Yurodivy (Suttree to Singer in a week)

The above term refers to a Russian tradition of the holy fool who speaks of conscience and clemency against tyranny. This figure is featured as a foil of sort in many aspects of Russian History generally but specifically in the accounts surrounding Boris Godunov, both the play by Pushkin and the Opera by Mussorgsky. There is evidence of a similar sensation gracing the riverbanks in Cormac McCarthy's Suttree. It isn't Cornelius Suttree himself that waxes in praise of folly, rather, a protean band of the dispossessed that haunts the shadows, evoking redemption and inverting the relative gospel of Horatio Alger. These characters are invisible people, like the "invisible" inhabitants of Carson McCullers' netherworld. These are miserable souls who eke out livings and suffer along the societal and geographical margins. Acting as a hub to this slipstream of human detritus is Sutree, the embattled observer. It is only within his dreams that Suttree confronts the reasons he abandoned his family and moved to a house boat on the banks of the Tennessee. These references are oblique at best but display a festering intimacy with this troubled soul. An element of comic torque is provided via the character of Gene Harrogate, a backwoods dreamer whose sexual predilection for watermelons engenders a bizarre spiral of encounters with Suttree. There isn't much per denouement in the novel, nor shimmering crescendos. There is an exhaustion of the body organic and shift in policy - the novel ends with the construction of the interstate and the demolition of the riverbank shanties, not echoing the perverse vanity of Robert Mugabe by any means.

As I await the forthcoming McCarthy novel I elected to shift gears in way that was perhaps influenced by Joel's reference to Isaac Babel or perhaps by the blissful hours I spent among the stacks in Indianapolis and Bloomington on Tuesday. I sat on the floor for the better part of a hour, perusing the tomes of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer is one of those figures that I know about but have never taken the time to truly familiarize myself with or actually read. This was resolved on Wednesday as I began reading The Certificate. It is a novel delightful and dark. The time of its composition was unknown at the time of its translation and publication. I must admit that I agree with its translator as believing that it is a young man's book. Thus it was likely written not long after its date of activity of 1922 in Warsaw. The characters are remarkably strong in their definition and, consequently, as loose and dislodged as all of humanity in their actions. The scope of the conversations within the novel is brazen and remniscent of Settembrini and Naphta in Magic Mountain, the latter providing a sinister air to Singer's minor characters, particularly one that doesn't admit an argument of Spinoza as Baruch wasn't a communist! David, the protagonist, is an agreeable character, quite culpable of contradiction, especially towards the behavior of the sexes. I had thought of then reading Shadow On The Hudson by Singer, which I own, but elected to touch base with another neglected treasure Call It Sleep by Henry Roth. The unexpected rains last night prodded my attention to a book that Joel recently gave me: Shostakovich and Stalin by Solomon Volkov. I read fifty pages and was impressed with Volkov comparing the relationship of Nicholas I and Pushkin in lieu of the Decembrist Uprising with the dire times of Shostakovich and Koba The Dread.

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