There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband and He Hanged Himself

There Once Lived a Girl... / Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

trans. from the Russian by Anna Summers

NY: Penguin, 2013.

171 p.

These stories live up to their complicated and weird titles -- I've seen quite a few of Petrushevskaya's collections and they are all similarly titled. And I think it gives a sense of the unbalancing nature of her writing. This one is a collection of stories first published  between 1972 and 2008.

This is the first writing by Petrushevskaya that I have been able to read, and it was definitely worth it. She has a sharp eye, and uses it to skewer everyday life in Soviet Russia. She doesn't talk about politics directly but it permeates all her stories -- the personal is political. I was very engaged by the way she uses understatement masterfully to expose the bleak nature of both daily life and of souls. It seems to be the logical outcome of a system started by men with no appreciation or understanding of beauty as a part of life. (see Teffi's characterization of Lenin early on in the Soviet experiment).

Many of these stories focus on women, and the lives they lead in their tiny shared apartments, looking for love or companionship. The style is flatly narrative: this happened, then this happened. I think it matches the content well, and the sense of living in a flat grey Soviet world. I've been reading a few books set in the Soviet era over the last while, and it feels like she has that theme cornered here.

Like Mavis Gallant notes, short stories are best read one by one with a pause in between. I think that's especially true here, as the stories are structured in similar ways and cover similar topics. Take a breather between them or they might start to blend together a bit. I interspersed reading these with some of the other great titles I've shared so far this month and it worked well. 

I think many of my favourite stories were found in the first section of the book -- Like Penélope, or The Goddess Parka -- but also later ones, especially Milgrom. These do feature sewing in them so maybe that's why they sparked a particular fascination for me. But they were beautifully written too.

Like yesterday's read, Sofia Petrovna, the women in these stories have to manage uncertain, crowded living spaces and tenuous family relationships, but unlike that novel of the 30s, Petrushevskaya's characters also have an edge; they are more accustomed to Soviet style life by now. 

These "love" stories are anything but; hard-edged, desperate, lonely, cynical... these best describe our characters. They are trying to get what they can within this unwinnable system. 

If you're in the mood for bleak humour, stark cultural commentary and stories about women's lives in the midst of enormous bureaucracy, try some of these. Slowly, bit by bit.