soviet and post-Soviet authors as diverse as Mikhail Bulgakov and the Nobel Prize Laureates Alexievich and Andrei Sakharov. Lebedev’s compressed metaphorical novel is the prose of a poet, and Bouis renders his original style effortlessly and artfully.
Lebedev’s writing benefited from his training as a geologist: he can read the story in a rock or the tundra permafrost. As a poet, he tells it through imagery, creating sensual portraits of objects: “It was through a break in the fog that I saw the barracks in a mountain pass� The barracks stood like plywood cargo crates in which people were stacked... The outlines felt like a long scream…� Having traveled widely in Siberia and Russia’s north, Lebedev had come across the many decaying barracks of the Gulag Archipelago. Soviet labor camps were constructed in desolate places with no witnesses, at the “limit of the inhabited world,� as Lebedev aptly puts it. Russia’s vastness helped conceal the existence of prison camps where conditions were similar to the Mauthausen. Scientists, philosophers, writers, dispossessed peasants, and international communists shared a single and horrible fate. Branded as “enemies of the people,� they were starved and worked to death in uranium and gold mines or constructing railroads and canals. Lebedev creates a collective portrait of the generation, which vanished without a trace, of people whose lives were “smashed� by the will of the state. His novel traces their experiences through visions and dreams––of people becoming prisoners instantaneously; of freight cars with barred windows; of a train engineer unaware he is transporting his own brother to the Gulag. Robbed of names, families, and freedom, multitudes were banished to places where everything from landscape to speech was meant to dehumanize. Their destruction was complete: branded as “enemies of the people,� they were crossed out of contemporary records and died in anonymity, so that “their deaths took place in geography, not in history.�
The Soviet State viewed its people as dispensable and their lives as subordinate to production targets. But the gigantic construction projects, devised by the Party and built by slave labor, such as the White Sea canal and railways constructed beyond the Polar Circle, proved useless. Lebedev alludes to this through the story of an abandoned railroad he saw in the mountains near the Arctic Ocean. He makes the reader feel the anguish of prisoners who cleared the rock with bare hands, only to realize futility of their labor. The railway line was left unfinished: “the ends of rusty rails hung over the emptiness.� The mountain, where prisoners toiled, opens a view to the lake with striking contours: “A mean trick of nature, a joke that had waited several million years: the lake looked like Lenin’s profile, which was imprinted on us by medals, badges, stamps, statues, paintings, and drawings in books.�
Numerous lives were sacrificed to the socialist dogma. Soviet history was a series of falsifications, its ideals were stillborn, and the end of the Soviet era spelled out their demise. Soviet textbooks and insignia with Lenin’s profile were discarded; paper money, too toxic to be burned, was dumped in plastic bags in a northern mine. But Stalinism did not end there: the old guard resisted the change.
"Oblivion" is a first person account, a meditation on the memory of millions, and on personal memory. The narrator recalls his family’s neighbor at their dacha, whom he had met in childhood and whom he named Grandfather II. The old man is hiding his past, so his story unwinds slowly, until it becomes apparent that Grandfather II was a warden in a Gulag camp where prisoners dug radioactive ore; he had “administered death through labor.� For this service the state rewarded him with a luxury apartment. Grandfather II is blind, and his secretiveness and blindness are suggestive of Russia’s suppression of facts about the past. Having outlasted his epoch, “dead inside,� the old man wants to continue living through the boy. The episode of Grandfather II saving the boy’s life by donating his “scrawny� blood is symbolic. The transfusion takes place in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the new era dawned. Grandfather II dies, and the boy, saved by his blood, grows “like a graft on old wood.� This is a fitting image for an embryonic Russian democracy, grafted on Stalinist stock.
The Stalinist legacy is pervasive in contemporary Russia: “There were barriers everywhere, warning signs, ‘no entry� symbols, guard booths…Man � was not master in these lands, and the guard booths were the architectural descendants of prison camp guardhouses; this land was infected with a fungus, the fungus of the watchman, and all of this, the fences, wire, barricades, was like a single never-ending shout: ‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’�
The northern town, where Grandfather II had lived supervising prisoners in a nearby uranium mine, was built by slave labor. Every brick tells the story of working under duress. Love of labor has been destroyed here forever, which is why “the whole town drank,� its residents bent on self-destruction. The town’s self-isolation is a part of the Soviet legacy and of Russia’s present. The town “cut off its own path to the outside, destroyed the window to the big world.�
Russia’s failure to deal with its Stalinist legacy, to establish the truth by remembering the millions who died, has invited the past to return.
Lebedev’s imaginative novel is thoroughly pessimistic, as it’s meant to be: “This text is a memorial, a wailing wall, for the dead and the mourners have no other place to meet, except by the wall of words...� An insightful and soulful tale about Russia’s historical amnesia, "Oblivion" speaks of the need for us to remember and to renounce evil regimes with their man-made calamities.
April 16, 2022
Толкова добра литература, че достига точка на абсурдност, разбирате ли. Има един миг, в който от една творба е неразумно да се очаква това, което се помещава между кориците на този роман. Гръмна ми главата, естетическите ми нагони към работата с думи се нахраниха и заситиха до нетърпимост. А що се отнася до темата и до бруталното потъване на Сергей Лебедев в нея... е, това е повече от талант и познания, това е силна гражданска и човешка позиция, борба срещу злото, отстояване на истината, яростно съхраняване на паметта.
Тези дни обикалях под слънцето в Пловдив, Хасково и района, щастлива и волна, носех я със себе си, но не я четях, не ставаше, не върви за топлина и пек, за пролет, за хубава емоция. Засяда в центъра на виталната артерия на света и я запушва до задушаване.
PS. Преводът на български е фантастичен.
Тези дни обикалях под слънцето в Пловдив, Хасково и района, щастлива и волна, носех я със себе си, но не я четях, не ставаше, не върви за топлина и пек, за пролет, за хубава емоция. Засяда в центъра на виталната артерия на света и я запушва до задушаване.
PS. Преводът на български е фантастичен.
August 19, 2023
Fantastyczna lektura! Język poetycki, bogaty, akcja szczątkowa (poszukiwanie po latach informacji o sąsiedzie i przyjacielu rodziny, któren zmarł ratując życie bohatera opowieści, gdy ten ostatni był chłopięciem), powolna, mnóstwo dygresji, przemyśleń, skojarzeń. Poszukiwanie odbywa się trochę wbrew woli bohatera, który wcale za Drugim Dziadkiem nie przepadał, ale wspomnienia i różne niewyjaśnione z przeszłości dziurę mu w brzuchu dłubią - jak gdyby fakty domagały się ujawnienia. Ważne są opisy otoczenia (bohater trafia na Syberię, do miasta które nie powstało samo, bo ludzie chcieli tam mieszkać, nic z tych rzeczy, wcale nie chcieli - miasto najpierw było punktem na mapie z nazwą wymyśloną w Moskwie, dodatkiem do kamieniołomu, rezerwuarem darmowej siły roboczej - krótko mówiąc, łagrem), dominujące kolory to czerń i biel. I szarość. I wszechobecny pył, brud, i beznadzieja. I przestrzeń, swoim ogromem do niczego nieporównywalna, oszałamiająca, przytłaczająca. Tytułowa granica zapomnienia to nie tylko fizyczna granica między tym, a tamtym, gdzieś tam w terenie przebiegająca, ale przede wszystkim brak pamięci. Tzw. zwykli ludzie nie chcą wiedzieć, umordowani codziennością, nie chcą nawet podjąć próby poznania przeszłości i nazwania. Bo przecież to niczego nie zmieni, oprawcy od lat nie żyją. I to nienazywanie jest równoznaczne z wycięciem iluś lat, wygumkowaniem istnienia, tworzy białą plamę nie na mapie, a w historii nie tylko powszechnej, ale poszczególnych rodzin. Najgorsze, że takie uchylanie się od nazwania zamazuje różnicę między dobrem i złem, w skali całego społeczeństwa.
I wszystko się rozpada, i miasto, i więzi społeczne.
Kapitalna rzecz.
I wszystko się rozpada, i miasto, i więzi społeczne.
Kapitalna rzecz.
May 30, 2022
Mocna, niezapomniana, poetycka. Opis zejścia do piekieł, do jądra ciemności, które współczesna Rosja wypiera z pamięci i nie wiadomo, co jest bardziej przerażające: katorga łagrów, czy zbiorowa amnezja, obojętność i marazm?
Bardzo intensywna, wspaniała opowieść o podwójnym odebraniu sensu ludzkiej egzystencji. Podróż przez zapomniane przez Boga i ludzi kopalnie, obozy, wioski - rdzewiejące, gnijące i popadające w ruinę, z niewypowiedzianym pytaniem: na co było to wszystko?
Bardzo intensywna, wspaniała opowieść o podwójnym odebraniu sensu ludzkiej egzystencji. Podróż przez zapomniane przez Boga i ludzi kopalnie, obozy, wioski - rdzewiejące, gnijące i popadające w ruinę, z niewypowiedzianym pytaniem: na co było to wszystko?
November 11, 2016
I felt obliviated and terrified by the visceral imagery in this examination of the USSR’s murderous past. The allegory and the reality smacked me across the face and instilled that terror I feel when I think about why we are here on earth, God, the absence of God, the horror of humanity, my insignificance, outer space and looming death/immortality. Prose poetry, stumbling through fog and allusion and literal death. The penultimate scene is a doozy. Nightmares tonight for sure.
In an article by Lebedev, he describes a real moment in his life when he figured out a very significant thing was not at all what he had assumed. This moment combined with his travels east and north compelled him to tell his idiosyncratic version of the gulag archipelago and post-Soviet Russia. I most certainly did not understand much of what he tried to convey. I’ve been to places in the former Soviet Union, talked to many people there and here, read a lot, studied Russian�. “Oblivion� can probably be truly felt and digested by someone who lived there and lived through at least the lies, if not the horror, of the great experiment of communist tyranny.
One of my stock phrases pops up yet again: It’s really tough to maintain a healthy nation when the past is not dealt with. Japan seems to be pulling it off. Russia, not so much. The book depressed the hell out of me, but I felt I had to go there. Trump’s victory coincided with me finishing “Oblivion� so I’m extra sickened. OTOH, Trump is no Stalin. So I have that for solace as I try to get through the next 4 years. Trump is no Stalin. Happy face emoji.
Though I have not/could not read it in the original Russian, I’m betting this is a first-rate translation. The translator, A. Bouis, has a real way with words.
In an article by Lebedev, he describes a real moment in his life when he figured out a very significant thing was not at all what he had assumed. This moment combined with his travels east and north compelled him to tell his idiosyncratic version of the gulag archipelago and post-Soviet Russia. I most certainly did not understand much of what he tried to convey. I’ve been to places in the former Soviet Union, talked to many people there and here, read a lot, studied Russian�. “Oblivion� can probably be truly felt and digested by someone who lived there and lived through at least the lies, if not the horror, of the great experiment of communist tyranny.
One of my stock phrases pops up yet again: It’s really tough to maintain a healthy nation when the past is not dealt with. Japan seems to be pulling it off. Russia, not so much. The book depressed the hell out of me, but I felt I had to go there. Trump’s victory coincided with me finishing “Oblivion� so I’m extra sickened. OTOH, Trump is no Stalin. So I have that for solace as I try to get through the next 4 years. Trump is no Stalin. Happy face emoji.
Though I have not/could not read it in the original Russian, I’m betting this is a first-rate translation. The translator, A. Bouis, has a real way with words.
November 22, 2018
4.5-5/5
July 28, 2017
Sergei Lebedev's Oblivion was shortlisted for the 2017 Best Translated Book Award and from comments on the Mookse and Gripes forum (/topic/show/...) perhaps the best received among readers.
I started to read this on a flight from London to Korea - an 11 hour flight, a large part of which is spent flying over the vast area of Siberia, home of the gulags and labour camps in Soviet Russia.
(see )
Lebedev's moving debut novel tackles the relatively underexplored, once suppressed, topic.()
The novel consists of three parts. The first doesn't directly address the camps at all, but rather focuses on the childhood of the first-person narrator, and, in particular his interaction with an elderly man, living close to his family's dacha, clearly a figure of some former significance in the Soviet regime but whose exact provenance is sketchy, indeed people seem reluctant to probe into his history and he has little interaction with his neighbours:
It wasn’t that he kept himself aloof, taciturn, it wasn’t about his behaviour or character; he was alienated from life almost in the legal sense of the word and only as a consequence of that was he alienated from people as well. Everything that happened in the present did not involve him directly but only brushed against him—not because he was unreceptive but because he seemed to have already lived his life, his existence outlasting his destiny.
But the man - who the boy knows as Grandfather II - though not a blood relation, becomes closely involved in the boy's life, beginning when his mother is pregnant with him but is advised by the doctors that the pregnancy is dangerous to her health. A debate ensues, involving in-laws on both sides, as to whether to terminate the pregnancy, until Grandfather II intervenes decisively in favour of carrying to term.
He said that she should definitely have the baby, medicine was advanced now � and that the doctors were being overly cautious. He listed births in trolley cars, the lamp room of a mine shaft, a cornfield, on a Central Asian steppe near the space center, in a bakery, a dentist’s chair, a bomb shelter. A more attentive listener would have recognized that Grandfather II was inventing these incidents, choosing such images from the life he knew or from newspapers, but he filled and overpopulated the room with these unexpectedly born infants.
He begged her so persistently to have the baby, pleaded with her to fear nothing, that no one ever thought he was asking for himself
There's is a relationship with little affection - the boy suggest Grandfather II treats him as a pet, but even that implies too much of a relationship: a domestic animal may be a better description with Grandfather II feeling only responsible for his welfare. At the section's end Grandfather II rescues the boy from a near fatal attack by a wild dog, then, against the advice of the doctors, donates his own blood to save the boy's life at the ultimate expense of his own: the blood loss weakens him, but as the accident coincides with a day of severe political turmoil in the Soviet regime, he is unable to obtain the medical help he needs.
The novel explores how people coped with their memories of the excesses of the Stalinist regime:
The adults tried if not to forget the time about which Grandfather II could have spoken, then at least to make it palatable for their own private memory. They broke it up into small impressions, personal stories - what an ice hill there was by the ravine, now covered up; what nits, all with rotten, wrinkled kernels, they once bought at the market to make jam; what pale, water-diluted ink they used to pour into the inkwells at school, and them the teacher complained she couldn't read anything in their notebooks. That kind of stuff was like keys, wallet, and papers that you could stuff into your pockets when you go out; it was small, domesticated - everyone diligently reinforced the little sport of personal memory, and no one remembered the collective.
As the boy grows up he becomes a geologist (as indeed Lebedev did), in part to get away from his home and explore the wider fringes of the Soviet Union. He finds himself in Siberia where he encounters the legacy of the labour camps:
I saw that a great force of compulsion had erected the town, cleared the forest, laid the roads, dug the canals, and built the factories; but it turned out that compulsion is incapable of one thing: the effort a person brings to work freely chosen. Without that effort, without that bit of spiritual labour that merges with physical labour, all the roads, bridges, cities and factories were held up only by the will of the state that had them built. When that will had vanished, when its time had passed, people were left with a legacy of great construction in which spiritually they were not involved.
[...]
Many people were deprived of life, of fate, of freedom, in the context of that enormous, all-accompanying evil any lesser evil became invisible; it became possible to live where everything - from the look of the housing to speech - dehumanized instead of humanized; the camp and the housing from former inmates expanded, settled in, and began producing itself without the state's involvement. My passage through these parts, changed by the camps, became my path of return: to Grandfather II and his life and works.
In the third part he tries to trace Grandfather II's history, only to find that the town he visits was founded from one of the same labour camps.
The town was named for a Bolshevik killed in the mid 1930s; the name of the town communicated nothing of the place to its name. They spoke different languages and avoided each other.
The area's mountains bore names given to them by local ethnic groups; these names left the sensation of raw meat and gnawed bones in your throat; reading a dozen names on the map was like drinking thick blood tat was steaming in the cold; the names were redolent of campfire smoke, fish scales, rawhide, canine and human sweat, they were long and the syllables joined up like reindeer or dogs in harness.
The town name - two syllables, with an sk ending - gave away its alienness, the Bolshevik's name looked good on a big map of the country where the names of his comrades formed a toponymic constellation, a lifetime and posthumous pantheon, but up close the name seemed ridiculous, a random collection of letters which the residents got used to and considered themselves dwellers of Abracadab-sk.
There he finds about Grandfather II's senior and sinister role in the administration of the labour camps, but also the story of Grandfather II's own son and his early death. And he goes on further than Grandfather II into the very distant edges of Siberia where the most condemned exiles were sent to establish communities, in the full expectation that they would likely perish in the process:
I still had to go to the river and find the exiles island - I had to travel the entire trajectory of Grandfather II's fate; I felt that there, in that book that even he did not know fully, was a limit; I called it the limit of oblivion.
The novel was translated by Antonina W. Bouis, a new translator for me but one with an impressive resume, and the resulting novel reads beautifully in English:
The sun had filled the lake at the foot of the mountains with light; convex, like a drop on glass, its contour struck me in the eye. A mean trick of nature, a joke that had waited several million years: the lake looked like Lenin’s profile, which was imprinted on us by medals, badges, stamps, statues, paintings, and drawings in books.
The lake with its thick, almost pastry-like icing of sunny light seemed like a monstrous monument, monstrous because the natural forms easily and willingly took on the features of something man-made, and this acceptance, without coercion, clearly evinced the meaningless, memory-less existence of nature, which we had anthropomorphized much too frequently.
Seeing this betrayal of matter—betrayal of the men who climbed up to the heaps every day from the barracks, looking at the profile of the dead leader in whose name they were forced to labor—I rejected the feeling of closeness with these mountains, from the line of imagination that had anthropomorphized them. A different, older feeling arose: the possible humanity of nature was just a mockery, a devilish joke; man can count on no one in nature except himself.
However, this can actually be a weakness of the novel - the prose was laid on a little too lyrically thick - it wasn't the "stout-bodied passerines" of 10:04 (/review/show...), perhaps closer to Andrei Makine, but at times the novel felt like wading through, admittedly very sweet and tasty, syrup.
The coincidence of the narrator first visiting the labour camps as a geologist and then later discovering Grandfather II's connection with them seemed a little unnecessary [particularly at one rather contrived plot point where his life is saved by recognising an assailant as the brother of an escaped convict that he had tried to help some time before], although there is some basis for this coincidence in Lebedev's own family history:
Overall flawed but necessary - I prefer the actual winner, the Chronicle of the Moving House, as well as the shortlisted Ladivine, but this was certainly an excellent discovery from the BTBA list.
I started to read this on a flight from London to Korea - an 11 hour flight, a large part of which is spent flying over the vast area of Siberia, home of the gulags and labour camps in Soviet Russia.
(see )
Lebedev's moving debut novel tackles the relatively underexplored, once suppressed, topic.()
The novel consists of three parts. The first doesn't directly address the camps at all, but rather focuses on the childhood of the first-person narrator, and, in particular his interaction with an elderly man, living close to his family's dacha, clearly a figure of some former significance in the Soviet regime but whose exact provenance is sketchy, indeed people seem reluctant to probe into his history and he has little interaction with his neighbours:
It wasn’t that he kept himself aloof, taciturn, it wasn’t about his behaviour or character; he was alienated from life almost in the legal sense of the word and only as a consequence of that was he alienated from people as well. Everything that happened in the present did not involve him directly but only brushed against him—not because he was unreceptive but because he seemed to have already lived his life, his existence outlasting his destiny.
But the man - who the boy knows as Grandfather II - though not a blood relation, becomes closely involved in the boy's life, beginning when his mother is pregnant with him but is advised by the doctors that the pregnancy is dangerous to her health. A debate ensues, involving in-laws on both sides, as to whether to terminate the pregnancy, until Grandfather II intervenes decisively in favour of carrying to term.
He said that she should definitely have the baby, medicine was advanced now � and that the doctors were being overly cautious. He listed births in trolley cars, the lamp room of a mine shaft, a cornfield, on a Central Asian steppe near the space center, in a bakery, a dentist’s chair, a bomb shelter. A more attentive listener would have recognized that Grandfather II was inventing these incidents, choosing such images from the life he knew or from newspapers, but he filled and overpopulated the room with these unexpectedly born infants.
He begged her so persistently to have the baby, pleaded with her to fear nothing, that no one ever thought he was asking for himself
There's is a relationship with little affection - the boy suggest Grandfather II treats him as a pet, but even that implies too much of a relationship: a domestic animal may be a better description with Grandfather II feeling only responsible for his welfare. At the section's end Grandfather II rescues the boy from a near fatal attack by a wild dog, then, against the advice of the doctors, donates his own blood to save the boy's life at the ultimate expense of his own: the blood loss weakens him, but as the accident coincides with a day of severe political turmoil in the Soviet regime, he is unable to obtain the medical help he needs.
The novel explores how people coped with their memories of the excesses of the Stalinist regime:
The adults tried if not to forget the time about which Grandfather II could have spoken, then at least to make it palatable for their own private memory. They broke it up into small impressions, personal stories - what an ice hill there was by the ravine, now covered up; what nits, all with rotten, wrinkled kernels, they once bought at the market to make jam; what pale, water-diluted ink they used to pour into the inkwells at school, and them the teacher complained she couldn't read anything in their notebooks. That kind of stuff was like keys, wallet, and papers that you could stuff into your pockets when you go out; it was small, domesticated - everyone diligently reinforced the little sport of personal memory, and no one remembered the collective.
As the boy grows up he becomes a geologist (as indeed Lebedev did), in part to get away from his home and explore the wider fringes of the Soviet Union. He finds himself in Siberia where he encounters the legacy of the labour camps:
I saw that a great force of compulsion had erected the town, cleared the forest, laid the roads, dug the canals, and built the factories; but it turned out that compulsion is incapable of one thing: the effort a person brings to work freely chosen. Without that effort, without that bit of spiritual labour that merges with physical labour, all the roads, bridges, cities and factories were held up only by the will of the state that had them built. When that will had vanished, when its time had passed, people were left with a legacy of great construction in which spiritually they were not involved.
[...]
Many people were deprived of life, of fate, of freedom, in the context of that enormous, all-accompanying evil any lesser evil became invisible; it became possible to live where everything - from the look of the housing to speech - dehumanized instead of humanized; the camp and the housing from former inmates expanded, settled in, and began producing itself without the state's involvement. My passage through these parts, changed by the camps, became my path of return: to Grandfather II and his life and works.
In the third part he tries to trace Grandfather II's history, only to find that the town he visits was founded from one of the same labour camps.
The town was named for a Bolshevik killed in the mid 1930s; the name of the town communicated nothing of the place to its name. They spoke different languages and avoided each other.
The area's mountains bore names given to them by local ethnic groups; these names left the sensation of raw meat and gnawed bones in your throat; reading a dozen names on the map was like drinking thick blood tat was steaming in the cold; the names were redolent of campfire smoke, fish scales, rawhide, canine and human sweat, they were long and the syllables joined up like reindeer or dogs in harness.
The town name - two syllables, with an sk ending - gave away its alienness, the Bolshevik's name looked good on a big map of the country where the names of his comrades formed a toponymic constellation, a lifetime and posthumous pantheon, but up close the name seemed ridiculous, a random collection of letters which the residents got used to and considered themselves dwellers of Abracadab-sk.
There he finds about Grandfather II's senior and sinister role in the administration of the labour camps, but also the story of Grandfather II's own son and his early death. And he goes on further than Grandfather II into the very distant edges of Siberia where the most condemned exiles were sent to establish communities, in the full expectation that they would likely perish in the process:
I still had to go to the river and find the exiles island - I had to travel the entire trajectory of Grandfather II's fate; I felt that there, in that book that even he did not know fully, was a limit; I called it the limit of oblivion.
The novel was translated by Antonina W. Bouis, a new translator for me but one with an impressive resume, and the resulting novel reads beautifully in English:
The sun had filled the lake at the foot of the mountains with light; convex, like a drop on glass, its contour struck me in the eye. A mean trick of nature, a joke that had waited several million years: the lake looked like Lenin’s profile, which was imprinted on us by medals, badges, stamps, statues, paintings, and drawings in books.
The lake with its thick, almost pastry-like icing of sunny light seemed like a monstrous monument, monstrous because the natural forms easily and willingly took on the features of something man-made, and this acceptance, without coercion, clearly evinced the meaningless, memory-less existence of nature, which we had anthropomorphized much too frequently.
Seeing this betrayal of matter—betrayal of the men who climbed up to the heaps every day from the barracks, looking at the profile of the dead leader in whose name they were forced to labor—I rejected the feeling of closeness with these mountains, from the line of imagination that had anthropomorphized them. A different, older feeling arose: the possible humanity of nature was just a mockery, a devilish joke; man can count on no one in nature except himself.
However, this can actually be a weakness of the novel - the prose was laid on a little too lyrically thick - it wasn't the "stout-bodied passerines" of 10:04 (/review/show...), perhaps closer to Andrei Makine, but at times the novel felt like wading through, admittedly very sweet and tasty, syrup.
The coincidence of the narrator first visiting the labour camps as a geologist and then later discovering Grandfather II's connection with them seemed a little unnecessary [particularly at one rather contrived plot point where his life is saved by recognising an assailant as the brother of an escaped convict that he had tried to help some time before], although there is some basis for this coincidence in Lebedev's own family history:
Overall flawed but necessary - I prefer the actual winner, the Chronicle of the Moving House, as well as the shortlisted Ladivine, but this was certainly an excellent discovery from the BTBA list.
January 28, 2023
This was one gorgeous piece of writing.
With philosophical-metaphysical finesse and unbearable lyricism, Lebedev uncovers personal, collective and to some extent even ontological memory, peeling off the layers of mad oblivion. Lacking any obtrusive moralization, he courageously shows how beneath the surface of what we call "the spirit of the times", there is a deeper and clear dimension of good and evil, or, to paraphrase Lev Shestov: freedom and sin.
One of the best books I've read on the horrors of the Soviet past that have made their way into Russian present because they were not loudly enough called what they were: the devil's work.
With philosophical-metaphysical finesse and unbearable lyricism, Lebedev uncovers personal, collective and to some extent even ontological memory, peeling off the layers of mad oblivion. Lacking any obtrusive moralization, he courageously shows how beneath the surface of what we call "the spirit of the times", there is a deeper and clear dimension of good and evil, or, to paraphrase Lev Shestov: freedom and sin.
One of the best books I've read on the horrors of the Soviet past that have made their way into Russian present because they were not loudly enough called what they were: the devil's work.
November 14, 2019
Kilka dni zajęło mi wejście w rytm, nauczenie się języka Lebiediewa, pokochanie długich, długich zdań, przy których mózg często wyłączał mi uwagę, co skutkowało czytaniem ich po kilkakroć.
Gdyby nie nominacja do Angelusa i zachwyty zaufanych osób porzuciłabym „Granicę zapomnienia� pewnie po 100 stronach, mimo iż od początku trafiałam na zdania perełki. Zdania po raz pierwszy nazywające pewne myśli w mojej głowie, ujmujące je w słowa i to takie piękne słowa.
Potem, gdy zaczęła się podróż przez daleka rosyjską północ nie miałam wątpliwości, że to jedna z tych książek, którą pamiętać będę obrazami. Surowymi, pełnymi grozy, w ciemnych kolorach z odrobiną oniryzmu dodającą jeszcze naturalizmu. Pięknymi w swojej brzydocie i pełnymi ludzi, ani dobrych ani złych, ale takich, z którymi spotkanie odciska się w pamięci na długo.
Skromna, choć pięknie skomponowana fabuła jest tylko pretekstem do opowiedzenia o tym, co zostało w Rosji zapomniane. Wybrania się w podróż i poznania świata i ludzi, którzy bez wątpienia istnieją, choć znajdują się za granicą zapomnienia. Przepiękna przygoda, którą docenią miłośnicy pisanej prozą poezji i nieśpiesznej lektury, a ja będę wracać do niej jak wracam do albumów z obrazami ulubionych malarzy.
Gdyby nie nominacja do Angelusa i zachwyty zaufanych osób porzuciłabym „Granicę zapomnienia� pewnie po 100 stronach, mimo iż od początku trafiałam na zdania perełki. Zdania po raz pierwszy nazywające pewne myśli w mojej głowie, ujmujące je w słowa i to takie piękne słowa.
Potem, gdy zaczęła się podróż przez daleka rosyjską północ nie miałam wątpliwości, że to jedna z tych książek, którą pamiętać będę obrazami. Surowymi, pełnymi grozy, w ciemnych kolorach z odrobiną oniryzmu dodającą jeszcze naturalizmu. Pięknymi w swojej brzydocie i pełnymi ludzi, ani dobrych ani złych, ale takich, z którymi spotkanie odciska się w pamięci na długo.
Skromna, choć pięknie skomponowana fabuła jest tylko pretekstem do opowiedzenia o tym, co zostało w Rosji zapomniane. Wybrania się w podróż i poznania świata i ludzi, którzy bez wątpienia istnieją, choć znajdują się za granicą zapomnienia. Przepiękna przygoda, którą docenią miłośnicy pisanej prozą poezji i nieśpiesznej lektury, a ja będę wracać do niej jak wracam do albumów z obrazami ulubionych malarzy.
December 22, 2013
Как можно быть уверенным в качестве читаемых тобой книг? Просто читать классику. Если о книге не перестали говорить спустя 50 лет после публикации, значит, ее значимость выходит за пределы одного поколения, и, скорее всего, ты не прогадаешь, взявшись за чтение. Чтение современной литературы - как игра в рулетку, один шанс из тридцати, что зацепит. Современных книг уровня "Предела забвения" я не читал уже несколько лет. Тема книги - избытие лагерного наследия в коллективном бессознательном современного человека, но это ни в коем случае не документалистика, а именно художественная книга, с обилием метафор в каждом абзаце. Быстро прочитать не получится, по плотности и многослойности текста я бы сравнил его с "Жестяным барабаном" Грасса или "Играми современников" Оэ. Сюжета практически нет, но эстетическое наслаждение от прохождения героем дантовых кругов XX века огромное. Читайте книгу, только если оставите желание расслабиться и развлечься, этого не получится. Но награда дошедшему до конца огромная - чуть более чистая душа, чуть более глубокое понимание мира и ощущение единства с прошлыми поколениями.
February 12, 2017
sergei lebedev's oblivion (predel zabvenya) is his first novel (and the first of his books to be translated into english, with the year of the comet to follow this year). with exquisite prose and ample metaphor, lebedev confronts the legacy of russia's often dark past, melding a poetic style and an emotional abundance. though not a coming-of-age tale in an traditional sense, oblivion follows its young narrator from youth to adulthood, as he tries to make sense of all that's come before � both personally and politically. poignant and haunting, lebedev's debut is a gorgeous work of uncompromising fiction.
*translated from the russian by antonina w. bouis (dovlatov, tolstaya, bulgakov, et al.)
and then you understand that the deathly communion was not accidental. through it, as through newly granted vision, you see your body, your memory, your fate as predestination: the inheritance of blood, the inheritance of memories, the inheritance of other lives—everything wants to speak, seeks to complete itself, to happen to the end, to be recognized and mourned.
*translated from the russian by antonina w. bouis (dovlatov, tolstaya, bulgakov, et al.)
December 23, 2018
"O szarym postkomunistycznym świecie nie pisze się w ten sposób. W ogóle rzadko pisze się tak o świecie. Tak liryczny sposób pisania charakteryzuje utwory skierowane do wewnątrz � tak, znów wspomnę Virginię Woolf � tymczasem Lebiediew używa go do rozliczenia się ze straszną spuścizną totalitarnego systemu. Pomaga mu (cóż to za małe słowo!) niezwykły talent do wychwytywania i opisywania detali. Dzięki udaje mu się opisać postsowiecką Syberię bez nadmiernej estetyzacji, ale i bez epatowania brzydotą; w jedyny w swoim rodzaju, przefiltrowany przez percepcję autora sposób".
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July 18, 2024
Lebedev explores gulags, memory, and forgetting. He relies on detective tropes and ornate prose more than character depth and social interactions.
February 7, 2021
„Животъ� се превръща в спомен на онази граница, където се събират времената: без закъснение и без прекъсване. И ако човек е зачеркнат от настоящето - когато настоящето стане минало, то няма да запази спомен за него.�
За „Предел на забравата на Сергей Лебедев има много хубави отзиви и аз едва ли ще добавя нещо ново. За лагерите, войните и античовечизма има много написани книги, но тази е написана от друг ъгъл. Гледната точка е друга. Лебедев, търсейки миналото, обикаля сталинските лагери и всички намерени неми свидетели от миналото (мини, насипи, ровове, кариери, кости и други) му „говорят� за случилото се по онова време и чрез тях ни представя съветската епоха с нейните инфраструктурни, политически и икономически недомислия, както и друг прочит за лагерите ГУЛАГ.
Надеждата на участниците в престъпленията срещу човечеството през сталинската епоха, всичко да бъде забравено от тях самите и от поколенията, няма как да се случи, защото и немите свидетели на историята говорят за нея.
Лебедев прониква в душата на героите с цел разкриване на останките от една отминала епоха. Езикът се лее красиво из дебрите на географията, историята и природата с много емоционален душевен заряд. Тук-таме авторът вмъква и мотиви от митологията. Изключителен психологически портрет и анализ на описваната епоха и нейните герои. Особено вълнуващо е описанието на психическото състояние на един от главните герои в романа.
Напират скритите у него с години чувства на срам от миналото му, страх и срам да не би някой да го разкрие, как го измъчва съвестта и се опитва да бъде нормален в сегашния си живот сред заобикалящите го близки и познати. И колкото повече той „искаш� да ги прогони от себе си, толкова повече те се плодяха вътре в него; така възниква адът приживе, от който изход няма�. Също така чувствата предадени при едно преливане на кръв след претърпян инцидент са представени по неповторим начин. Сякаш авторът е проникнал в душата на героя чрез кръвта му и е открил неговите дълбоки тайни. Остава зашеметен от видяното и сякаш кръвта се смразява и той остава там, докато не разбере всичко докрай. Потапяш се и в красотите на природните пейзажи, описани майсторски от автора.
„Лятот� изтича по нанадолнището, ранният мрак се закрепва, сутрините застудяват и вятърът запраща лекокрилите водно кончета във водата, сякаш замита сметта между черчеветата на прозореца - люспици крилца; липанът - рибата на смъртта, речният ловец - поглъща мухи, комари, водни кончета, та не след дълго да изчезне надолу по течението, да се забие в дънните ями, да замре в дълбок сън до пролетта; пляскат криле и във водата просветват телата на риби с цветовете на дъгата.�
Покрай едно трудно раждане на дете, в семейството на бебето, се вклинява нов член - вторият му дядо, представляващ „скулптурен отпечатък на гордостта си�. Иначе съсед по вила. Детето расте пред неговата тъмна фигура. Ножица, молив и пергел стават символ на властта на втория дядо над детето. Дядото „б� живял затворено с десетилетия, загърбвайки миналото, и за първи път беше рискувал да се сближи с непознати хора, за да може с техните очи и чувства да повярва колко добре е скрито всичко, което трябва да бъде скатано�. Колко ли тъмни субекти са живели около нас, за които нищо не сме знаели?
Интуицията и възприятията на децата са непринудени, усещат хората около себе си по-добре, поради чистотата все още на техните сърца. Така порасналото вече дете от романа, усеща скритите тъмни петна от ранната биография на втория му дядо и тръгва по следите на миналото му.
От местата, където са работели лагерниците, героят вижда безсмислеността на този кипящ труд и си представя как са се „въртели колелата на лебедките, как са работели ковачници с водни чукове, и всички тези макари, ролки, въжета, зъбци, валове, оси се бяха сглобили в механизъм, пускащ по вятъра, прахосващ истинското човешко усилие - усилието на труда, мисълта, на самото намерение да бъдеш. То би могло да се окаже съзидателно� да стане значимо в исторически план - но е било� приложено за цел, отчуждено от човешкия живот и с това убито�. Впечатляващ разказ! Ако и другите книги на Лебедев са от този калибър, то той е вече класик.
„Достатъчн� е да има един знак, един белег, за да не изчезне нещо. Необходим е само един човек, който да поеме работата на паметта; да помниш - това значи да си във връзка със реалността, дори още повече - ти самият да бъдеш тази връзка; не ние сме онези, които удържаме в спомените си реалността на миналото време, а самото минало, някога сблъскало се, наложило се върху живота, говори с паметта на човека и тази реч е също толкова ясна, колкото самият човек не е лъжлив не в смисъла на намерението да следва истината, а в смисъла на абсолютното позволение да говори като себе си.�
„Мног� от онова, което са извършили Вторият дядо и подобните му, е било именно престъпление срещу реалността. А реалността винаги отмъщава на онези, които я орязват, опростяват, отричат целостта на нейното многообразие; отмъщава - защото не притежава воля и намерение, които да са различни в различните случаи - също толкова неизменно, колкото са неизменни законите на природата; просто не винаги сме способни да разпознаем някое събитие не като случайно, а като закономерно. Очакваме явно възмездие за престъпилите законите на живота, но така е устроено само човешкото правосъдие, а наказанието на самия живот съвсем не винаги се възприема като възмездие. Животът не налага друго наказание освен лишаване от човечност, макар в нашето разбиране това да не е наказание. Трябва да гледаме отвъд събитието - какво то прави с човешкото в човека? Да гледаме отвъд него - едва тогава ще разберем, че мнозина, които в нашите очи изглеждат безнаказани престъпници, вече са осъдени; присъдата е изпълнена приживе и човекът вече е мъртъв. Тази присъда няма много общо с юридическата справедливост, която се изразява осезаемо, видимо - в ответния ущърб, и затова сърцето, очакващо ясно и непосредствено възмездие, не е способно да прочете буквата на подобна присъда и да постигне нейния дух.�
За „Предел на забравата на Сергей Лебедев има много хубави отзиви и аз едва ли ще добавя нещо ново. За лагерите, войните и античовечизма има много написани книги, но тази е написана от друг ъгъл. Гледната точка е друга. Лебедев, търсейки миналото, обикаля сталинските лагери и всички намерени неми свидетели от миналото (мини, насипи, ровове, кариери, кости и други) му „говорят� за случилото се по онова време и чрез тях ни представя съветската епоха с нейните инфраструктурни, политически и икономически недомислия, както и друг прочит за лагерите ГУЛАГ.
Надеждата на участниците в престъпленията срещу човечеството през сталинската епоха, всичко да бъде забравено от тях самите и от поколенията, няма как да се случи, защото и немите свидетели на историята говорят за нея.
Лебедев прониква в душата на героите с цел разкриване на останките от една отминала епоха. Езикът се лее красиво из дебрите на географията, историята и природата с много емоционален душевен заряд. Тук-таме авторът вмъква и мотиви от митологията. Изключителен психологически портрет и анализ на описваната епоха и нейните герои. Особено вълнуващо е описанието на психическото състояние на един от главните герои в романа.
Напират скритите у него с години чувства на срам от миналото му, страх и срам да не би някой да го разкрие, как го измъчва съвестта и се опитва да бъде нормален в сегашния си живот сред заобикалящите го близки и познати. И колкото повече той „искаш� да ги прогони от себе си, толкова повече те се плодяха вътре в него; така възниква адът приживе, от който изход няма�. Също така чувствата предадени при едно преливане на кръв след претърпян инцидент са представени по неповторим начин. Сякаш авторът е проникнал в душата на героя чрез кръвта му и е открил неговите дълбоки тайни. Остава зашеметен от видяното и сякаш кръвта се смразява и той остава там, докато не разбере всичко докрай. Потапяш се и в красотите на природните пейзажи, описани майсторски от автора.
„Лятот� изтича по нанадолнището, ранният мрак се закрепва, сутрините застудяват и вятърът запраща лекокрилите водно кончета във водата, сякаш замита сметта между черчеветата на прозореца - люспици крилца; липанът - рибата на смъртта, речният ловец - поглъща мухи, комари, водни кончета, та не след дълго да изчезне надолу по течението, да се забие в дънните ями, да замре в дълбок сън до пролетта; пляскат криле и във водата просветват телата на риби с цветовете на дъгата.�
Покрай едно трудно раждане на дете, в семейството на бебето, се вклинява нов член - вторият му дядо, представляващ „скулптурен отпечатък на гордостта си�. Иначе съсед по вила. Детето расте пред неговата тъмна фигура. Ножица, молив и пергел стават символ на властта на втория дядо над детето. Дядото „б� живял затворено с десетилетия, загърбвайки миналото, и за първи път беше рискувал да се сближи с непознати хора, за да може с техните очи и чувства да повярва колко добре е скрито всичко, което трябва да бъде скатано�. Колко ли тъмни субекти са живели около нас, за които нищо не сме знаели?
Интуицията и възприятията на децата са непринудени, усещат хората около себе си по-добре, поради чистотата все още на техните сърца. Така порасналото вече дете от романа, усеща скритите тъмни петна от ранната биография на втория му дядо и тръгва по следите на миналото му.
От местата, където са работели лагерниците, героят вижда безсмислеността на този кипящ труд и си представя как са се „въртели колелата на лебедките, как са работели ковачници с водни чукове, и всички тези макари, ролки, въжета, зъбци, валове, оси се бяха сглобили в механизъм, пускащ по вятъра, прахосващ истинското човешко усилие - усилието на труда, мисълта, на самото намерение да бъдеш. То би могло да се окаже съзидателно� да стане значимо в исторически план - но е било� приложено за цел, отчуждено от човешкия живот и с това убито�. Впечатляващ разказ! Ако и другите книги на Лебедев са от този калибър, то той е вече класик.
„Достатъчн� е да има един знак, един белег, за да не изчезне нещо. Необходим е само един човек, който да поеме работата на паметта; да помниш - това значи да си във връзка със реалността, дори още повече - ти самият да бъдеш тази връзка; не ние сме онези, които удържаме в спомените си реалността на миналото време, а самото минало, някога сблъскало се, наложило се върху живота, говори с паметта на човека и тази реч е също толкова ясна, колкото самият човек не е лъжлив не в смисъла на намерението да следва истината, а в смисъла на абсолютното позволение да говори като себе си.�
„Мног� от онова, което са извършили Вторият дядо и подобните му, е било именно престъпление срещу реалността. А реалността винаги отмъщава на онези, които я орязват, опростяват, отричат целостта на нейното многообразие; отмъщава - защото не притежава воля и намерение, които да са различни в различните случаи - също толкова неизменно, колкото са неизменни законите на природата; просто не винаги сме способни да разпознаем някое събитие не като случайно, а като закономерно. Очакваме явно възмездие за престъпилите законите на живота, но така е устроено само човешкото правосъдие, а наказанието на самия живот съвсем не винаги се възприема като възмездие. Животът не налага друго наказание освен лишаване от човечност, макар в нашето разбиране това да не е наказание. Трябва да гледаме отвъд събитието - какво то прави с човешкото в човека? Да гледаме отвъд него - едва тогава ще разберем, че мнозина, които в нашите очи изглеждат безнаказани престъпници, вече са осъдени; присъдата е изпълнена приживе и човекът вече е мъртъв. Тази присъда няма много общо с юридическата справедливост, която се изразява осезаемо, видимо - в ответния ущърб, и затова сърцето, очакващо ясно и непосредствено възмездие, не е способно да прочете буквата на подобна присъда и да постигне нейния дух.�
January 3, 2021
Nie mam zręcznej formuły, w której dałoby się zamknąć tę powieść i przyznam, że nie umiem jej ocenić. Daję 4 gwiazdki za siłę geologicznego spojrzenia i widmowe i równocześnie bardzo cielesne obrazy, które zostają pod powiekami, ale poetyckość języka w takim samym stopniu zachwyca co przytłacza. We Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung cytowanym na okładce znalazłam chyba najtrafniejszą recenzję- „piękno języka jest prawie nie do zniesienia�.
August 20, 2024
jestem prostym człowiekiem i na początku było mi ciężko skupić się na jego „poetyckich� opisach, ale z czasem pochłonęła mnie ta książka i już mam ochotę przeczytać ją ponownie (szczególnie, że zakończenie tak ładnie przechodzi w początek)
January 16, 2020
When countries do terrible things to their own people, it is easy to find reasons for everyone to pretend it never happened. This doesn't change the past, it just leaves a rotten area under everything that comes after. There are many examples of this throughout history, this just happens to be about the work camps in the former Soviet Union.
Beautiful language throughout, but not an easy read.
Beautiful language throughout, but not an easy read.
January 14, 2017
Wow! Another great Russian writer! This is the story of a small boy befriended by an old man he called Grandfather II and his search as an adult of the mans mysterious past. The real power of the book is not the story, though, but of the writing. The poetry used to describe the people, scenery and actions is incredible.
March 7, 2016
VERDICT: Powerful, intense, and poetic evocation of Soviet prison camps. Reading like a detective story, it will haunt the reader and help him escape oblivion. Unforgettable.
my full review is here:
my full review is here:
July 30, 2017
Lots of layers and tangents. Almost too poetic in places, but the descent into past is documented beautifully. I'm fascinated with gulags and the collective amnesia which has struck Russians over this part of their history.
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