The Slynx

The Slynx
Rusija
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Tatyana Tolstaya
Oh Book! You’re the one thing that won’t deceive me, hit out at me, offend or ever abandon me! So quiet – yet you laugh out loud, shout and sing; so humble – yet you astonish, tease and entice; so small – yet embracing countless peoples; just a handful of letters – but, when in the mood, you can make my head spin, confuse me, twirl me along, befuddle me, call forth my tears, freeze me rigid so I struggle for breath. My whole soul is in turmoil like a sheet in the wind, whirling in waves, flapping its wings!

The action of The Slynx, which the writer embarked upon shortly after the Chernobyl disaster, takes place in an unspecified future, 20 years after the Big Bang in the town of Fyodor-Kuzmichsk, which had in the distant past been Moscow. The survivors living in forests and swamps feed on mice and radio-active dates: their way of thinking is archaic and they venerate their main benefactor – Fyodor Kuzmich, who gave them fire, letters of the alphabet, the wheel and much else. They are frightened of the cats living in their woods, which remain out of sight but are considered dangerous. In this novel Tolstaya creates an all-embracing mythopoetic image of a “Russian world” standing on its eternal foundations, an image of Russian eternity, which cannot be reduced to either a prophecy or a condemnation of the past. In the finale this world goes up in flames.

As far as its style is concerned the novel Kys combines a lyrical core (numerous echoes of classical Russian poetry and prose) and a quasi-folktale, in which Tatyana Tolstaya’s creative use of language comes into its own.

Tatyana Tolstaya was born in 1951 in Leningrad. After graduating in Classics from Leningrad State University, Tatyana Tolstaya worked as a proof-reader at “Nauka” (Science) publishers. Her striking entry into the literary world followed publication in 1983 of her story On the Golden Porch. Her first collection of short stories under the same title came out in 1987 and attracted the attention of both readers and critics. From 1990 to 1999 she lived in the United States where she taught Russian literature and creative writing. She also worked as a publicist for Russian newspapers and journals. Her novel Kys, which was published in 2001 and awarded the “Triumph Prize” in Russia: it was published in English in 2007 with the title The Slynx by the New York Review of Books. A new period in her creative career began in 2010 when she began writing in the first person: the novella Light Worlds (awarded the Belkin Prize in 2014), the short stories Smoke and Shadows and Girl in Full Bloom, the essay Fares up front! and reminiscences under the titles On a Low Flameand Invisible Maiden.