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The Letter Killers Club (1976)

by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky(Favorite Author)

3.73 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

159017450X (ISBN13: 9781590174500)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

NYRB Classics

review 1: Whoa, this was really wonderful. It's an extremely slim (112 pages) volume of linked stories, all told by members of a secret club who are trying to escape physical writing, either written or read, for various reasons. Each week, one member shares a story, and the book mostly hinges on the quality of these.The first is a meta-play about Hamlet told from the perspective of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but about 40 years ahead of Stoppard, and it's remarkable.The second is just decent, a story about the Medieval Feast of the Ass. But here the advantages of the format began to become apparent; the listeners critiqued the story (fairly accurately) and so the plot began to modulate and shift. This was thrilling.The third is in the Zamyatin school of sci-fi anxiety, and anticip... moreates the Borg, and just felt thoroughly ahead of its time.The fourth and fifth I won't spoil, but suffice it to say that the structure begins to collapse on itself - characters re-appear, members of the club have their (now-known) aesthetic views imposed on narrative, and we begin to question our narrator. And so what we're left with is a tiny, essential mixture of Calvino and Cervantes (a direct D.Q. reference kicks things off), of Joyce and Cortazar. This makes it sounds keyed up, but what I like BEST about it is that it is decidedly unpretentious and takes on it's meta-experimentalism with ease and (believe it or not) modesty. There's a romance and a joy here to forms that you might most associate with chilly writers, and it almost seems easier than realism. That's a good and rare thing. Krzhizhanovsky was mostly unknown in his time, but the NYRB has been doing a great job by him and I can't wait to read more.
review 2: The Letter Killer’s Club is a collection of interconnected stories, with a powerful frame-tale, that ends up challenging and usurping the wondrous works created in the freestyle storytelling of the titular group. The group explores roles and role-playing in many of their stories. In the first story Richard Burbage plays the role of Stern (who in turn, along with Guilden, represents the twinning of Guildenstern), this is further complicated with the Role itself being a character. Or, more specifically, an actors version of a role (this is where Burbage comes in). We see this again in the second story, which is a traditional idea of sacred and profane coexisting (or really being two ends of the same spectrum) with neutral actors taking on different roles of sacred (the priest), and profane (the jester). He achieves this by a simple change of clothing. Yet this story is the second version of the story Father Paulin, who attempts to marry Françoise and Pierre during the Feast of the Ass. Of course here we have a sacred ceremony being attempted in the middle of a debauched festival. And the two sides of the spectrum are achieved through custom and tradition and not raiment. And yet the details here are insignificant, as Sigizmund’s stories are what one of the storytellers refers to as “people-themes” as opposed to “people-plots”. And what ties these masterful stories together is thematic, and not plot-driven. Even the characters themselves are hardly important, and this is shown, by character names being reversed in different version of the two stories of the priest (Father Paulin marries Pierre and Francoise, then Father Francois attempts to marry Pierre and Pauline. Another cool touch is the father wandering into a later story by a different storyteller). Also the storytellers themselves are given nonsense names such as: Das, Tyd, Zez, etc. But if character and plot are subjugated to the importance of the theme, what is the theme? Largely the theme is philosophical and linguistic. How do words hold power: through thought? through speech? through composition? And is speech itself a form of corruption, an act of destruction? And are pure ideas misshapen in order to fit into our pre-shaped words? Or as Sigizmund puts it: “Can one speak about silence without destroying it?” Of course you can read 500 page books on the questions asked here, but Sigizmund tends to limit the query to ideas surrounding stories, and how the telling of stories in many ways limits and defines the truth of the true objective truth of the story. In telling a story we sacrifice accuracy and truth, at the altar of communication and theme.And Sigizmund’s real question here is whether this sacrifice is a worthy one. Should writers create these worlds for themselves and thus retain full accuracy and, more importantly, control; or should writers share their works with the world. The book itself starts out with a beautiful metaphor of a drowning man leaving a trail of bubbles rising to the surface; and just like this drowning man, Sigizmund was relegated to the dark watery depths of Soviet ignorance and intransigence. Or even worse, Sigizmund was stuck on the shores of the Styx, begging Charon for a ride across to the other side, begging for a resolution, which he has only received posthumously. And thus now, Sigizmund is this drowned man, whose bubbles are fragile, meaningful creations carrying ideas inside - like oxygen - forcing them to the surface of the literary world. So for all you readers suffocated by re-tread, copy-cat fiction. Pick up Sigizmund’s work, pop his bubbles, and breathe. less

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