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Палисандрия
Sokolov S. - Palisandriia . Zhurnal Glagol, 1992 g., Moskva, kolichestvo 297 s. Paperback
640 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
5 people are currently reading
348 people want to read
About the author
Sasha Sokolov
17 books92 followersSasha Sokolov (born Александр Всеволодович Соколов/Alexander Vsevolodovitch Sokolov on November 6, 1943, in Ottawa, Canada) is a paradoxical writer of Russian literature.
He became known worldwide in the 1970s after his first novel A School for Fools had been published by Ardis Publishing (Ann Arbor, Michigan) in the US, and later reissued by Four Walls Eight Windows. Sokolov is one of the most important authors of 20th-century Russian literature. He is well acclaimed for his unorthodox use of language, playing with rhythms, sounds and associations. The author himself coined the term "proeziia" for his work—in between prose and poetry.
Sokolov is a Canadian citizen and has lived the larger part of his life so far in the United States. During the Second World War, his father, Major Vsevolod Sokolov, worked as a military attaché at the Soviet embassy in Canada. In 1946 Major Sokolov (agent "Davey") was deported from Canada in relation to spying activity. After returning to the Soviet Union in 1946 and growing up there, Sokolov did not fit into the Soviet system. In 1965 he was discarded from a military university, probably because he had tried to flee the country. After that he studied journalism at Moscow State University from 1966 to 1971. Shortly after his first daughter was born in 1974 his first marriage ended.
Sokolov made several attempts to flee from Soviet Union. He was caught while crossing the Iranian border, and only his father's connections helped him to avoid long imprisonment.
He met his second wife, the Austrian-born Johanna Steindl while she was teaching German at the University in Moscow. She smuggled the text of his first novel into the West. Only after she started a hunger strike in the Stephansdom in Vienna, Austria, in 1975, was Sokolov allowed to leave the Soviet Union. Sokolov left Vienna in late 1976 for the United States after his first novel had been published. In early 1977, Johanna Steindl gave birth to Sokolov's son, who has become a journalist. He also had a second daughter named Maria Goldfarb, born in New York in 1986, who has become an artist. Sasha Sokolov later married again several times and is now married to the US rower Marlene Royle.
His second novel, Between Dog and Wolf, builds even more on the particularities of the Russian language and is deemed untranslatable. Thus, it has become a much lesser success than A School for Fools, which has been translated into many languages. His 1985 novel Palisandriia was translated as Astrophobia and published by Grove Press in the US in 1989. The complete manuscript of his fourth book is said to have been lost when the Greek house it had been written in burnt down. Sokolov, who leads a rather reclusive life, says that he keeps writing, but doesn't want to be published any more.
He became known worldwide in the 1970s after his first novel A School for Fools had been published by Ardis Publishing (Ann Arbor, Michigan) in the US, and later reissued by Four Walls Eight Windows. Sokolov is one of the most important authors of 20th-century Russian literature. He is well acclaimed for his unorthodox use of language, playing with rhythms, sounds and associations. The author himself coined the term "proeziia" for his work—in between prose and poetry.
Sokolov is a Canadian citizen and has lived the larger part of his life so far in the United States. During the Second World War, his father, Major Vsevolod Sokolov, worked as a military attaché at the Soviet embassy in Canada. In 1946 Major Sokolov (agent "Davey") was deported from Canada in relation to spying activity. After returning to the Soviet Union in 1946 and growing up there, Sokolov did not fit into the Soviet system. In 1965 he was discarded from a military university, probably because he had tried to flee the country. After that he studied journalism at Moscow State University from 1966 to 1971. Shortly after his first daughter was born in 1974 his first marriage ended.
Sokolov made several attempts to flee from Soviet Union. He was caught while crossing the Iranian border, and only his father's connections helped him to avoid long imprisonment.
He met his second wife, the Austrian-born Johanna Steindl while she was teaching German at the University in Moscow. She smuggled the text of his first novel into the West. Only after she started a hunger strike in the Stephansdom in Vienna, Austria, in 1975, was Sokolov allowed to leave the Soviet Union. Sokolov left Vienna in late 1976 for the United States after his first novel had been published. In early 1977, Johanna Steindl gave birth to Sokolov's son, who has become a journalist. He also had a second daughter named Maria Goldfarb, born in New York in 1986, who has become an artist. Sasha Sokolov later married again several times and is now married to the US rower Marlene Royle.
His second novel, Between Dog and Wolf, builds even more on the particularities of the Russian language and is deemed untranslatable. Thus, it has become a much lesser success than A School for Fools, which has been translated into many languages. His 1985 novel Palisandriia was translated as Astrophobia and published by Grove Press in the US in 1989. The complete manuscript of his fourth book is said to have been lost when the Greek house it had been written in burnt down. Sokolov, who leads a rather reclusive life, says that he keeps writing, but doesn't want to be published any more.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 13, 2019
Exercises in Style, Sasha Sokolov style. This writin' Russian makes James Joyce read like James Patterson. That's not true; I take it back. But I'm assured you can assimilate the aforementioned assertion without additional amplification of anagrams, anastrophe, allegory, anadiplosis, antistrophe, aposiopesis or assonance actualized on almost all pages of Astrophobia.
Goodreads friend M.J. Nicholls on Astrophobia: “A rib-tickling Rabelaisian comedy, a frenzied pseudo-surfictional misadventure, abounding in punniferous wordplay, sumptuous anti-establishment satire, and fearless farce.” Thanks, M.J.! You said it all.
Sasha Sokolov, pugnacious punster and searing satirist that he is, receives the nod to end this short review with a direct astrophobic Astrophobia quote: "Damn that Conservatory! thinks the concierge as he hears the man who calls himself a piano tuner hawking his way up the stairs. Shock-headed, lewd-eyed, open-chested, he winds his emaciated body top-like to the fateful story, mentally gauging the distance to Garshin (whom he so admired as a man and a classic of Russian literature) Shaft. Now the instrument, as we have said, is wide open. And the score on that antediluvian piano, which rejoices in the four neurasthenic hands aching to b-flat on top of one another in a-sharp fugobac(c)hanalian frenzy, come to life."
Hey, Sasha deserves another quote, this time from his much more well known A School for Fools: “My love and my joy, if I die from illness, madness or sadness, if before the time allotted me by fate is up, I can't get enough of looking at you, enough joy in the dilapidated mills on the emerald wormwood hills, if I don't drink my fill of the transparent water from your immortal hands, if I don't make it to the end, if I don't tell everything that I wanted to tell about you, about myself, if one day I die without saying farewell—forgive me.”
If you can't put your hands on Astrophobia, please hunt down the author's classic A School for Fools. New York Review Books published a first-rate edition.
August 2, 2014
Tatyana Tolstaya on Sasha Sokolov: “Not a single line of Sokolov’s work has been published in the Soviet Union, and yet the whole country reads it in handwritten, typed, microfilmed, or xeroxed copies. People laugh and cry over it, people go into raptures over it.”
Palisander Dahlberg on Palisander Dahlberg: “Innovative is the word that first comes to mind as one reads the memoirs that follow. Everything about them is daring and new. The structure, for instance. True, Dahlberg owes a great debt to his predecessors, the frenzied modernists of antiquity. True. But he pays his debt and moves on. If Joyce limits the action of Ulysses to a twenty-four-hour period, Dahlberg cuts his action to minutes, the duration of the coitus incestus with which the book opens and closes, and in the process of which the author succeeds not only in consoling the poor doddering relative who seduced him but in providing the reader with a keen analysis of the chain of events underlying deeds of epoch-making social and political significance: the act of intimacy in question, unique in literature—nay, in world culture—is merely the warp of the work, a more or less blank canvas for a colorful panorama of that grand old age which so tactfully coincided with the Commondore’s grand old age, a time of passions and clashes, of terror and strife, of mass meetings and mass hysteria, of abductions and seductions. If it was the least bit amusing or interesting, it is here. But P. the Charming us more than an artful weaver of words; he has a knack for combining the public with the private in such a manner that the former both complements and refines the latter. And vice versa. People, events, and objects always find their mates in P., thus supplying a woof for the warp and establishing patterns of symmetry, analogy, and metaphor.” (p.307)
M.J. Nicholls on Astrophobia: “A rib-tickling Rabelaisian comedy, a frenzied pseudo-surfictional misadventure, abounding in punniferous wordplay, sumptuous anti-establishment satire, and fearless farce.”
Palisander Dahlberg on Palisander Dahlberg: “Innovative is the word that first comes to mind as one reads the memoirs that follow. Everything about them is daring and new. The structure, for instance. True, Dahlberg owes a great debt to his predecessors, the frenzied modernists of antiquity. True. But he pays his debt and moves on. If Joyce limits the action of Ulysses to a twenty-four-hour period, Dahlberg cuts his action to minutes, the duration of the coitus incestus with which the book opens and closes, and in the process of which the author succeeds not only in consoling the poor doddering relative who seduced him but in providing the reader with a keen analysis of the chain of events underlying deeds of epoch-making social and political significance: the act of intimacy in question, unique in literature—nay, in world culture—is merely the warp of the work, a more or less blank canvas for a colorful panorama of that grand old age which so tactfully coincided with the Commondore’s grand old age, a time of passions and clashes, of terror and strife, of mass meetings and mass hysteria, of abductions and seductions. If it was the least bit amusing or interesting, it is here. But P. the Charming us more than an artful weaver of words; he has a knack for combining the public with the private in such a manner that the former both complements and refines the latter. And vice versa. People, events, and objects always find their mates in P., thus supplying a woof for the warp and establishing patterns of symmetry, analogy, and metaphor.” (p.307)
M.J. Nicholls on Astrophobia: “A rib-tickling Rabelaisian comedy, a frenzied pseudo-surfictional misadventure, abounding in punniferous wordplay, sumptuous anti-establishment satire, and fearless farce.”
November 19, 2020
Visos žvaigždutės už kalbą, jos grožį, žodžių ir frazių dėliones, naujadarus, subtilią ironiją, humorą ir galiausiai už žaismo pojūtį skaitant.
Visa kita - kiek komplikuočiau. Per tarybinės nomenklatūros parodiją autorius kalba apsktitai apie bet kokią valdžią ar jėgą. Siužeto - kaip ir nerasta. Pagrindinis veikėjas Palisandras klajoja ne tik geografiškai, bet ir laikmečiais, o kur dar jo lyties netikėtumai...
Beje, drąsaus būta Sokolovo. Knyga išleista 1985-iais, kai dar gyvi buvo kai kurie pasakojimo herojai. Aprašynėti nesantuokines Brežnevo žmonos sekso scenas - sakyčiau odnako!
Viskas man būtų tikę, tik tiesiog prailgo. Autorius gal per daug užsižaidė. Čia kaip ir valgant, kad ir skaniausią patiekalą - vistiek gali persivalgyt.
Rekomenduoju audio versiją, tobulai įskaitytą Ivan Litvinov'o.
Visa kita - kiek komplikuočiau. Per tarybinės nomenklatūros parodiją autorius kalba apsktitai apie bet kokią valdžią ar jėgą. Siužeto - kaip ir nerasta. Pagrindinis veikėjas Palisandras klajoja ne tik geografiškai, bet ir laikmečiais, o kur dar jo lyties netikėtumai...
Beje, drąsaus būta Sokolovo. Knyga išleista 1985-iais, kai dar gyvi buvo kai kurie pasakojimo herojai. Aprašynėti nesantuokines Brežnevo žmonos sekso scenas - sakyčiau odnako!
Viskas man būtų tikę, tik tiesiog prailgo. Autorius gal per daug užsižaidė. Čia kaip ir valgant, kad ir skaniausią patiekalą - vistiek gali persivalgyt.
Rekomenduoju audio versiją, tobulai įskaitytą Ivan Litvinov'o.
November 29, 2011
POSTMODERN PORN EPIC
July 24, 2019
Sokolov è probabilmente il più interessante degli autori russi contemporanei e con Palissandreide (opera del 1985 e che arriva da noi con colpevole ritardo) firma una sorprendente e scoppiettante incursione nel postmoderno.
Inutile avventurarsi in una descrizione della trama, talmente ricca di episodi e personaggi da risultare difficilmente riassumibile. Diciamo che si tratta di un memoriale tra il picaresco e il distopico (è ambientato nel 2757, periodo del Nontempo) che narra le vicende di Palisandr Dal'berg, pronipote di Berija e nipote di Rasputin, da orfano del Cremlino e maestro di chiavi alla Casa dei massaggi governativa a capo dello stato e gran maestro dell'ordine supremo; semplificando rozzamente potremmo dire che si tratta di una presa in giro della gerontocrazia sovietica (il protagonista è una specie di satiro gerontofilo) che finisce vittima di un curioso contrappasso con gli eredi dei perseguitati di un tempo che si ritrovano talora a tiranneggiare i discendenti dei loro aguzzini.
Detto questo, è bene aggiungere che la trama è la cosa meno importante del libro e che con Palissandreide Sokolov continua il percorso iniziato con La scuola degli sciocchi, 'smonta' cioè il romanzo spostandone la centralità dalla trama alla scrittura, sviluppando una ricerca sulle possibilità della parola che a tratti definirei charmsiana. Quella che ci propone è una lingua ricca, scintillante, con una serie infinita di doppi sensi, allusioni, citazioni, metonimie e soprattutto con un intertesto sconfinato che finisce per tracimare dalle pagine e travolgere il testo vero e proprio, una lingua sulla quale tutto si regge e va da sé che si tratta di un equilibrio altamente instabile.
Sì perché Sokolov non si accontenta di giocare solo con lo stile, ma mette in discussione ogni singola parte del romanzo: gioca con i generi, alternando letteratura alta e popolare, citando ad esempio pensatori importanti e subito dopo distorcendone il credo fino a storiella da pettegolezzo, mescola tradizione e innovazione, ortodossia e folclore, prosa e poesia (è Sokolov stesso ad usare per le sue opere il neologismo di 'proesia'), passa senza preavviso dalla prima alla terza persona e dal discorso diretto a quello indiretto, fa saltare il continuum narrativo con ripetute divagazioni che finiscono per portare il lettore lontano dal punto di partenza, gioca con le coordinate spazio-temporali e ed anche con i canoni che definiscono i personaggi al punto che nel corso del romanzo Palisandr si comporta prima da uomo, poi da albero ed infine da ermafrodito, in piena sintonia con il pensiero espresso dall'autore che "è il linguaggio che definisce il carattere dei personaggi", tornando così al punto iniziale, al linguaggio che regge tutta la costruzione del romanzo.
Palissandreide è un'opera complessa di un autore importante, speriamo solo di non dover attendere altri trent'anni prima che qualche editore illuminato decida di pubblicare altro di Sokolv.
Inutile avventurarsi in una descrizione della trama, talmente ricca di episodi e personaggi da risultare difficilmente riassumibile. Diciamo che si tratta di un memoriale tra il picaresco e il distopico (è ambientato nel 2757, periodo del Nontempo) che narra le vicende di Palisandr Dal'berg, pronipote di Berija e nipote di Rasputin, da orfano del Cremlino e maestro di chiavi alla Casa dei massaggi governativa a capo dello stato e gran maestro dell'ordine supremo; semplificando rozzamente potremmo dire che si tratta di una presa in giro della gerontocrazia sovietica (il protagonista è una specie di satiro gerontofilo) che finisce vittima di un curioso contrappasso con gli eredi dei perseguitati di un tempo che si ritrovano talora a tiranneggiare i discendenti dei loro aguzzini.
Detto questo, è bene aggiungere che la trama è la cosa meno importante del libro e che con Palissandreide Sokolov continua il percorso iniziato con La scuola degli sciocchi, 'smonta' cioè il romanzo spostandone la centralità dalla trama alla scrittura, sviluppando una ricerca sulle possibilità della parola che a tratti definirei charmsiana. Quella che ci propone è una lingua ricca, scintillante, con una serie infinita di doppi sensi, allusioni, citazioni, metonimie e soprattutto con un intertesto sconfinato che finisce per tracimare dalle pagine e travolgere il testo vero e proprio, una lingua sulla quale tutto si regge e va da sé che si tratta di un equilibrio altamente instabile.
Sì perché Sokolov non si accontenta di giocare solo con lo stile, ma mette in discussione ogni singola parte del romanzo: gioca con i generi, alternando letteratura alta e popolare, citando ad esempio pensatori importanti e subito dopo distorcendone il credo fino a storiella da pettegolezzo, mescola tradizione e innovazione, ortodossia e folclore, prosa e poesia (è Sokolov stesso ad usare per le sue opere il neologismo di 'proesia'), passa senza preavviso dalla prima alla terza persona e dal discorso diretto a quello indiretto, fa saltare il continuum narrativo con ripetute divagazioni che finiscono per portare il lettore lontano dal punto di partenza, gioca con le coordinate spazio-temporali e ed anche con i canoni che definiscono i personaggi al punto che nel corso del romanzo Palisandr si comporta prima da uomo, poi da albero ed infine da ermafrodito, in piena sintonia con il pensiero espresso dall'autore che "è il linguaggio che definisce il carattere dei personaggi", tornando così al punto iniziale, al linguaggio che regge tutta la costruzione del romanzo.
Palissandreide è un'opera complessa di un autore importante, speriamo solo di non dover attendere altri trent'anni prima che qualche editore illuminato decida di pubblicare altro di Sokolv.
June 18, 2019
Сюжетная задумка от меня ускользнула.
Компоновка слов доставляет огромное удовольствие, но не чрезмерное, чтобы тащить его дальше. Ощущение необычности вообще практически без искусственности.
Всё по большей части иронично, забавно, но не до смеха.
Эротики такой читать мне не доводилось никогда, но не потому что она геронтофилическая. И не возникает вопроса "зачем это здесь?".
Компоновка слов доставляет огромное удовольствие, но не чрезмерное, чтобы тащить его дальше. Ощущение необычности вообще практически без искусственности.
Всё по большей части иронично, забавно, но не до смеха.
Эротики такой читать мне не доводилось никогда, но не потому что она геронтофилическая. И не возникает вопроса "зачем это здесь?".
December 10, 2016
V poměrně krátkém čase, další kniha, která nemá nějaký jednoduše sledovatelný děj, jasné postavy, nějaké zápletku a podobné zbytečnosti, které charakterizovaly romány ještě před příchodem postmoderny. Ale to rozhodně neznamená, že by byla kniha špatná nebo se špatně četla. tedy pokud od ní neočekáváte klasický děj s příběhem, jasně dané postavy, které budete moci v celém ději sledovat a tak podobně.
-- Tato kniha se spíše podobá dílům takových autorů, kteří čtenáře zahrnou stále obrovskou valící se lavinou postav, faktů, myšlenek, narážek na jiná díla a různých odboček a citací. Děj a dialogy postav jsou zde jen řídkou maltou, která se snaží spojit tu změť všeho možného spojit do nějakého alespoň trochu stravitelného útvaru. Napadají vás příměry k Ecovi a jeho Foucaultovu kyvadlu (ale s ještě méně viditelným dějem) nebo Nahým obědem Williama S. Burroughse (ale psaný co do formy mnohem klasičtěji) a asi by šel uvést i Sokolovův krajan Sorokin.
-- Kdybych měl knihu charakterizovat pouze jedním slovem, tak mne první napadne: opulentní. Je jako exotické indické jídlo plné různých málo známých surovin a exotických koření, kde se jedna vůně prolíná s druhou, stejně jako se zde postavy a děje reálných ruských dějin bezešvě proplétají s bláznivým světem existujícím pouze v autorově fantasii. Různé narážky a odkazy najdete na každém x-tém řádku a autor pro své řádění a černě humorné vtípky často využívá i poznámky pod čarou. A to jsem si jistý, že mne minimálně polovina vtipů a narážek, vzhledem k tomu, že nejsem tak obeznámen s ruskou historií, kulturou a obecně reáliemi, zcela minula.
-- Najdete zde příhody s Kukuřičným carem, i jinými vládci z doby SSSR. Hlavní hrdina se nejen pokusí o atentát na Brežněva ale i později jako vězeň v Kremlu zprzní jeho manželku. Ostatně gerontofilie hlavního hrdiny je takovým temným a mírně páchnoucím podtónem, který se táhne celým románem. V závěru knihy je hlavní hrdina odhalen jako hermafrodit a proto pak do poslední stránky o sobě píše ve středním rodě. Inu, pokud jste zvyklí na podivné, umělečtější a experimentálnější čtení, pak by se vám Palisandreia mohla líbit. Pokud jste zvyklí na klasičtější příběhy s jasně vykresleným dějem a postavami, pak by jste se mohli v tomto literárním labyrintu zabloudit. Nestěžujte si, že jsem vás nevaroval!
-- Tato kniha se spíše podobá dílům takových autorů, kteří čtenáře zahrnou stále obrovskou valící se lavinou postav, faktů, myšlenek, narážek na jiná díla a různých odboček a citací. Děj a dialogy postav jsou zde jen řídkou maltou, která se snaží spojit tu změť všeho možného spojit do nějakého alespoň trochu stravitelného útvaru. Napadají vás příměry k Ecovi a jeho Foucaultovu kyvadlu (ale s ještě méně viditelným dějem) nebo Nahým obědem Williama S. Burroughse (ale psaný co do formy mnohem klasičtěji) a asi by šel uvést i Sokolovův krajan Sorokin.
-- Kdybych měl knihu charakterizovat pouze jedním slovem, tak mne první napadne: opulentní. Je jako exotické indické jídlo plné různých málo známých surovin a exotických koření, kde se jedna vůně prolíná s druhou, stejně jako se zde postavy a děje reálných ruských dějin bezešvě proplétají s bláznivým světem existujícím pouze v autorově fantasii. Různé narážky a odkazy najdete na každém x-tém řádku a autor pro své řádění a černě humorné vtípky často využívá i poznámky pod čarou. A to jsem si jistý, že mne minimálně polovina vtipů a narážek, vzhledem k tomu, že nejsem tak obeznámen s ruskou historií, kulturou a obecně reáliemi, zcela minula.
-- Najdete zde příhody s Kukuřičným carem, i jinými vládci z doby SSSR. Hlavní hrdina se nejen pokusí o atentát na Brežněva ale i později jako vězeň v Kremlu zprzní jeho manželku. Ostatně gerontofilie hlavního hrdiny je takovým temným a mírně páchnoucím podtónem, který se táhne celým románem. V závěru knihy je hlavní hrdina odhalen jako hermafrodit a proto pak do poslední stránky o sobě píše ve středním rodě. Inu, pokud jste zvyklí na podivné, umělečtější a experimentálnější čtení, pak by se vám Palisandreia mohla líbit. Pokud jste zvyklí na klasičtější příběhy s jasně vykresleným dějem a postavami, pak by jste se mohli v tomto literárním labyrintu zabloudit. Nestěžujte si, že jsem vás nevaroval!
April 21, 2016
A book beyond my abilities at this time.
September 18, 2024
«Если есть уже Саша Соколов, нах*я мне Пинчон в плеере?» и другие вопросы бытия. Роман, который выворачивает наизнанку историю русского ХХ века и пишет на этой изнанке альтернативную через персонажа, назвать которого ненадежным рассказчиком равно оставить царапинку на поверхности сути. Соколов здесь не так виртуозно играется с языком, как в предыдущих своих вещах, хотя поначалу и этого хватает. Но когда на уровне сюжета происходит, что происходит, об относительной простоте текста как-то забываешь. Времена и персонажи встают встык времени, месту, положению и примитивной логики, и порою складывается ощущение, что в кинеографе поменяли блоки местами, конец ушел в начало, середина в конец, а начала вообще нет. И это к тому же дико смешная книга, в которой нелепость и несоответствие персонажа с описанными действиями и языком в какой-то момент доходят до абсурдного пика. Гаргантюанский роман с рефлексирующим Гаргантюа — наверно, это ближе всего к правде, но в общем и целом сравнивать соколовское творение ни с чем не хочется.
March 31, 2024
Чрезмерно цветастая маньеристость
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