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A review by ajkhn
Collected Stories by Isaac Babel
4.0
Finally got around to reading Babel, this translation is the one my library had. It feels very mid-century, so I dunno how accurate it is. Babel's words didn't Leap Off The Page or anything at me. Trilling's weird introduction, with "Babel had the face every Jew would want their son to have" is something I'm going to have indigestion with for a while.
That all said, there's a reason Babel is so famed, and a lot of these stories are genuinely wonderful. It's not his fault, I suppose, that Red Cavalry and Benya Krik went on to inspire all sorts of schlocky stuff. The stories are vivid glimpses into a point in time and should be treated as such. Not Babel's fault that every third post-Soviet kid tried to turn them into their own Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrells.
I really loved the smaller and more sensitive stories in here, Di Grasso chief among them. There's something so un-heroic about Babel that the heroism of the big stories is funny - which, I guess, is part of the charm. But when he is just a small-time storyteller he really shines, I think.
That all said, there's a reason Babel is so famed, and a lot of these stories are genuinely wonderful. It's not his fault, I suppose, that Red Cavalry and Benya Krik went on to inspire all sorts of schlocky stuff. The stories are vivid glimpses into a point in time and should be treated as such. Not Babel's fault that every third post-Soviet kid tried to turn them into their own Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrells.
I really loved the smaller and more sensitive stories in here, Di Grasso chief among them. There's something so un-heroic about Babel that the heroism of the big stories is funny - which, I guess, is part of the charm. But when he is just a small-time storyteller he really shines, I think.