The Obscure Reading Group discussion

How weird to see the names "Colt" and "Browning" bandied about in the yet young Soviet Union under the notorious Josef Stalin!

And a gun (from above Chekhov's mantel?) does indeed play a key role early on in this episodic novel that gives us waves of Soviet stalwarts -- the Old Guard as well as New Blood. To put it mildly, all hell slowly breaks loose when a random act of violence creates the "case" that Serge will riff off of for the rest of the book.

Were you as surprised as I was at how "minor" this "major" event was treated in the early going? I mean, that's quite the dramatic irony he pulls off here, treating his reading audience to a key secret that the vast majority of other characters will be denied. And oh, how it tears at the deepest innards of their political beings with all kinds of repercussions that spread further and further as time plays out.

Ken wrote: "Were you as surprised as I was at how "minor" this "major" event was treated in the early going? I mean, that's quite the dramatic irony he pulls off here, treating his reading audience to a key secret that the vast majority of other characters will be denied."

I was truly surprised. But a great way to show the absurdity of it all. And I was also surprised that the perpetrator went undetected. He did, didn't he? But as I read I realized that truth really wasn't useful was it? I mean it couldn't have been used, so to speak, so would have been a waste of a crime, in a sense.

Your take that Serge is riffing off this case is the perfect way to put it. We're half way, and it feels like he could have endless scenarios.

And I love how Stalin is just a shadow, a picture on the wall, until that last chapter of course.

We Americanos like to say that we are now living in something previously unheard of -- a post-Truth world -- thanks to certain individuals whose every word is a lie, but this book puts the lie in that conceit. I think ABSURD is a perfect word -- though certainly not one we typically see associated with murder.

Of course the randomness and the mystery (to the characters) would never play out today where politicians are surrounded by security details (not that this in itself can prevent assassinations). Our man Tulayev is truly on his own the night of his unfortunate event. In retrospect, it seems crazy that a man with that many enemies would hazard a walk from A to B under such circumstances, but then, when you think of it, so does the thought of an American president traveling through a city of high-rise buildings in an open convertible some thirty-plus years after the events of this book.

True. But then I think sometimes, because I drive a lot, of how much I have to put my full faith and trust in the other drivers on the road, when I just want to go from A to B, and how much I actually don't and shouldn't really trust them, and still I have to, Have to pretend to anyway. Or maybe I should say I have to suspend my disbelief.

I suppose that's a common reaction when times or situations are in some way dangerous. On some level, we have to go on as if they weren't, or we'd make ourselves crazy. Perhaps that's what Tulayev was doing. Kennedy too, maybe.

Kathleen wrote: "True. But then I think sometimes, because I drive a lot, of how much I have to put my full faith and trust in the other drivers on the road, when I just want to go from A to B, and how much I actua..."

Point taken. And it's not just crazy drivers. It's crazy gunmen with SCOTUS-approved bump stocks! Whistle past Graveyard A on your way to Graveyard B, as they say.

Anyway, back to our young Soviet gunman, last seen in Chapter the First....

Just finished the Intro. One valuable miss from skipping it (because it tells you who dies) is that the character referred to as "the Chief" is Stalin himself. Duh. Right over my head. Or under my feet, maybe.

I was also surprised by the comparison to Darkness at Noon a book I've heard of but never read. Also about the Stalin purges, only with the advantage of a single protagonist start to finish.

This book, Sontag insists, is much more sophisticated with a more complex narrative structure. If you want to call them "protagonists," you might go with the Ch. 1 "little guys" Kostia and Romachkin.

The proletariat! The people! What Communism is supposed to be all about!

Supposed to be.

Well I feel better now. Somewhere along the way, I dug around to verify who the Chief was!

Interesting about Darkness at Noon. I haven't read it, but have another comparison. Gogol's The Overcoat starts with a character in a situation similar to Kostia's in the first chapter. Getting a clear understanding of the sacrifices needed to obtain something (the boots for Kostia, an overcoat for Gogol's character) is a great way to immerse the reader into the time and place.

It looks like you've finished! I stopped at the midpoint, so won't be done by next week. I think we have a couple of fellow-readers, and I hope they come along soon and share their thoughts.

Yes, I finished the book and now the introduction (cart before horse). Are there other comrades in the union? Whistle blowers like Serge? Let's pray to the illegal God it's so! ;-)

Ha! Everything is potentially subversive. Somewhere there is a dossier on the Obscure Reading Group ...

You may want to go back and look at the end of Chapter 5 again with this new knowledge. A fascinating look at the Chief in his office and letting down his guard a bit with an old friend. "I do what must be done. Like a machine."

Thanks to Ken and Kathleen for getting this going. I’ve only now finished chapter 5, ( I was floating on a stone raft) and find myself, as always when reading Russian lit., struggling to follow who is who, and then, with foreign (to me) Spanish and Russian political references, I admit I’ve flailed a bit to follow. But the sorrowful tone is inescapable; no one really believes what they are doing is “right” or “just,” but they plod along because of “the cause”(however that is interpreted); planning, hiding, loving, killing, it seems a ghastly game.
I’ve not read the introduction nor the second half of the book yet, so we’ll see what transpires.
“Darkness at Noon” certainly has similarities.
I seems that solving the actual murder of comrade Tulayev, seems almost irrelevant at this point; just another brother offed by either the CC, or the Trotskyists, or a reformer. or a jealous husband, who knows? The dark political and criminal Russian tumult that surrounds this act is the story, so far. Serge will certainly continue to befuddle me with vague allusions and a cast of thugs, true believers and lost souls, if souls are allowed. Interesting

I'm in the middle of chapter 5. It's interesting the way Tulayev was assassinated simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, not simply because of timing but it was completely spontaneous and all the officials investigating his death are certain it had to have been meticulously planned by an organized group of enemies. No one suspects a regular citizen. It seems everyone in the government knows the time will come when they will be arrested, tortured, forced to name names and confess to crimes they didn't commit. Such is life under a totalitarian regimen. I don't think I'll be finished by next week but I'm hoping to be close.

Craig wrote: "Thanks to Ken and Kathleen for getting this going. I’ve only now finished chapter 5, ( I was floating on a stone raft) and find myself, as always when reading Russian lit., struggling to follow who..."

You are not alone on confusing personalitles at times. One of the challenges of episodic books like this, Russian or not, is the changes in characters from chapter to chapter. You no sooner get comfortable with a character and he (for it is mostly "he" in this one) disappears. Literally disappears in the case of "The Chief's" purges.

Jannifer wrote: "I'm in the middle of chapter 5. It's interesting the way Tulayev was assassinated simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, not simply because of timing but it was completel..."

Great point on the randomness coming up against the Soviet leadership's insistence on some organized plot that must be uncovered. Is it because the Soviet leadership traffics in this sort of thing itself? I think of the assassination of Trotsky himself, for instance, wherein Stalin sent someone all the way to Mexico to make the hit.

There's this inherent sense that people are hardwired for story, and any death involving a high official must have a plot planned well in advance with a wide net of co-conspirators. The thought that some Ivan, Dick, or Harry of the proletariat might just stumble upon a Communist bigwig, off him, and get on with his evening does not compute. Or sell with the public. Important people demand important schemes, even when it comes to their sudden and untimely demises. Heads must roll, or at the very least be sent to Kamchatka to play RISK.

I agree about the names. I always have trouble when there are a bunch of characters, so am in the habit of noting down a line about each when they appear. After a few chapters of this novel, I thought it might be a waste of time, since each chapter introduced a new set. But starting Chapter 6 a few of them have come back, so am glad I did!

I love what you say about the sorrowful tone, Craig, and I felt that too. And definitely a ghastly game.

There's such a sense of paranoia too, right? And the ordinary "citizens" we meet in the first chapter aren't the paranoid ones. It's like the higher up the chain you go, the more paranoid they are. I guess that's to be expected, but still surprised me a little.

I love that you brought up the spontaneous nature of the killing, Jannifer. That spontaneity is such an interesting contrast to the calculations and the endless dossiers.

So maybe, as you say Ken, the going at this in terms of a plot is because that's how they operate. It almost seems like they're just casting a wide net to get rid of as many people as possible. Is it just a game to make them feel important? Or are they all just trying to find a way to be alive when the game is over, and if it means going along with killing a bunch of others, then so be it?

Well, I have some thoughts on this first half.

I loved the first chapter, with Kostia and his neighbor Romachkin. 22 people crammed into that building. I kept thinking of the scene in the Dr. Zhivago film where when he returns to his former mansion home which they now share with dozens of other families and his family lives in a tiny corner.

I also loved Rublev, from Chapter 3, the librarian. Being a scholar or thinker of writer must have been distinctly difficult--he tells how at the former writer’s house, now they just scribble what they’re told to write.

And when Rublev meets his friends in the woods, one of them says: “I am afraid, afraid, not so much afraid of dying as of nothing and everything--afraid to see you, afraid to talk to people, afraid to think, afraid to understand …”

After reading the first five chapters, I decided to read the introduction by Susan Sontag. This was very helpful to my aid my understanding of the book, the time in Russian history, and most notably, Serge’s life; leftist, anarchist, Trotskyist, communist and then an anti Soviet communist exiled in Mexico. She describes and defends Serge’s position that fiction can be more truthful than nonfiction. Within this Sontag bit, we discover how and why this book (and it’s author) are both considered relatively obscure. So I will now plunge ahead with a new energy and appreciation.