'The Rivals of the God of the Moment'

“It is the custom when praising a Russian writer to do so at the expense of all other Russian writers. It is as though most of us were monotheists in our devotion to authors, and could not endure to see any respect paid to the rivals of the god of the moment. And so one year Tolstoy is laid prone as Dagon, and, another year, Turgenev. And, no doubt, the day will come when Dostoevsky will fall from his huge eminence.” 

A reader reminded me of Robert Lynd’s insight when he shouted that Bulgakov is the greatest of Russian writers. “Forget Chekhov,” he writes, “and definitely forget your obsession with Nabokov. Who cares about him? Read The Master and Margarita.”

 

I did, a long time ago, though I retain in memory only the flimsiest of outlines. To extend Lynd’s metaphor, in literary terms I am a resolute polytheist. Loving Babel doesn’t cancel loving Shalamov. Sure, our literary tastes are promiscuous. When young, we confuse one-night stands with conjugal devotion. Age brings with it equanimity of taste. We know what we like and feel no need to defend it. To quote Whitman completely out of context: “(I am large, I contain multitudes.)” Because Anna Akhmatova is a great poet, am I supposed to stop enjoying Julia Nemirovskaya? See her “Coffee at Night” in Boris Dralyuk’s translation, which concludes:

 

“. . . sorrow loses its power when faced with that force,

with the joy of two somnolent wings spreading wide!”

 

[The passage by Lynd is taken from “Tchehov: The Perfect-Storyteller” (Old and New Masters, 1919), his review of Constance Garnett’s translations of Chekhov’s stories.]