'Babel Never Had a Chance'

“A blunt story – rather like one of his own.”

“Blunt” is a forensic word, modifying “object.” It describes a murder weapon, a pipe or hammer applied to the skull. It might also describe a personal manner, lacking tact or gentleness, as in a thug or brutish cop. A softer version suggests simple directness, an unwillingness to soften a message. In this case, the writer, V.S. Pritchett, is recounting the fate of Isaac Babel, who was executed, probably with a single bullet to the skull – blunt force – on this date, Jan. 27, in 1940. In “Five Minutes of Life” (The Complete Collected Essays, 1991), Pritchett continues:

“His works vanished; references to them were cut out of histories and criticism; his manuscripts and papers were either destroyed or, haphazard, lost. Not until 1964 was he rehabilitated and there was a public celebration of his genius."

Four or five years later I first encountered Babel’s stories thanks to Frank O’Connor’s The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story (1962). The Irishman said, “the man who has influenced me most, I suppose, is really Isaac Babel.” A brash statement from a lineal descendent of the author of Dubliners. At sixteen, I had already outgrown the adolescent appeal of Hemingway, though Babel’s material sometimes overlapped the American’s, especially the violence. I read the Walter Morison translation of the Collected Stories, with the introduction by Lionel Trilling. There was bluntness, yes, but also a weird poetry, even in translation. “Guy de Maupassant” was mysteriously sexy, “The Story of My Dovecote” broke my heart and “The Sin of Jesus” is never far from my mind. That final story concludes: “‘There’s no forgiveness for you, Jesus Christ,’ she said. ‘No forgiveness, and there never will be.’”

Today we have a Babel for our time: Boris Dralyuk’s Red Cavalry (2014) and Odessa Stories (2016), both published by Pushkin Press. These chaste-looking little white volumes are made for rereading and ease of transport, genuine pocket books. Boris' rendering of the final sentence of “The Story of the Dovecote”: “And so Kuzma led me to the tax inspector’s house, where my parents had found refuge from the pogrom.” Compare this to Morison’s choppy version: “And so with Kuzma I went to the house of the tax-inspector, where my parents, escaping the pogrom, had sought refuge.” Boris ends on that dreadful word pogrom.             

Jerome Charyn writes in Savage Shorthand: The Life and Death of Isaac Babel (2005): “Babel never had a chance. A zhid from Odessa who flourished for a little while, thanks to Gorky.” The same Gorky who denied Osip Mandelstam a pair of pants. Babel dedicated “The Story of the Dovecote” to Gorky.