Life With An Idiot

by Victor Erofeyev, Andrew Reynolds

Presents a definitive collection of short fiction, originally written between 1978 and 1990, by one of Russia's most controversial avant-garde authors that capture the death throes of the Soviet Union and the author's rebellion against Soviet values. By the author of Russian Beauty. Original.

Genres: Russia, Fiction, Russian Literature

242 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Виктор Ерофеев (Russian)
Victor Erofeev (French, Italian, Romanian)
Viktor Erofeev (Italian)
Viktor Jerofejev (Dutch, Hungarian)
Viktor Jerofejew (German)
Viktor Yeroféiev (Spanish)
Viktors Jerofejevs (Latvian)
Wiktor Jerofiejew (Polish)
Βίκτωρ Γεροφέγεφ (Greek)
Віктор Єрофєєв (Ukranian)
Виктор Јерофејев (Serbian)

Viktor Yerofeyev (also transliterated as Erofeyev) was born in Moscow in 1947. The son of a high-ranking diplomat he spent some years of his childhood in Paris. This meant he had access early on to literature banned in the Soviet Union. He was greatly influenced by the works of Vladimir Nabokov and the Marquis de Sade. In the late 1960’s he studied Literature in Moscow. He then worked for the Institute of World Literature. In 1975, he completed his doctorate with a thesis on »Dostoevsky and French Existentialism«. As a literary critic he wrote some essays interpreting the Marquis de Sade’s writing and an article on the philosophy of Leo Shestov. The literary almanac »Metropol« (Eng. »Metropol«, 1982) first created a major scandal in 1979. It was a compilation of politically explosive texts, selected by Victor Erofeyev, Vassili Axionow, Andrei Bitov, Jevgeni Popov and Fasil Iskander, in which both officially established writers and renegade writers were included. The attempt to publish the almanac in the Soviet Union failed because it was judged to be »pornography of the mind«. The work was published in the West. During this period his father, Vladimir Erofeyev, Stalin's former interpreter, was forced to resign and end his diplomatic career. From this time Victor Erofeyev was considered a dissident, and his writings were banned. With the first signs of Glasnost and Perestroika, Victor Erofeyev was able to publish again. In 1990 his first novel appeared, »Russkaia Krasavitsa« (Eng. »Russian Beauty«, 1992). Through the story of the beautiful Irena, a high-class prostitute in Moscow, the reader is transported into the world of the dark, grotesque aesthetics of sex, violence and death. In two essays, »Pominki po sovyetskoi literatur« (1990; t: An epitaph of Soviet literature) and »Russkie tsvety zla« (1993; Eng. »Russia’s Fleurs du mal«, 1995) Victor Erofeyev announced the death of the literature of Socialist Realism. At the same time he set out a radical artistic manifesto for a new literature of evil. He was also the editor of the first Russian edition of Nabokov's work, together with other anthologies of Russian literature. His story »Zhizn s idiotom« (1991; Eng. »Life With an Idiot«, 1992) was adapted for the operatic stage by Alfred Schnittke. Victor Erofeyev writes regularly for »The New Yorker« and the »New York Review of Books«. After his well-received autobiographical novel »Khoroshii Stalin« (2004; t: The good Stalin), he recently published a collection of stories »De Profundis« (2006). Victor Erofeyev lives in Moscow.

© international literature festival berlin

Reviews

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, Victor Erofeyev, where have you been all my life? I picked this book at random at the library and was just stunned by the stories. So twisted, so dense, so different from anything I've ever read. Yes, I was a little afraid someone might be reading over my shoulder on the subway (the title story involves head shearing and some really creepy sex, after all), but there was no way I could stop reading. I'm sure I missed a lot of the references to Russian politics and society, but I think the sign of a good story is when it's able to stand apart from its references.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

For most Americans, Soviet Era Russian literature is just a handful of books and authors (Solzhenitsyn, Bulgakov, Pasternak, maybe Akmahtova), most of whom did not make it through the 1950s. Erofeyev as the enfant terrible of the late Soviet era, writing (but largely not publishing) absurdist fictions in a highly postmodern vein full of wordplay, literary reference, violence, scatology and sexuality. The dirty stuff and the experimental stuff isn't totally foreign to an American reader, but would have outraged the Soviet censors every bit as much as the political content of these stories. Which brings the biggest challenge to the American reader (at least this one): if Russian literature isn't foreign enough for you, these stories couple the displacement of that culture with the late Soviet era that we don't really give much though to anymore (but maybe ought to), reference to a lot of relatively obscure (to Americans anyway) Russian writers and philosophers, and a bunch of wordplay and narrative shifts that would be hard enough to follow on their own. Even with explanatory notes, these stories are a real challenge to wrap your head around since they are premised on you knowing a lot of things about 1970s-1990s Russia that you probably don't as well as having a depth of knowledge of Russian literature you're unlikely to have. It's not that the stories are impossible to understand, it's just that most English speaking readers won't come equipped with the background it takes to really get them.

[Matt]

I really liked this, and found it to be one of the most challenging and rewarding books I've read in a while-- Erofeyev's stories here are at once fantastic in the sense that things happen in them that are impossible, formally inventive in the sense that in many stories there are overlapping storylines (at least that's how I'm reading it), conceptually sophisticated about the writing itself and its place in the Russian and other traditions, and politically aware, engaged in a regular and not at all simplistic critique of Russian culture. Lots of the stories are funny and very dirty, etc.

It's also a bit much, though, as a collection-- I devoured the first half or so in a weekend, and it's taken me maybe six weeks to read through the second hundred pages. There's a lot here to satiate and sustain you, but spread it out over a long time-- my best experiences with it were reading a story or two before bed....

[Ivan Labayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

a mother mounts her son; hallucination while selecting an idiot to house: "shortage of symbols" in an economically ragtag country; and an experienced driver driving a car by forgetting that he's driving it; and the city being OUT on the streets, extensively referential to russian culture, russian history, russian sensibility, russian humor, russian language, this book is not russian,

[ILIYAN RUZHIN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ще гласувам с петолъчки. "Ех!" Колко перверзно.

[dogman · Rating 5 out of 5]

well, that was different. hopefully one day I'll be able to interpret it.

[Jonathan Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I grew to hate this book. A slow read and given my lack of knowledge of the inside jokes of Russia etc among the short stories I just had to give up on it halfway.

[LHN · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dạo này ám ảnh về Nga hay sao mà toàn sách của tác giả Nga hay về Nga ý.

Sách hơi khó đọc, ko biết do dạo này mình hay bị phân tán tư tưởng hay do sách - toàn những đoạn dài rồi mình ko nhận ra là mình đang đọc gì.

[Селина Йонкова · Rating 4 out of 5]

потресаващи разкази от първа ръка, страховити в абсурдната си реалистичност!
и после защо това и онова?!
ами, защото!

[Sergey Tomson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Для писателя проблемы России - это удача. Если бы жизнь здесь была лучше,
я бы лишился питательной среды для своих сочинений. Если бы я не был писателем,
я бы лучше жил в Париже или Берлине... Запад погрузился в болото агностицизма,
в котором тонет любой помысел о метафизике. В России все наоборот:
после распада СССР здесь все ударились в метафизику.
Раньше на похоронах с покойником прощались навсегда,
а сегодня говорят: "До свидания, Петр"

Виктор Ерофеев

Когда в интеллигентной советской семье вдруг начинают обмениваться половыми партнёрами, гадить на ковёр, мазать обои калом и отстригать головы кухонным секатором, то я такую книжку обычно сразу закрываю и делаю вид, что ничего не было. "Жизнь с идиотом" я закрыть не успел, потому что история тут же сама собой и завершилась.

Я поискал в русскоязычном Интернете, что же по этому поводу думают наши люди. А нашим людям это, как я понял, не очень-то понравилось. И, судя по всему, эти люди вообще не склонны думать.

"Тому, кто желает понять прошлое, требуется умение анализировать и размышлять. Это умение в нашей стране не очень распространено. Это относится и к нашей интеллигенции" (В. Ерофеев). Кажется, это уже набило оскомину.
Признаюсь, я анализировать и размышлять на эту тему действительно не умею. Тем более странно, что выбранная литературная форма Ерофеева к таковым размышлениям-то как раз и подталкивает (если учесть мою склонность в некоторой степени идеализировать распавшийся Советский Союз).

Зато на goodreads сплошь восторженные и куда более осмысленные англоязычные отзывы. Какая-то американская девочка, которой было стыдно читать "Жизнь с идиотом" в автобусе, восхищается умением автора отойти от системы и взглянуть на неё со стороны. И никто почему-то не возмущается обилием кала, кровопролитием, гомоэротическими сценами и общей атмосферой абсурда. С одной стороны я им немного завидую, потому что в первую минуту после прочтения я почувствовал себя полнейшим идиотом. Я и сейчас чувствую крайний дефицит умственных способностей, чтобы разбирать этот рассказ.
С другой стороны - мне хочется быть идиотом и вообще ничего не понимать, писать в комментах: "Что это за бред!" и жить себе спокойно дальше. Хочется ведь жить именно так - спокойно или даже тупо, проще хочется жить.

Я бы побоялся рекомендовать кому-то этот рассказ. Мне кажется для этого нужно точно знать, идиот человек или просто прикидывается.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have had a long-time interest in author bios--namely, that the longer the bio, the less confident that writer is about his or her work. And though I doubt that Erofeyev himself wrote the bio, the extravagant and dogmatic nature of the back cover proves in retrospect an indication that there was not enough trust in the work itself to promote this book. While the title story is a wonderfully lavish play on Soviet paranoia and oppression (a man who has been convicted or a crime we never hear about is sentenced to live with an idiot), and "The Parakeet" is an astounding story that delves deep (scaringly deep) into the psychology of a power-mad torturer, and I found two or three other stories of some mild interest, a lot of this work simply didn't generate my interst, and I found myself put off early on by the stylizing and then quickly looking to see when o when the story might end.

[Shira Raider]

What is Life With An Idiot like? Well. At various points, impenetrable and entertaining, sometimes both at once. Never pat and expected. Many stories, particularly the titular one, had multiple layers of meaning and I often couldn't get past the surface, due to lacking a lot of cultural context. But I definitely wasn't sorry I read this. It was truly a ride. I particularly enjoyed the second to last story, The Girlfriends.

[Andrew]

Author influenced Cosmin Manolache in Best European Fiction 2010

[Kevin Tole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too wide and deep to take in fully at a first reading but this is quality writing which is funny and engages the mind. I shall reread it soon

[Anna]

Most depressing book I've ever read

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russian satire is in a class all its own. Erofeyev is one modern voice to look for.