A Hunt for Optimism

by Victor Shklovsky, Shushan Avagyan (Translator)

Begun in 1929 under the title "New Prose" and drastically revised after Vladimir Mayakovsky's sudden death, A Hunt for Optimism (1931) circles obsessively around a single scene of interrogation in which a writer is subjected to a show trial for his unorthodoxy. Using multiple perspectives, fragments, and aphorisms, and bearing the vulnerability of both the Russian Jewry and the anti-Bolshevik intelligentsia—who had unwittingly become the "enemies of the people"Hunt satirizes Soviet censorship and the ineptitude of Soviet leaders with acerbic panache. Despite criticism at the time that it lacked unity and was too "variegated" to be called a purely "Shklovskian book," Hunt is stylistically unpredictable, experimentally bold, and unapologetically ironic—making it one of the finest books in Shklovsky's body of work.

Genres: Fiction, Russia, Literature

189 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1931

About the author

Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (Russian: Виктор Борисович Шкловский) was a Soviet literary theorist, critic, writer, and pamphleteer.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's post-World War One Russian 'experimental' literature so you know straight away that it will be cheerful and easy to understand ... At its best when it is direct, personal and deals with writing, art and his friendship which had recently ended because of suicide.

[Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Challenging due to its surrealism. One of the more down-to-earth passages:

"Ivan Nov was writing Mayakovsky’s poems, falling in love, and earning money for his woman from poetry. He was close to Burlyuk, thought of suicide, played with a revolver, climbed through the window, and then disappeared into the unknown."

I may give it another go at some point.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of images and scenes from Russian life in the 20s -- the sort of sparse, understated prose that gives every word two or three different functions. The segment set in Central Asia was a particular highlight.

[Yuri Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Шкловский всегда стоит читать. Он введет вас в заблуждение.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some brilliant sections of this and there are some sections I didn't care all that much about. But, when it's good, it's great.

[Natalie Ryabchikova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shklovsky already humbled by the return home and not yet hardened by it.