It wasn’t until I was getting ready to post this review that I realized that at 152 pages it qualifies for Novellas in November!
I read Envy right after Dostoevsky’s The Gambler, and perhaps that was too much for me. The two short Russian novels have a lot in common even though they were written more than 60 years apart. They both feature young male narrators in a frenzy and easily offended. They both have long philosophical speeches that doesn’t seem to mean much. Olesha leans more into Absurdism, but Dostoevsky can be pretty absurdist himself.
Andrei Petrovich Babichev is a model Soviet citizen, a trust director in charge of food. He has literally picked our narrator, Nikolai Kavalerov, up from the gutter and given him a bed on his sofa. Andrei Petrovich is fat and self-satisfied, true, but Nikolai hates everything about him.
Then he meets Andrei’s brother, Ivan, a sort of buffoon who makes up ridiculous stories and also hates Andrei.
Andrei’s claim to fame is a huge communal dining hall he’s building, where food is supposed to be good and cheap. He has also produced a good, inexpensive sausage that he’s proud of. Olesha is clearly making fun of these accomplishments, and I don’t know how he got away with it in 1927 Soviet Union.
There is lots of talk about the New Man that Communism is going to produce but no sign of one. (Coincidentally, I am reading The Possessed by Dostoevsky right now, and there’s lots of talk about the New Man in it, too; only apparently he’s supposed to be produced by Nihilism.)
Thanks to the publisher for sending me this book in exchange for a free and fair review.
What? Me Read? 