The Slynx

“The hero of this spellbinding futuristic novel, a government scribenamed Benedikt, lives in a primitive settlement on the site of Moscow,two hundred years after "the Blast." No one knows quite how the oldworld was destroyed; as Benedikt puts it, "People were playing aroundand played too hard with someone's arms." Citizens born after the Blastexist on a diet of mice and "worrums" and bear frightening mutations,or 'Consequences' — a tail, a single eye, a head covered with fringedred coxcombs. Other inhabitants, called Oldeners, haven't aged at allsince the Blast, and harbor memories of a lost culture that go unheededby their descendants. Tolstaya's radioactive world is a cunning blendof Russia's feudal and Soviet eras, with abuse of serfs, mandatorygovernment service, and regulation of literature. The dangers thatthreaten, however, feel more contemporary: to the south, Chechens; andto the west a civilization that might hold some promise, except thatits members "don't know anything about us." —The New Yorker“Though her short fiction combines a Chekhovian talent for character development with an Isaac Babeln like economy of prose, The Slynx is a complex, deeply rewarding masterwork about a man preserving the charred remains of Russian high culture.” –The Washington City Paper"The post-nuclear world is not so different from what many readers might imagine—a mutant race has emerged, mice are an important food group, and books are banned. And to make life for the proletariat even harder, a murderous creature called the slynx is preying on the city’s workers. Benedikt seems to live an almost charmed life as one of the dictator’s scribes, plagiarizing liberally to make Kablukov the creator of all things wonderful and wise. Then he develops a taste for knowledge, and realizes he must be the revolution." –School Library Journal“Tolstaya offsets layers of exquisitely constructed language with the colloquial and the idiomatic and in a similar way layers the commonplace with the supernatural. The creation of a brilliant jumble of motley metaphors is her gift – not plot, trajectory, or the arc of a story, but the plunge into the middle of dazzling verbiage, her bright universe.” –The Boston Phoenix“Though some may already consider contemporary Russia a kind ofdystopia, things could yet be worse, as posited in Tolstaya'sintelligent debut novel (after two acclaimed story collections,Sleepwalker in a Fog and On the Golden Porch). Some kind of nuclearaccident has turned all of Russia into a postapocalyptic wasteland,where snow falls constantly and mice are the staple of people's diets.Moscow has been ruled by a series of petty despots, each of whomrenames the great city after himself. The latest ruler is FyodorKuzmich, who employs vast numbers of scribes to copy his writings(actually plagiarized versions of great literary works). One of thesescribes is Benedikt, a simple man who has never actually read a book.But Oldeners-people who survived the blast-keep secret libraries, andwhen one of them introduces Benedikt to his collection, it begins acycle of learning that gives Benedikt serious political ambitions,enough to start yet another Russian revolution. It takes some time fora plot to develop, but Tolstaya sketches a vivid picture of life inthis permanent winter ("Give black rabbit meat a good soaking, bring itto boil seven times, set it in the sun for a week or two, then steam itin the oven-and it won't kill you"). If the author's name looksfamiliar, it's because it is: Tolstaya is Leo Tolstoy's great-grandniece, so writing about Russian tyranny is something of a family tradition. In this extended fable, she captures the Russian yearning for culture, even in desperate circumstances. Gambrell ably translates the mix of neologisms and plain speech with which Tolstaya describes this devastated world. (Jan. 15) Forecast: Tolstaya is afrequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and other journals, and this novel will likely benefit from its simultaneous publication with a collection of her essays (Pushkin's Children: Writings on Russia and Russians; Mariner).” Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information. —Publishers Weekly"With the publication . . . of THE SLYNX, [Tolstaya] will . . . be granted a place alongside her exalted countrymen Nabokov, Bulgakov, and Gogol . . ." —Bookforum“In a society turned primitive by nuclear holocaust, people hunt miceand tremble at the mention of a mysterious forest creature called theslynx; of course, they are utterly ignorant, as books are banned. Thisscenario may sound familiar, but what's new is the setting. Tolstaya, anoteworthy essayist and short story writer descended from the mightyTolstoy, places her tale in a futuristic Russia and imbues it with aRussian's typically mournful optimism. At its heart is Benedikt, scribeto the tyrant who rules this sorry land. Timid Benedikt has yet to reada book, but in the course of the novel he discovers the libraries ownedby the Oldeners, those who recall the world before the fateful blast.Not surprisingly, he finds that literature is both liberating anddangerous. The story starts slowly but gathers strength; it isparticularly interesting to see a Russian interpretation of dystopiaand to imagine parallels with Russian history. Not for your averagereader of futuristic tales, this belongs instead in all literarycollections.” [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/02.]-Barbara Hoffert,Library Journal Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information. —LibraryJournal“A strikingly imagined first novel (after stories: On the Golden Porch,1989; Sleepwalker in a Fog, 1992) skillfully creates a frightening andperversely funny postnuclear world. The setting is what once wasMoscow, two hundred years after "the Blast" that leveled themetropolis, leaving a frozen wasteland clogged with trash and populatedby a mixture of "normal" human beings and grotesque mutants. Moscow isnow called Fyodor-Kuzmichsk, in honor of its seldom-seen dictatorKablukov, a paternalistic egotist who is reputed to have invented everyuseful object now known to man and to be the author of the classicliterary works he blithely plagiarizes. A ravenous mythical beast, theslynx, further impairs the wretched lives of oppressed workers("Golubchiks"), prowling the ruined city's dark outskirts. AndBenedikt, a Golubchik employed as one of the numerous scribes recordingthe dictator's ostensible works, naively incarnates both his people'spassive servitude, and-once he's introduced to forbidden books by"Oldeners" who deny Fyodor Kuzmich's virtual divinity-their urge toward enlightenment and freedom. Sustained by his love for his fiancéeOlenka, and encouraged by his putative father-in-law KudeyarKudeyarich, Benedikt aspires to further knowledge ("He dreamt he knewhow to fly"), loses his own mutant status (surrendering his vestigialtail), and finds himself crucially involved in a "revolution" that endsFyodor Kuzmich's abuses of power even as it recycles them in differentforms. The slynx is thus less mythic than symbolic: it's the beast inman. Tolstaya enriches this mordant farce with a wealth of weirdsupporting detail reminiscent of Anthony Burgess's futuristic classicA Clockwork Orange. An ending note informs us that The Slynx was written between 1986 and 2000, and it's easy to see why. A densely woven,thought-provoking fantasy, and an impressive step forward for thegifted Tolstaya.” —Kirkus ReviewsThe Slynx, with its comical, tragical, post-nuclear holocaust setting, is a satirical blast, a linguistically inventive glimpse of a future nobody wants to see.— Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered It is impossible to communicate adequately the richness, the exuberance, and the horrid inventiveness of The Slynx.— John Banville, The New Republic [a] spellbinding futuristic novel….Tolstaya’s radioactive world is a cunning blend of Russia’s feudal and Soviet eras, with abuse of serfs, mandatory government service, and regulation of literature. The dangers that threaten, however, feel more contemporary: to the south, Chechens; and to the west a civilization that might hold some promise, except that its members “don’t know anything about us.”— The New YorkerThe Slynx is a profound work. It is well served by Jamey Gambrell’s fine translation.— Books in Canada