Laurus - Russian novel

[whitecoast]

I recently finished a novel called Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin. It's a contemporary Russian historical fiction novel which follows the life of a young man trained as an herbalist healer through plague-ridden Russia on the cusp of the 16th century, with stopovers in Vienna, Venice, and Jerusalem. At the center of his journey were key questions of love, faith, loss, and atonement.

As a westerner reading this in the 21st century, it is stark how alien this time and its exceptionally Russian Orthodox worldview is to our own, and the novel in unabashedly steeped in its Christian mythos. That's one of the charms it had for me. One of the key themes of the book was the nonlinear nature of time, and how events can repeat themselves in the guise of new people and locales, like a spiral scroll being unwound and read. The main character picks up and drops new identities based on circumstances in his life. Rather than being about good vs evil, the novel seems to center around the temporal vs the eternal. This transcendental "unstuckness in time" that the book gropes to describe is also highlighted in the use of language, which blends Middle English the modern slang and back again, giving a sense that even in this ancient world there was a world yet even more ancient behind it, and woven throughout it. It was actually a herculean effort by the translator to capture all the archaic and modern nuances and how they can sometimes play off one another. I even found the translator's note to be quite elucidating.

This was a moving and thoroughly enjoyable read for me. A journey into another world, which in spite of all its differences still seemed to have slightly familiar landmarks like trees peering out of a foggy bank.

This was a good Amazon review that described more of the novel's tone and language use.

LAURUS is no seamless dream of Russia's past, but a very clever, self-aware contemporary novel that nevertheless holds that dream deep in its heart… . The fools are holy, but they also bash each other and defend turf. A great deal of the novel's humor derives from this kind of absurd juxtaposition. On this earth, one can never quite break free of petty, ridiculous, earthly concerns. Even the ancient sage Christofer is regularly consulted about 'bedroom matters.' Much of the humor in Dostoevsky has exactly this origin.

Equally rich are the novel's clashes of language and diction, a savory stew made up of high and low, the ecclesiastical and the obscene, as well as the crazily modern. Translator Lisa Hayden had a tall order before her - Vodolazkin's book in Russian overflows with Old Church Slavonic, contemporary slang, obscenities, bureaucratese, literary language. In translating, she avails herself of the contemporaneous Middle English Bible for much of the syntax and archaisms, but also a range of slang,curses, and other vocabularies. The result is a wonderful, at times almost Monty Pythonesque blend of biblical vanisheth, synne, and prude, right alongside -idiot-, jeez, and Brownian motion.

Under the spell of LAURUS, we imagine what it would be like to measure life in seasons and harvests rather than clocks and clicks, to walk in hallowed paths and receive ancient wisdom, to suffer and cleanse the soul. "

 

[Laura]

Sounds interesting. I'll pick up a copy and check it out.

 

[Tuatha de Danaan]

I recently finished a novel called Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin.

You've managed to paint a very intriguing description of an age no longer possible....seasons and harvests v clocks and clicks.... the archaic V modern. I'm doing a re-read of Haffner's Defying Hitler. Laurus sounds like a very uplifting antidote .Thanks for the suggestion, where as I don't want to ignore reality I'd like to side-step it now and then.

 

[Tuatha de Danaan]

I recently finished a novel called Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin

I've just finished the book. A definite breather after Haffner's Defying Hitler. A very dream like quality to this book and a very easy read. The book evokes feelings of nostalgia, not so much for the past, as for the great outdoors and nature in it's true raw state. There are no creature comforts to be had in this book, everyone rich or poor suffers equally when nature pushes a little too far from her usual course.

The power of imagination of the people populating this book is moving, The types of creatures and people their imaginations conjure up as existing in far away places makes you realize how widespread that ignorance was and how it was that ignorance that drove people to journey afar to confirm or deny the existence of such creatures.
We cannot know, in our modern times, what it is like to not know what lies beyond the next mountain or wide sea.
We have lost that which drove our ancestors forward. We have nowhere to go so we feel the nostalgia.

 

[AzarHyun]

I just finished this novel. One observation, after hard reading over the past months and years, this 400-page novel comes as a picture book.

The novel is about Russia at a time when
fools for Christ ( were celebrated and respected in society. (15th century). The main protagonist of this well-written novel, is yurodivy Orthodox herbalist and healer.

The novel is inspired by the life of Saint Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg.
This novel, filled with warmth, became a bestseller, sold over 200,000 copies, in cold Russia. I think that is wonderful and that many children and young people who have read the novel will want to become Saints, just as after some books they wanted to be elves, warriors, princes. Big capital for Russia !!