Adventures in Grinlandia
"Fandango and Other Stories"
by Alexander Grin
(translated by Bryan Karetnyk)
A review
Russian author Aleksandr
Stepanovich Grinevsky (1880 – 1932) better known by his pen-name Alexander
Grin, was born in Vyatka of an exiled Polish family. In his youth he was a sailor, gold-miner, construction
worker, soldier and even, during a short stint as member of the Socialist-Revolutionary
party, a would-be terrorist. These
formative experiences provided plenty of raw material when he eventually gravitated
towards literature. Grin churned out stories at an incredible – if not
downright alarming rate – in 1915 alone, he wrote more than 100 short stories
and poems. By the mid-1920’s, he had built a fairly solid
reputation. However, he eventually lost
favour with the Soviet regime and, whilst he did not suffer any direct persecution,
the authorities’ dismissal of his work as “not needed” led to a marked decline
in his fortunes and health. Following
the Second World War, Grin’s writings underwent a reassessment and 1965 saw the
publication of a six-volume collection of Grin’s works. In Russia, Grin is now considered a key
author of the early 20th Century – his fairy-tale novella Scarlet
Sails, in particular, is much-loved and has inspired film, opera and
ballet, as well as lending its name to an all-night festival in St. Petersburg
celebrating the end of the scholastic year.
It is fair to say,
however, that, in comparison, Grin remains a little-known figure in the
English-speaking world. Hopefully, he
will get a wider readership, thanks to this selection of short stories,
newly-translated by Bryan Karetnyk and published by Columbia
University Press as part of their “Russian Library” series.
As far
as the style and content of his stories are concerned, Grin has been said to be
reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexandre Dumas and
Franz Kafka. In his introduction to the collection, Barry P. Scherr explains
that the influences on Grin, whether as declared by himself or as stated by
others, include not only these mentioned authors, but also Rudyard Kipling,
James Fenimore Cooper, Jules Verne and Mayne Reid. This roll-call of potential influences is
significant. It shows, first of all, that Grin was at odds with the Russian
tradition, and closer to foreign authors, especially those writing in English. During his lifetime, this gave rise to a
strange rumour about Grin – namely that during his sailing years he had killed
an English sea captain and stolen a suitcase full of manuscripts, eventually
translating them into Russian and passing them off as his own. Grin’s “foreignness” also contributed to his
ostracization by the Soviet regime. In
this regard, Barry P. Scherr further observes that Grin often employs convoluted
syntax, as well as phrasing and similes which, in the original Russian, sound
unusual and odd. Karetnyk’s translation
brings out Grin’s style, yet remains readable throughout – even as plots get
denser and more fantastic.
The difficulty
to compare Grin to one or more specific authors, however, also reveals how
protean a writer he could be, a fact which is borne out by the selection of eight
stories in his volume, chosen from various stages in the author’s career. The chief common element in the featured pieces
is the (very Romantic) presence of a male narrator or protagonist, who is generally
facing some sort of physical or psychological struggle against which he must
prove himself. Apart from this basic
similarity, the stories are very different from each other. Quarantine,
the earliest piece, has an autobiographical element, in that it presents us with
a revolutionary who is having second thoughts about an assignment he has been
given. “She” features another
troubled male protagonist obsessed by the image of a woman – it is one of Grin’s
first stories to reveal the influence of Poe.
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| Illustration by Savva Brodsky to a 1960s edition of Grin's works (via BeautifulRus website) |
Many
of Grin’s later works are based in an exotic setting, which his fans fondly
refer to as “Grinlandia”. Recalling the
tropical backdrop of 19th century adventure stories, Grin’s made-up
world seems strangely unrelated to any real geographical place. His made-up territory is generally populated by
European emigrés and adventurers, usually with English, French, Spanish or strange-sounding
names.
The
first Grin work set in “Grinlandia” is “Reno Island”, from 1909. Karetnyk, however, opts instead for Lanphier
Colony, published only a few months afterwards, and possibly a more typical
example of Grin’s adventure stories. The
hero here is one “Horn” who, hurt in love like the protagonist of “She”, tries
to set up an ideal settlement on a remote island – with tragic
consequences. There is a similar concept
in The Heart of the Wilderness, although the mood of this latter story
is lighter and its outlook more optimistic.
The
Devil of the Orange Waters is another “Grinlandia” work – a
psychological study of a Russian political exile whose experiences fill him
with despair and antipathy to life.
Grin
seems to purposely avoid reference to topical political events. The Poisoned Island is a notable
exception, despite its exotic setting. It takes the form of an inquiry into what
appears to be a mysterious mass suicide on a tropical island. There is a suggestion that this was a case of
collective hysteria provoked by news of world conflagrations.
The
final two stories in the collection abandon Grinlandia, being set in Petrograd
and inspired specifically by the author’s experiences living at the House of
Arts, an institution for artists established by Maxim Gorky. Ironically, despite their ‘realistic’ setting,
these are also amongst the more fantastical of Grin’s tales, and could easily
be considered as examples of “weird fiction”.
The main character in The Rat-Catcher, who is recovering from typhus
and has no fixed abode, is offered accommodation in a huge abandoned building in
Petrograd. As night approaches, the
protagonist realizes that the building is haunted by mysterious figures who
seem to be plotting the murder of the eponymous Rat-Catcher. There follows a
nightmarish adventure in the labyrinthine building, which can be either taken
at face-value as a supernatural experience, or simply a hallucination provoked
by the narrator’s fever and hunger. If I dare add another potential “parallel”, I
would say that Grin’s brand of the unheimlich recalls some of the Gothic tales
of E.T.A. Hoffmann.
Fandango – the
title piece – also combines an actual setting (post-Revolution Petrograd) with
extraordinary happenings, giving it a tinge of magical realism. Yet, its mood is markedly different from that
of The Rat-Catcher. A contingent of Spanish-speaking visitors to the
House of Arts, led by the mysterious Bam-Gran, appoints the narrator as an
interpreter. A strange series of events
transports the narrator to the Grinlandian city of Zurbagan which, in contrast
with the bleakness of Petrograd, glows with Mediterranean passion, as represented
by melody and dance-rhythms and melodies of the Iberian “fandango”. Perhaps herein lies the key to Grin’s work –
it is “escapist fiction” in the best sense of the word, a transformative experience
which, at least temporarily, carries us away from the everyday to a more
colourful world.
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| Another illustration by Savva Brodsky |
Hardcover, 312 pages
Expected publication: January 7th 2020 by Columbia University Press
“It
stirs the wind and inspires love. It strikes at the strongest bonds. It holds
the heart in its ardent hand and kisses it. Instead of calling you, it gathers
whirlwinds of gold discs around you, spinning them among a frenzy of
colour. Long live the dazzling “Fandango”!
As a
paean to the power of music one can hardly better Bam-Gran’s lyrical outburst
in Grin’s “Fandango”. This story is
named after an Iberian dance which fits very well with the imaginary pseudo-Spanish
setting of Zurbagan. It is generally
danced (and sometimes also sung) by couples to the accompaniment of guitars,
castanets or handclapping.
The earliest
fandango melody is found in the anonymous Libro de diferentes cifras de
guitarra from 1705, and the earliest description of the dance itself is
found in a 1712 letter by Spanish priest Martín Martí.
The fandango also
inspired several pieces of classical music. In 1768, Italian composer Luigi Boccherini
(1743-1805) settled down in Madrid.
During the late 1790s, on commission from the Spanish nobleman Marquis
de Benavente, Boccherini arranged about a dozen of his existing string quintets
for string quartet and guitar, that “instrument dear to all good Spaniards”. These arrangements included the Fandango from
the quintet, Op. 40 no. 2, originally composed in 1788.
The Fandango even
found its way into a Mozart opera, specifically The Marriage of Figaro,
where it helps to give some “authenticity” to the plot’s Spanish (and, more
specifically, Sevillian setting).
In artistic circles
in the late 19th and early 20th Century there seemed to
be a sort of fixation with all things Spanish, a symptom of the
turn-of-the-century obsession with the “exotic”. This explains why several non-Spanish
composers felt drawn to Iberian subjects.
A case in point is Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol
(1887), whose final movement is a rousing Fandango Asturiano
Italian cellist and
composer Giovanni Sollima has been described as the Jimi Hendrix of the cello. Certainly, whilst being a notable performer
of classical cello repertoire, he has also given a fresh presentation to his
concerts, which often include also arrangements of popular and rock songs. As a composer, he combines traditional
elements with a more contemporary language.
L.B. Files is a work for cello and string orchestra which is an
explicit tribute to the music of Luigi Boccherini. Its movements include the meltingly beautiful
Igiul (which I urge you to look out for). I’ll be ending this selection, however, with
another extract from the work – bringing this brief playlist full circle with Fandango
del Signor Bouqueriny.
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