Scan barcode
A review by elenajohansen
Autobiography of a Corpse by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
2.0
I rarely read the introductions in any book that has one. I'd rather get to the actual content, and often I don't have the academic grounding to understand half of what the introduction's authors have to say.
This time, I went back and read it after. Counter-intuitive, I'm sure many people would say, but I was vindicated by Thirlwell mentioning Italo Calvino as a similar author, because I read The Complete Cosmicomics earlier this year and found Corpse to be strikingly reminiscent of it. The subject matter of any individual story between the two could be wildly different, but they all felt the same in their treatment of the "fantastic" as a blend of real, absurd, and academic.
Like my reaction to Cosmicomics, I'm left here with the feeling of "I wish I understood this better so I can appreciate it more." I'm no student of philosophy, and while I have enough knowledge of Russian history to connect it to the dismal, censorious atmosphere of the stories in Corpse, beyond that I have no ground to stand on. I love absurdity in fiction; but this is high-minded, philosophical absurdity outside my ken. I always felt like I was grasping at the edges of what Krzhizanovsky was trying to say--I could see connections forming between identity, time, brokenness, and storytelling. I feel confident in stating his stories are mostly about some or all of those things, most of the time. But as with Calvino, deeper meaning eludes me; I value emotion most in my fiction, not philosophy. I would rather grapple with characters than concepts.
This is a challenging work that I'm glad I attempted, but not something I'd shout from the rooftops as a general recommendation. It's weird and interesting, and I'm vaguely sad that this author was never recognized for his fiction in his lifetime because of censorship. Even if I can't appreciate his work fully, clearly he deserved better than what he got.
This time, I went back and read it after. Counter-intuitive, I'm sure many people would say, but I was vindicated by Thirlwell mentioning Italo Calvino as a similar author, because I read The Complete Cosmicomics earlier this year and found Corpse to be strikingly reminiscent of it. The subject matter of any individual story between the two could be wildly different, but they all felt the same in their treatment of the "fantastic" as a blend of real, absurd, and academic.
Like my reaction to Cosmicomics, I'm left here with the feeling of "I wish I understood this better so I can appreciate it more." I'm no student of philosophy, and while I have enough knowledge of Russian history to connect it to the dismal, censorious atmosphere of the stories in Corpse, beyond that I have no ground to stand on. I love absurdity in fiction; but this is high-minded, philosophical absurdity outside my ken. I always felt like I was grasping at the edges of what Krzhizanovsky was trying to say--I could see connections forming between identity, time, brokenness, and storytelling. I feel confident in stating his stories are mostly about some or all of those things, most of the time. But as with Calvino, deeper meaning eludes me; I value emotion most in my fiction, not philosophy. I would rather grapple with characters than concepts.
This is a challenging work that I'm glad I attempted, but not something I'd shout from the rooftops as a general recommendation. It's weird and interesting, and I'm vaguely sad that this author was never recognized for his fiction in his lifetime because of censorship. Even if I can't appreciate his work fully, clearly he deserved better than what he got.