The Return of Munchausen

by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Joanne Turnbull (Translator, Introduction), Nikolai Formozov (Translation)

Baron Munchausen's hold on the European imagination dates back to the late eighteenth century when he first pulled himself (and his horse) out of a swamp by his own upturned pigtail. Inspired by the extravagant yarns of a straight-faced former cavalry officer, Hieronymus von Munchhausen, the best-selling legend quickly eclipsed the real-life baron who helped the Russians fight the Turks. Galloping across continents and centuries, the mythical Munchausen s Travels went through hundreds of editions of increasing length and luxuriance.
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, the Russian modernist master of the unsettling and the uncanny, also took certain liberties with the mythical baron. In this phantasmagoric roman a clef set in 1920s Berlin, London, and Moscow, Munchausen dauntlessly upholds his old motto Truth in lies, while remaining a fierce champion of his own imagination. At the same time, the two-hundred-year-old baron and self-taught philosopher has agreed to return to Russia, Lenin s Russia, undercover. This reluctant secret agent has come out of retirement to engage with the real world.

Genres: Fiction, Russia, Classics, Literature, Russian Literature, Novels, 20th Century

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

Сигизмунд Кржижановский

Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky (Russian: Сигизму́нд Домини́кович Кржижано́вский) (February 11 [O.S. January 30] 1887, Kyiv, Russian Empire — 28 December 1950, Moscow, USSR) was a Russian and Soviet short-story writer who described himself as being "known for being unknown" and the bulk of whose writings were published posthumously.

Many details of Krzhizhanovsky's life are obscure. Judging from his works, Robert Louis Stevenson, G. K. Chesterton, Edgar Allan Poe, Nikolai Gogol, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and H. G. Wells were major influences on his style. Krzhizhanovsky was active among Moscow's literati in the 1920s, while working for Alexander Tairov's Chamber Theater. Several of Krzhizhanovsky's stories became known through private readings, and a couple of them even found their way to print. In 1929 he penned a screenplay for Yakov Protazanov's acclaimed film The Feast of St Jorgen, yet his name did not appear in the credits. One of his last novellas, "Dymchaty bokal" (The smoky beaker, 1939), tells the story of a goblet miraculously never running out of wine, sometimes interpreted as a wry allusion to the author's fondness for alcohol. He died in Moscow, but the place where he was buried is not known.

In 1976 the scholar Vadim Perelmuter discovered Krzhizhanovsky's archive and in 1989 published one of his short stories. As the five volumes of his collected works followed (the fifth volume has not yet reached publication), Krzhizhanovsky emerged from obscurity as a remarkable Soviet writer, who polished his prose to the verge of poetry. His short parables, written with an abundance of poetic detail and wonderful fertility of invention — though occasionally bordering on the whimsical — are sometimes compared to the ficciones of Jorge Luis Borges. Quadraturin (1926), the best known of such phantasmagoric stories, is a Kafkaesque novella in which allegory meets existentialism. Quadraturin is available in English translation in Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida, Penguin Classics, 2005.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

History repeats itself… So Baron Munchausen is here once again…

…books, if only they are books, may be commensurate with, but never proportionate to reality!

Baron Munchausen is back and he continues to lie and fantasize but suddenly it turns out that everything he says is true:

Horses and voters, if you do not put blinkers on them, they will throw you into the nearest ditch. I have always admired Teniers’s technique of allowing black to become white and white to grade into black: through gray. Neutral tones in painting, neutrality in politics…

The politicos all over the world successfully use this priceless advice to this day and will use in the future…

I mean to say that materialists succeed only insofar as they are… idealists of their materialism. Revolution’s notorious broom, which raises more dust than it sweeps out, tried to sweep the idealists out of Russia’s house, but of course, so I reflected, many of them got stuck in the doorway.

High revolutionary ideals ruined all the ways of everyday living and made all the honest people lie low… 

You write: ‘If one takes a marble from a box containing only black and white ones, then one can predict with a certain percentage of probability that that marble will be, say, white, and with complete confidence that it will not be red.’ But have you and I in our lives, Mr. Dowly, not run up against an extraordinary case when, from a box containing only blacks and whites, the hand of history – to the discomfiture of all – drew… a red?

This is the way history obeys the probability theory.

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is crazy. There are dozens upon dozens of reviews posted for each of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s three other books published by New York Review Books (NYRB) - Memories of the Future, seven stunning stories of the blackest humor and irony, stories where the principles of logic disintegrate, so much so a corpse can miss its own funeral and the backbone of all facts can be cracked; The Letter Killers Club, a secret society of conceivers and imaginers who will not dare commit pen to paper since this is 1920 Soviet Moscow; Autobiography of a Corpse, a collection of eleven mind-scrambling tales: a man bites his own elbow that turns into a counter argument to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a room is capable of having its own autobiography and a concert pianist’s right hand takes off for a night on the town. But the number of reviews for The Return of Munchausen? So few as to be counted on one hand, and not necessarily a pianist’s hand at that.

Perhaps reviews will appear but there will be a delay following the pattern of publication of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s stories - the author wrote in secrecy during the years of harsh Soviet censorship, mostly in the 1920s, and his fiction only came to light many years later, beginning in 1989, having been discovered by literary scholar Vadim Perelmuter. Quite the fate for an author who’s highly inventive, polished work has been compared to the likes of Borges, Kafka and Poe as well as his countryman Pushkin and Gogol.

Although there was an actual flesh-and-blood Baron Munchausen (1720-1797) and a popular highly fictionalized account of his adventures wrestling a forty-foot crocodile, traveling to the moon, riding a cannonball and numerous other equally wacky happenings penned by a man who probably attended the Baron’s dinner parties, one Rudolf Erich Raspe, millions of people around the globe know this swashbuckling hero from Terry Gilliam’s 1988 over-the-top feature film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen with a cast including John Neville, Eric Idle and Uma Thurman.

And in her informative introduction to this NYRB edition, Joanne Turnbull provides insight and context on how in Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s novella the Baron springs to life yet again, this time the year 1921 in London and travels incognito cross county to Soviet Moscow. Ready or not, comrades, here he comes!



Who better than a poet to be the first to meet and speak with Munchausen on the very first page in Chapter One? Exactly the case - the poet Unding arrives at the Baron’s apartment in London and is treated to a number of revelations, including the Baron opening his prize book, a small gilt-edged octavo with leather corner pieces, to his usual abode between page sixty-eight and sixty-nine: “Unding looked: on the bent-back page between parted paragraphs were the fine black rules of an oblong box: but inside the box was only the blank stare of white space – the illustration had disappeared.”

I'm quite certain you are familiar with how a character in a book can come to life – well there you have it, our author taking metaphor to new outrageous levels more than seventy years prior to Terry Gilliam’s film. Actually, every single paragraph in Sigizmund's short novel would require an enormous budget and some mighty special special effects if made into a blockbuster movie.

Shifting focus to the novella’s language itself, readers will be both delighted and charmed, as for example, here is our audacious Munchausen, in the author’s own words, confronting a highly original chess problem: “Confounded chessboard,” a frightened Munchausen whispers, then sees in the middle of the square, on an enormous round leg, its black varnished mane bristling: a chess knight. Without wasting a moment, he jumps onto the horse’s high neck; the horse twitches its wooden ears, and Munchausen, gripping the slippery varnish with his knees, feels the one-legged chessman crouch down, then jump forward, again forward and sideways, once more forward, forward and sideways; the ground now falls away, now strikes the horse’s found heel with its swinging steeples and roofs; but the felt-shod heel-Munchausen remembers this well-gallops furiously on: squares flicker past, then patchwork fields and checkerboard cities-more and more-forward, forward, sideways and forward; the round heel pounds now grass, now stone, now black earth.” Turns out this sequence is a dream sequence but, dream or no dream, the confabulations are continuous and fabulous chapter after chapter.

Moving right along to The Devil in a Droshky, a chapter comprising a large chunk of the book, Munchausen presents a lecture with slideshow of his Russian escapades to a packed house in a London auditorium. Here is my synopsis of one such escapade but please keep in mind the difference between the author’s words and my words is, as the saying goes, the difference between chicken soup and running a chicken with goulashes on through water.

Anyway, the Baron relates how years ago he lost his favorite hunting hound and, rather than getting a new dog, trained his hunting boots to fetch. He would walk thought the woods, gun over his shoulder and when game needed fetching he would take off his boots, point them in the right direction and say, “Seek! Seek!” So it went again in Russia but this time a group of Soviet villagers notice the boots coming toward them, scream with horror and run away in all directions. The Baron reflects in such a country of superstitious know-nothings he could conquer all of Russia in his bare feet. But then a sequence of unforeseen interactions with these empty-headed villagers requires a Munchausen-style change of plans. You will have to read for yourself to discover exactly what outlandishness transpires.

This multidimensional classic can be read not only as a rollicking adventure but also surreal parable, fantastic metafiction, uncanny philosophic inquiry into the nature of language and reality or razor-sharp satire pointed mostly at Lenin and Soviet Russia. Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky described himself as being "known for being unknown.” It is now 2017 and, above all else, it’s time for this outstanding author to be better known. The Return of Munchausen is a great way to start.


Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887-1950)

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a real-life Munchausen. No lie. Baron Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen fought for the Russians in the Russo-Turkish War, 1735-39, and upon his return regaled his aristocratic friends with outrageous tales based on his military career. A German writer, Rudolph Erich Raspe, turned this into a satirical work: Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. The fictional Baron rode a cannonball, fought a forty-foot crocodile and traveled to the moon, among other impossible exploits. The real Baron Münchhausen was not thrown off by the missing umlaut; nor was he amused, and instituted legal action. Raspe wisely remained anonymous till his demise.

In The Return of Munchausen, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky resurrects the Baron and lets him return to what is now Soviet Russia, circa 1927-28.

On the very first page the Baron is being chased by a pair of muddy footprints:

"Who shall I say is calling?"
"Tell the baron: the poet Unding."

That would be the poet Ernst Unding. Or in oxymoronic English: earnest nonsense.

And now, having been properly introduced, we are treated to lies and sleight of hand, the richest hyperbole, the elixir of make-believe. The audience is rapt as the Baron speaks:

I visited the compiler of The Dictionary of Omissions, Complete & Unabridged; looked up the famous geographer who discovered the Spur of the Moment; called on a modest man who collects cracks; and attended a ceremonial session of the Association for the Study of Last Year's Snow. In other words, I apprised myself of those burning questions to which Red science has devoted its efforts. Tempted as I am to expand upon this subject, a lack of time prevents me.

Thus is skewered the Soviet system; or maybe even recent presidential debates.

I highly recommend this book to those who love the playfulness of words. Like this bit of dialogue:

"So, the reformists have gone to the right again."
"Zeroes, if they want to mean something, can only go to the right."

Or this, when Unding, our poet friend, gets jostled:

The shock of someone's shoulder against his shoulder upset a line: Dropping rhymes, the poet raised his eyes and looked around.

Or, this interruption as the Baron is writing in seclusion:

True, the occasional reporter who slipped into the house through some keyhole did manage to stop Munchausen's pen. Invariably civil, he would turn an angry face on the truckling interloper:
"Ten seconds. My stopwatch has started. I am counting: one, two. . . ."
The flummoxed reporter would throw out the first question that came to mind, such as: "Of what sections should an authoritative newspaper consist?"
In a sixth of a second came the reply: "Of two: the formal and the fawning. Eight, nine, ten. It has been a pleasure."

This is a world where the Baron sits in his Splendid Hotel, beneath the Munchausen coat of arms: five flying ducks, and under the last tail, in Roman letters, the motto: MENDACE VERITAS. That would be: Truth in Lies.

Some characters just keep returning.

Or do you disdain to argue with a muddleheaded man muddled in his own muddle?

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

As another reviewer wrote, I like Krzhizhanovsky more in theory than in practice—a surreal, avant-garde Soviet modernist with an explosive satirical and fantastical imagination? What’s not to like? There’s plenty to like in this novel, a restless pell-mell of mythomaniacal mayhem, a fantastical picaresque of surreal ramblings, punctuated by frequently hilarious pseudo-philosophical monologues. As with most novels that indulge in unapologetic stylistic lunacy, Munchausen is a high-wire act that continually titillates and exasperates the reader, and the obscure, plotless rumbustiousness of the prose invariably creates a sensory bloat that left this reader begging for the end to come.

[Andrew]

This book is not meant for this time, this place. it is a story about Baron von Munchausen, whom, like most Americans my age, I know not from his legendary adventures, which were a hallmark of European fabulist writing and which were required reading for young Europeans of a certain time. Rather, I know Munchausen from that Terry Gilliam movie and the condition of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, a perennial tabloid-TV obsession of the '90s American media-verse of my childhood.

So I had to rely on the footnotes, not only because of that, but because the expected audience was the early 1920s Russian intelligentsia. It was good, but I was so far removed from the target -- countless allusions had to be spelled out, verbal puns noted -- that I only got an iota of the impact. I think this is what is meant by untranslatable literature.

[Clayton · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Oh, how silly all those scholars seemed to me, those unifiers and fathomers. They were searching for "one in many" and not finding it, whereas I could find many in one. They closed tight the doors of consciousness, whereas I flung them wide to nothingness, which is indeed everything. I withdrew from the struggle for existence (which makes sense only in a dark and meager world where there isn't enough of existence to go around) so as to join the struggle for nonexistence: I created not yet created worlds, lighted and doused suns, ripped up old orbits, and traced new paths in the universe; I did not visit new countries, oh no, I invented them. In that complex game of phantasms against facts...I swept a fact away with a phantasm, replaced the existent with the nonexistent. Always and invariably my phantasms won--always and invariably, that is, until I chanced upon the country about which one cannot lie.'

Munchausen versus Stalin! What happens when the ultimate bullshitter comes across the ultimate bullshit? Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, the greatest Munchausen fan in Stalin's Union and a great bullshitter himself (although he had the decency to call his fictions) is well-quipped to bullshit on this matter. Told mainly in the form of a lecture delivered to a rapt British audience, our good Baron, alive and well in the 20th century and pretty spry for being 180 years old, gives his impressions of the Soviet Union circa 1927.

Such lectures were actually pretty common at the time: a lot folks were invested in seeing how Bolshevism worked in the years before it was clear that it didn't. And those lectures were slightly more truthful than Munchausen's rollicking tales, but only just, and therein lurks the sadness beneath the farce: our Baron doubles the amount of horses in a village by cutting them in half, while real apparatchiki doubled them on paper; Munchausen is made a conditional corpse and sentenced to execution by pop-gun-firing squad, the endnotes helpfully point out that "conditional corpse" was a real legal designation that the Bolsheviks applied to engineers and skilled workers whose executions were deferred until the state didn't need their skills.

The jokes are all in the pages; the tragedies are in the notes. We are lucky to have both, because Joanne Turnbull's excellent English translation can only do so much by itself; her endnotes written with Nikolai Formozov are a primer on Soviet propaganda by themselves, besides being a useful guide to just how goddamned clever Krzhizhanovsky is.

My English has finally caught up to Krzhizhanovsky. The rest is untranslated, although my Russian is good enough to grok the titles: The Little Book of Souls, Tales for Wunderkinder, Side Branch, Countries That Weren't: Articles on Literature and Theater. I can only stare at titles and wonder at what might be--a very Krzhizhanovskian act. They might even be as good, as weird, as sad, as funny as The Return of Munchausen.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

"“Horses and voters,” the baron liked to say among friends, “if you do not put blinkers on them, they will throw you into the nearest ditch.”"

I believe I stumbled upon this novella while browsing the library's shelves having never heard of the title, nor the author. But it was an NYRB book, so...

The original Baron Munchausen was a fictional German nobleman brought to life by German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe (1785, Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia; real life baron Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen served loosely as the basis for the fictional character). Krzhizhanovsky brings the mythical figure back to life full of his renowned pomp and tales of incredulity. This is a man too bereft to replace his hunting dog---instead, he teaches his leather boots to hunt. A man who doubles the short supply of working horses in a town by cutting each horse in half. He's a witty and talented raconteur (he tells of Muscovites so short on goods that even in despair, one can’t find a rope to hang himself), delightfully ridiculous, and quite a legend in his own mind. Not only has he come out of retirement in this tale, but he's agreed to return to Lenin's Russia as an undercover agent. A fun read all around.
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WORDS WORTH LOOKING UP
albescent | tomelet | brumous | acanthus | perlustrators | gonfalons | auscultate | peripeteias

[Sini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Onlangs las ik "Autobiografie van een lijk" en "De letterdodersclub" van de vrij onbekende Rus Sigizmoed Krjizjanovski (1887- 1950), en vooral bij dat tweede boek jubelde ik luidkeels. Daarna vermaakte ik mij weer prima met "De terugkeer van Münchhausen", dat naar mijn smaak weliswaar minder geniaal en euforiserend is dan m.n. "De letterdodersclub" maar nog steeds amusant en aanstekelijk. De vertaling van Monse Weijers is bovendien prima, en zijn nawoord is op prettige wijze informatief en verhelderend. Net als de door hem bewerkte en uit het verzameld werk overgenomen eindnoten.

In deze korte roman (uit 1927) volgen we de gedachten, fantasieën en deels gefingeerde belevenissen van Baron Hieronymus von Münchhausen, een persoon die werkelijk heeft bestaan maar die bekend stond als een ongeremde en onuitputtelijke fantast. En Kzjizjanovski (wiens naam door Weijers trouwens gespeld wordt als "Kzizjanovski") voegt daar nog een absurdistisch element aan toe: Münchhausen zelf wilde ons laten geloven dat hij zichzelf uit zin eigen haren uit het moeras trok, maar Krzizjanovski tovert ons de ongelofelijke maar aanstekelijke fantasie voor dat Münchhausen weer opgestaan is uit zijn graf en weggelopen is uit zijn eigen boek. Want Krzjizjanovski laat ergens in de jaren '20 de 130 jaar voordien overleden Münchhausen weer vrolijk en levend rondlopen, en laat hem weer nieuwe verzinsels de wereld instrooien die minstens zo buitenissig zijn als de onwaarschijnlijke verzinsels uit de memoires van Münchhausen zelf. De door Krzjizjanovski verzonnen Münchhausen zaagt bijvoorbeeld paarden in tweeën en rijdt dan rond op een gehalveerd paard, en stript bijvoorbeeld vossen niet van één vossenhuid maar van tientallen vossenhuiden omdat die afgestroopte vossenhuid in de extreme Russische koude razendsnel weer aangroeit, en die nieuwe huid kan dan weer afgestroopt worden, waarna er pijlsnel weer een nieuwe groet die ook afgestroopt kan worden. Ook maakt Münchhausen een duizelingwekkende vlucht op de rug van een moderne oorlogsgranaat, wat weer eens wat anders is dan vliegen met een ouderwetse kanonskogel, en hij stapt rustig in en uit de afbeelding van hem die in zijn eigen memoires is opgenomen. Zijn laarzen voeren zelfstandig een aanval uit op een door rovers bezet dorp; in het door hongersnood geteisterde Moskou bespeelt hij de fluit en lokt hij alle ratten, die in keurige rijen recht de pan in lopen. Bovendien sterft hij opnieuw, maar dan voorwaardelijk, omdat hij voorwaardelijk geëxecuteerd wordt: met klapperpistolen. Enzovoort, en zo verder.

Deze vermenigvuldiging van onwaarschijnlijkheden is soms wel wat melig, maar meestal heel vermakelijk. En daardoor is deze roman tevens een ode aan de ongeremde fantasie. Bovendien doet door Krzjizjanovski verzonnen Münchhausen diverse uitspraken die deze ode onderstrepen met een pleidooi. Niet voor niet zegt Münchhausen, als hem wordt gevraagd hoe het kan dat hij dood is en toch in gesprek is met een vriend van hem, "sta me toe om [...] uit de blubber van de waarheid op te staan en wat te fantaseren". Dus hij verklaart deze ongerijmdheid en anomalie niet, maar vergroot hem men zijn fantasie juist uit. Elders verklaart Münchhausen dat hij materialisten verafschuwt, en een hekel heeft aan "dat stompzinnige IN FEITE" dat hen zo kenmerkt. En dus kiest hij nadrukkelijk voor groteske fantasie waarin elk "in feite" wordt gelogenstraft. Sowieso gelooft hij niet in sluitende werkelijkheden en waarheden: "Maar wat moet het incomplete wezen dat "mens" genoemd wordt, aan met die hele getallen. Mensen, dat zijn breuken die zich uitgeven voor hele getallen, zichzelf groter maken met woorden. Maar de breuk is, ook al gaat hij op zijn tenen staan, toch geen heel getal, geen eenheid, en alle daden van een breuk zijn gebroken, alle gebeurtenissen in de wereld van niet- eenheden zijn incompleet". Vandaar ook dat Münchhausen zich verzet tegen de waarschijnlijkheidstheorie van filosofen en realisten, en de - heel fraaie- "onwaarschijnlijkheidstheorie" ontvouwt. En omarmt. Vandaar dat hij bizarre verzinsels en fantasma's verkiest boven zogenaamde feiten. Vandaar dat hij zegt: "Ik leefde in het grenzeloze rijk van de fantasie, en de twisten van de filosofen die elkaar de waarheid uit handen proberen te rukken, leken voor mij op een vechtpartij van bedelaars om een koperen muntstukje dat hen wordt toegeworpen. De ongelukkigen konden ook niet anders: indien ieder ding gelijk is aan zichzelf, indien het verleden niet veranderd kan worden, indien ieder object een objectieve betekenis heeft, en het denken uitsluitend wordt gebruikt voor kennisverwerving, dan is er geen andere uitgang dan die naar de waarheid. O, hoe belachelijk schenen me al die geleerde bollebozen toe , die eenheids- en waarheidszoekers: ze zochten [...] 'het ene in het vele', en ze vonden het niet, terwijl ik het vele in het ene wist te vinden. Ze sloten de deuren, overschreden de drempels van het bewustzijn niet, ik opende ze naar het niets, dat ook alles is [...]. Ik schiep onvoltooide werelden, ontstak en doofde zonnen, hief oude omloopbanen op en tekende nieuwe wegen in het heelal; ik ontdekte geen nieuwe landen, o nee, ik vond ze uit [...]".

Dit pleidooi voor ongerijmde en ongeremde fantasie mondt uit in diverse erupties van deze fantasie, waarin Münchhausen helemaal losgaat met fantasma's en onrealistische, onmogelijke verzinsels. Maar ook met heel ongewone beschrijvingen, die - bijvoorbeeld- het ons bekende Moskou veranderen in iets ongerijmds en ongewoons en bijna onwerkelijks. Bijvoorbeeld: "Als je naar Moskou kijkt vanaf de hoogte van een vogelvlucht, dan zie je in het centrum een stenen spin, het Kremlin, die met vier wijd geopende poorten aandachtig kijkt naar het door haar geweven web van straten: hun grijze draden gaan, zoals in ieder spinnenweb, straalsgewijs uiteen en worden vastgehecht aan verre slagbomen: dwars op deze radiaalwegen staan, als een menigte korte verbindingen, de dwarsstraten; hier en daar zijn ze aaneengegroeid tot lange ketens die de ringen van de boulevards en stadswallen vormen; hier en daar zijn de einden van de webdraden stukgetrokken door de wind - dat zijn de doodlopende straten; en dwars door het web loopt kronkelend met zijn verminkte lijf, samengepropt in de grijpgrage tweepoten van de bruggen een donkerblauwe rups- de rivier".

In dit geval heeft Münchhausens (Krzjizjanovski's) fabulerende vertelkunst vooral een poëtisch of esthetisch effect: door de waarheid als fantasma te belijken maat hij hem rijker en grilliger. Soms echter gaat deze fabuleerdrift gepaard met vermakelijke maar ook vrij wrange satire, met name als hij hongersnood, nood aan producten en andere ellende beschrijft uit de Sovjet- Unie rond 1927. Bijvoorbeeld: "{Er] stonden menigten dicht opeenstaande mensen die zich voedden met louter het zicht [...]. Als hoofdgerecht serveerde men een stilleven uit de Hollandse school met de uitbeelding van alle mogelijke etenswaren Daar kwam ook nog de honger naar goederen bij: op de winkelschappen lag behalve stof bijna niets. Het was gewoon bespottelijk dat toen ik een stok nodig had, een doodgewone stok (de trottoirs zitten daar vol gaten en kuilen), de winkels geen stokken met twee uiteinden bleken te hebben: ik moest me tevreden stellen met een stok met maar één uiteinde. Nog een voorbeeld: toen een van de Moskovieten, die door het gebrek aan goederen tot wanhoop was gedreven, zich probeerde op te hangen, bleek het touw van zand gevlochten te zijn: in plaats van met de dood moest hij zich tevreden stellen met kneuzingen. Schandalig gewoon!". Een touw met maar één uiteinde, een touw gevlochten van zand: puur absurd, volkomen ongerijmd. Maar dit is misschien meer dan alleen een verzinsel: wellicht was de werkelijkheid van de Sovjet- Unie in 1927 wel zo ongehoord ongerijmd dat Krzjizjanovski er alleen met dit soort ongerijmdheden op reageren kon. Niet voor niets laat hij Münchhausen de uitspraak doen dat de werkelijkheid in de Sovjet- Unie zijn bizarre fantasieën nog makkelijk overtreft....

Niettemin, Krzjizjanovski was wel een bovengemiddeld getalenteerd fantast, met een groot absurdistisch stijlgevoel. En alleen daardoor krijgt hij dit soort satire op papier. Bovendien is zijn boek naar mijn smaak vooral een ode aan en een voorbeeld van ongerijmde en ongeremde fantasie, door zijn pleidooien daarvoor maar vooral omdat het werkelijk uitpuilt van de idiote fantasma's. Zeker, de satire is soms ook wrang, en het slot van de roman is zonder meer weemoedig. Maar ik werd vooral geraakt door Krzjizjanovski's uitbundige fantasie, en dus heb ik mij met dit boek prima vermaakt.

[Tracy Towley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the fact that this book wasn't even 120 pages long, and one reviewer called it "playful and erudite," I had a really tough time getting through it. If you're not familiar, Munchausen was a real-life baron who fought off the Turks (with the help of the Russians) but became a sort of folk hero as time went on. This book imagines that it's the 1920s in Europe (the story travels from Berlin to London and finally on to Moscow) and Munchausen has agreed to come spy on Lenin's Russia.

The guy reminded me a lot of the stories surrounding Paul Bunyan in that all the stories about him were seriously tall and not all that interesting. Like the time he and his horse were drowning and a swamp so Munchausen grabbed his own pigtail and pulled them out of said swamp.

I like reading about the countries in which this book is set, and I'm well versed on Lenin and thought this would be a sort of fun, silly book but I ended up finding it tedious and dull. Do not recommend.

[Hamish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Krzhizhanovsky is another writer that I like much more in theory than in practice.

[Huy · Rating 4 out of 5]

một không khí khá là Don Quijote nhưng với một giọng văn tinh xảo hơn ít nhiều.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long before Trump, before Hitler and Stalin, the king of the liars was Baron Munchausen. In this book, the massive onslaught of untruth in the wake of the Russian Revolution creates a perfect storm of lies that causes the two hundred year old Munchausen to pop miraculously back into existence. It's like a particle appearing out of nothing in the quantum vacuum. Being and not being intersect to cause the Baron to appear. Is he really there? Of course not! But the lie about his existence makes him real after all. This part is great philosophical fun.

Upon the Baron's return he finds a natural connection to diplomats and reporters who both have their own long traditions of lying, so he is recruited to go to the USSR as a sort of ambassador/correspondent at large and without portfolio. What is his assignment? Nothing, of course. He busies himself at his non-task, finding privation, suffering and a boatload of lies which he counters with his special Munchausen-style lies, saving the day yet again and returning to England as a hero. But in the end the Baron is beaten because there is a contradiction that this man who thrives on contradiction isn't able to resolve -- The Baron's lies were always of a good humored sort that were never to be taken seriously and were only harmless bragging intended to provoke a smile or a belly laugh; the modern lies that are used as cover ups for sordid truths of human suffering and that become the machines for creating even more problems are of a different nature altogether that is irreconcilable with the Munchausen philosophy.

All of this sounds very interesting and there were points along the way in the book when it worked well, but there were other points where the storytelling got a bit turgid and would have been better if Mr. Krzhizhanovsky could have lightened up a bit in the spirit of the original Munchausen.

[Ibrahim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surrealism and absurdity abound as the avant garde novella explores upending and remaking of reality. Similar to bulgakov, the novella brims with self satisfied irony, yet unlike bulgakov, it lacks the underlying earnestness that elevates the work.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whimsical, witty, ridiculous and wonderful, and a darkly thoughtful and comic satire on truth, spin, celebrity and the early Soviet state - what a great book to wrap up my 2017 year of reading.

[Gabriel Congdon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Munchausen!

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably should have had a bit more experience with the figure of Baron von Munchausen, who I have heard of but not seen or read any other representations of before, because this didn't really work for me. This is doubly disappointing because of how much I loved Autobiography of a Corpse, an earlier NYRB translation of Krzhizhanovsky.

[Kevin Tole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I've OD'd on SK.

The first books I read, 'Memories of the Future' and 'Seven Stories', showed a genius of a mysterious and surreal writer who was pretty much unpublished during his life. Since then the American market has kicked in with some important work done as PhD theses on the guy and the New York Review of Books has picked up on him and decided to publish anything they can get hold of. The Letter Killers Club was the first of their emprints I read and if anything it almost did not read like SK despite having the same translator who did the bizz on 'Memories of the Future'.

Why SK decided to go ahead and add to Raspe et al's comedic tales of Baron Munchausen one cannot be sure. Maybe it was simply that he could use him as a vehicle to poke fun at and highlight the state of Russia following the revolution. SK follows in the style of Raspe's original with florid tales and wild language always looking for the play-on-words and the pun taken to the literal end and the absurd. Indeed I feel that the ONLY reason he wrote this was to have a long rant at the Soviet authorities detailing in a wry tongue-in-cheek manner what was wrong with the country. And you wonder why he was so little published during his life.......

In the book, this episode is followed with Munchausen realising that his hypereality examination of Russia is in fact a reality of Russia, and following an incident on his return when he blanks the King, he retires to live out his life incognito before eventually disappearing to live a two dimensional life within his book. Maybe SK saw himself as the disappeared Munchausen living on only within the pages of his own writing.

When I think of hypereality and the pattern of the surreal it is always to Flann O'Brien / Myles na Gopaleen / Brian O'Nolan that I turn to because he has yet to be beaten through the two classics of 'At Swim-Two-Birds' and 'The Third Policeman'. The subsequent publication of other works of his along with the tomes on the characters within his newspaper column 'Cruiskeen Lawn' were all put out after his death when, as usual, his fame and star rose. The 'Return of Munchausen' must be the equivalent to Myles' 'The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman'. Both show glimpses of their writers' genius but both are really banged together and put out by the publishing houses to a readership hungry for further work.

Stick to the real stuff. Like O'Nolan with regard to SK and whiskey, stick to the hard stuff.

[Kaiju Reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

Prior to reading this book, I admit my only exposure to Baron Munchausen came from the Terry Gilliam film, which I really enjoyed. My knowledge of the real Munchausen and all the historical context was so thin as to basically consist of the fact that I knew he hadn’t been created just for the movie, but not much more. I preface my review with that information because I believe it greatly influenced my enjoyment. On one hand, there are several tales in here that are fun if recounted to a friend in a conversation, but they are buried in clunky writing (translating) and context. As a caveat to the former, I am startled at how such as this can even be translated at all. There are episodes that rely so much on the actual words themselves that I must extend a congratulations to Joanne Turnbull that she was able to get them out as clearly as she did. In my total ignorance of Russian, I still must suggest that this is a marvelous achievement. Regarding the latter comment on context, there is an entire book’s length of material between the lines here that I simply did not get, and did not have the energy or interest to research. (There is what one may initially think a long and detailed notes section, but really these only scratch the surface.) The narrative itself is only just over 100 pages, and despite it being published by NYRB and in translation, I naively picked it up thinking it would be a quick fun read. Perhaps, had I picked it up knowing I would be doing some historical digging and some very careful reading… knowing that some of the gags would require research to even understand… knowing that I must know the real person being made fun of to get the joke… I’m sure this would have been a different experience entirely. If you are coming at this book like I did, as someone ignorant of much of this books place and time and are just looking for some outlandish Munchausen tales, I simply can’t recommend you proceed. If you are a scholar of this period, perhaps you will enjoy it. While I am certain that Munchausen lovers will appreciate the gaps this edition fills, I am still cautious to suggest it is a ‘good’ read. Judging it for only itself, I found it a boring and tedious collection of only barely interesting tales with an elusive framing tale to tie them together.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I saw that facts by and large had become phantasms, and phantasms facts, and the darkness around that laboratory bat was tinkling with thousands of little bells; around every shock of wing against string, around every word, every pen stroke, was chiming chuckling air.”

3.5 stars
So this is another instance where I’m guilty of judging a book by its cover. But how could I not be intrigued when the cover art, at a glance, reminded me a bit of Les femmes d’Alger (Version O)? I eagerly snatched this novella from the library shelf, but unfortunately it took me a while to get into the rhythm of Krzhizhanovsky’s writing.

I’m not implying Krzhizhanovsky’s writing is boring; in fact his writing style is anything but that. (I was unfamiliar with Baron Munchausen’s Travels prior to reading this novella). The Return of Munchausen is inventive, uncanny, and outlandish. Krzhizhanovsky brings back the quirky baron, who having ‘lived’ 200 years, marches into USSR to bring audiences more adventures. His short parables are truly weird yet fun, fantastical yet allegorical. If you read underneath the descriptive imagery and the baron’s colorful escapades, you can pull out the satire on Bolsheviks and USSR.

It’s a whimsical tapestry of phantasms regarding the Country About Which One Cannot Lie. It gets you thinking, what is fact and what is fiction?

I may need to pick up a copy of Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of His Marvelous Travels and brush up on my early USSR Russian history…

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not for everyone, but if you are interested in Baron Munchausen or in Krzhizhanovsky, the "Russian Borges," you will be in for a treat.

The book starts with Munchausen suddenly reappearing in the post-World War One era. He goes to the USSR, and he presents his time there as a lecture to an audience in London. (So there isn't really a plot or adventure, but a lot of wordplay and humor.)

The book seemed to me to be akin to the Soviet silent movie "The Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks," that is, it was spoofing the West's ideas about the Soviet Union. This book is pre-Socialist Realism Soviet Literature, after all.

However, once Munchausen's (very funny) lecture is over, the book becomes serious, and, to my great surprise, the book ends up as a defense of fantasy and imagination. The ending turns out to be quite poignant, which is why I ended up giving this book five stars.

This is not for everyone. Readers need to know about Munchausen, need to know about 1920s Europe, and be interested in fantasy literature. If you check at least two of those boxes, you will find this book enjoyable.

[Gina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book purely to fit a challenge requirement. I thought it would make a quick read being that the book is only 168 pages but I was wrong. Political satire meets historical figure meets historical fiction and all Russian at that...well let's just say it wasn't as easy or interesting as I thought. In high school when I had to read "Crime and Punishment" and Tolstoy I hated it because I never understood it and that fact hasn't changed over the years. I sort of understood the plot but not really so I won't try to explain. Lol! Like I said, this book fits a challenge requirement and now I finished it. 1 stars and I can only think of maybe 2-3 of my friends from high school who would possibly understand this book.

[Jason Bergsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book at random at my local library. I'll be honest I struggled with it. A baron is sharing history throughout several periods throughout Europe. I found myself struggling to get through to what the author is really trying to say. I know I am missing a good amount of the references and things like that, but I still found myself enjoying some of the writing and I found this book very funny at times. While I didn't have the best time getting through this story, it's something I'd be interested in revisiting at some point to get a better understanding of it.

[Teresa]

I got this with a NYRB books subscription a couple of years ago and am trying to read books that have been sitting on my shelf for a while. It was clear pretty quickly that this isn't my kind of thing. I'm not generally that into stories of quirky fabulists. And it doesn't help that this is chock a block with references to people, places, and ideas that I have little more than a glancing familiarity with. Even as short as it is, it doesn't seem likey to be worth the time and effort for me. 

[Roz · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable romp into and through Soviet Russia as told by literature’s original tall tale teller - baron Von Munchausen. It’s a little silly, and it pokes fun at the outlandish aspects of Soviet propaganda, but it also requires more than a little passing familiarity with the region. The endnotes are helpful in making the allusions a little more clear. I’d rank it above Envy but below Master and Margarita in terms of early Soviet satires.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happens to Munchhausen when he reaches a land where where even his most fantastical dissembling turns out to be true? Let the prolific yet unpublished dissident Soviet writer Krzhizhanovsky tell you all about it.

[Chet Taranowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a hard time finishing this book. It isn't easy to follow. The theme is the absurdity of totalitarian governments (Soviet Russia in this case). No matter how much the Barron lied, the government always did him one better.

This book actually may be a relevant again today as it is difficult to trust the information coming from our own government.

[Loocuh Frayshure · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I’m just too far removed from 1920s Soviet Union to really appreciate all of this, but I also find Munchausen mostly used as a mouthpiece to be annoying and contradictory. The point, I think, but not one I enjoyed too much. Didn’t even want to finish this 110 pager.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun mix of zany brushes with ideas & critique.

[Jayden gonzalez · Rating 3 out of 5]

prety funny

[Hernando · Rating 3 out of 5]

honestly the worst of his books