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King of Odessa: A Novel of Isaac Babel
An offbeat and brilliant imagining of a "lost novel" by Isaac Babel
A celebrated writer returns to his hometown of Odessa, pondering a deal with the secret police, pining for a daughter living abroad, and hoping to pen one last homage to his own past. Isaac Babel, the world famous spinner of tales about Cossacks and gangsters, arrives in Odessa to be treated for asthma-and perhaps help a condemned prisoner to escape. Or is it Babel who intends to escape?
For six decades our only record of Babel's visit has been the contents of letters and postcards sent abroad to his mother and sister. In King of Odessa, Robert A. Rosenstone imagines a version of this visit and the novel Babel wrote during those weeks. Babel himself is concerned with more than literary plots as he considers an escape just as he starts an affair with an actress who may be a police spy. He also ruminates on his past-his childhood as a sickly Jewish boy, the horrifying 1905 pogrom, the famous rides with the Cossacks that inspired Red Calvary , and above all his complicated relationships with women. Throughout the novel Rosenstone captures Babel's lively wit, his exhaustion with fame and the Soviet system, and his infectious charm.
This would prove to be Babel's last visit to Odessa. Three years later, he was arrested as a spy and executed. Rosenstone, the acclaimed biographer of writer and activist John Reed, mixes historical facts and fiction with the talent of a gifted storyteller. The result is a captivating exploration of a great writer surrounded by history and on the brink of falling out of it forever.
A celebrated writer returns to his hometown of Odessa, pondering a deal with the secret police, pining for a daughter living abroad, and hoping to pen one last homage to his own past. Isaac Babel, the world famous spinner of tales about Cossacks and gangsters, arrives in Odessa to be treated for asthma-and perhaps help a condemned prisoner to escape. Or is it Babel who intends to escape?
For six decades our only record of Babel's visit has been the contents of letters and postcards sent abroad to his mother and sister. In King of Odessa, Robert A. Rosenstone imagines a version of this visit and the novel Babel wrote during those weeks. Babel himself is concerned with more than literary plots as he considers an escape just as he starts an affair with an actress who may be a police spy. He also ruminates on his past-his childhood as a sickly Jewish boy, the horrifying 1905 pogrom, the famous rides with the Cossacks that inspired Red Calvary , and above all his complicated relationships with women. Throughout the novel Rosenstone captures Babel's lively wit, his exhaustion with fame and the Soviet system, and his infectious charm.
This would prove to be Babel's last visit to Odessa. Three years later, he was arrested as a spy and executed. Rosenstone, the acclaimed biographer of writer and activist John Reed, mixes historical facts and fiction with the talent of a gifted storyteller. The result is a captivating exploration of a great writer surrounded by history and on the brink of falling out of it forever.
- GenresHistory
262 pages, Paperback
First published May 21, 2003
1 person is currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Robert A. Rosenstone
25 books18 followersRobert A. Rosenstone, who was born in Montreal, Canada, but has lived most of his life in Los Angeles, is the author of a dozen books in various genres, including history, biography, criticism, and fiction. The latter has been his major focus in recent years. Among his fictional works are the novel, King of Odessa (2003), a book of stories, The Man Who Swam into History : The (Mostly) True Story of My Jewish Family ( 2005), and the recent novel Red Star, Crescent Moon: A Muslim Jewish Love Story (2010).
Rosenstone’s scholarly works include Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed (1975), one of the sources for the Academy Award winning film, Reds, on which he served as historical consultant; Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters in Meiji Japan (1988), an experimental, multi-voiced biography of three American sojourners in nineteenth century Japan; Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil war (1969, reprinted 2009), and two works about historical film: Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (1995), and History on Film / Film on History (2006).
He has also been active in visual media projects, including time spent as consultant or writer for the following dramatic features and documentaries: Reds (1982), The Good Fight (1983), Darrow (1991), and Tango of Slaves (1999), and he has appeared on screen in several documentaries, including Screening Histories: The Filmmaker Strikes Back. (BBC, 1998), Rebels. (CBC, 1999), and Emma Goldman: A Troublesome Presence (PBS, 2004)
He is married to Nahid Massoud, a photographer, who is at once his best friend and his muse.
Rosenstone’s scholarly works include Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed (1975), one of the sources for the Academy Award winning film, Reds, on which he served as historical consultant; Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters in Meiji Japan (1988), an experimental, multi-voiced biography of three American sojourners in nineteenth century Japan; Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil war (1969, reprinted 2009), and two works about historical film: Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (1995), and History on Film / Film on History (2006).
He has also been active in visual media projects, including time spent as consultant or writer for the following dramatic features and documentaries: Reds (1982), The Good Fight (1983), Darrow (1991), and Tango of Slaves (1999), and he has appeared on screen in several documentaries, including Screening Histories: The Filmmaker Strikes Back. (BBC, 1998), Rebels. (CBC, 1999), and Emma Goldman: A Troublesome Presence (PBS, 2004)
He is married to Nahid Massoud, a photographer, who is at once his best friend and his muse.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 30, 2022
Odessa has a long history of people mingling peacefully and routinely as life long residents and visitors. Robert A. Rosenstone recreates the life of famed writer Isaac Babel during a time he revisits his hometown of Odessa. Isaac leads an unusual life of writing, women, travel and trying to stay alive in the Ukraine during a time when Russian writers were in danger from Stalin's regime..
June 10, 2024
Overall, it's worth reading. It's pretty slow going until the last 50 pages or so, but they make it all worth the time invested. Lots of interesting insights into Odessa at the time and what it was like for some living in the 30s during the Bolshevik Revolution, which is what I was really after.
January 3, 2009
An excellent, sometimes fun and sometimes profound, historical novel. Very impressive for the guy's first work of fiction.
December 20, 2013
Fantastic story; fully believable, and more like I think things probably came about.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews