This interpretation also makes the ending hit harder for me. So if we assume they have sex, then in the span of basically a page we have him leaving, so happy he's choosing to swagger and sing instead of walk straight. He gets to the home he shares with his people, opens up is book, and guess what, the author who just inspired this act was actually deeply unwell and died a horrible death. It feels like a kind of ironic, very Babel joke to end on. And since that, and not the sex, is what leaves him feeling brushed by a "foreboding of truth," it feels all the more important.
To reduce the character to two descriptors: he’s an artist striving for recognition, and a young man longing for sex. He admires Maupassant (but not Tolstoy - what a detail!) and, during this story, achieves one of his primary goals - sex. Easy for a young man to get drunk on that and think that life will now fall into place. (And maybe, like Maupassant, live the meta-dream where you not only have sex and write stories but write stories about having sex.)
But the Babel punch at the end implies he won’t have it all. Even when your ambitions are within grasp - he’s had the sex, he’s earning money for being literary - life always makes time to laugh at you. You can still get knocked to the bottom, eating shit and going mad. The antithesis of sexiness and greatness.
Given that De Maupassant died from advanced syphilis, seems to suggest that the character not only had sex, but is now contemplating one of the potential consequences of that.
The story ends with the narrator being "touched by a premonition of truth." I so look forward to next week when George writes about the ending. I'm guessing that death by syphilis is the overstory--the thing that happened--but that there is much more in the understory about following one's passions, living the life of an artist, and growing older in a mean world.
This rings so true, Mary. What you refer to as "the overstory," that of a man dying from a consequence of succumbing to his passion, makes so much sense for the "yes, they did it" version of the story. Otherwise what profound meaning would the ending have? "Oh thank goodness we didn't do it! I could have ended up like De Maupassant. Whew." For me, this story is about succumbing to our passions in the moment, and then experiencing the shift from joyful afterglow (come to think of it, the narrator would likely not be swaggering home if he'd failed to perform) to a profound, ironic truth of life: not only does no one get out alive, but on the way out, as a consequence of succumbing to our passions, we might end up eating shit and barking at the moon. Which, as Annemarie put it, is "the antithesis of sexiness and greatness."
Living our passions--it's a choice a person makes. But it can have it downsides. The story starts with his proclamation that he will live this way. And ends with his knowledge that it can have dire results. Loving this story more and more!
I loved reading this. Thank you, George! I feel I've just been taken through a lawyer's closing arguments. Guilty of having sex! Yes! I won't write about your question here ("...to ask whether the ending of the story has more bite if they have sex or they don’t") since you'll be writing about the ending next week. I had been wondering if Babel purposely left the sex out of the story--or if he knew just how ambiguous he'd made things. I'm guessing he did NOT mean to confuse his readers. So perhaps it's the translation aspect, or perhaps it's our modern-day minds getting in the way. Because it seems clear that Babel did not mean to confuse us.
For we who are writers, I think this remark by you is something crucial to remember: "a short story is a beautifully tuned, organic system in which every element is humming and resonating and in touch with every other element." This is, of course, how the "gun in the first act must go off in the third act" maxim came into being. Everything in a short story is there for a reason, and every part speaks to every other part. Always good to be reminded of this.
One tiny bit of the story that I loved: In the very beginning of the story, the narrator writes of spending his days visiting morgues and police stations. He says he and his comrades live in dire poverty. And then, he writes, "But the happiest of all was Kazantsev." Leaving behind the part about Kazantsev having found a home in a country he'd never been, the line strikes me as important because of that word "but." It means the narrator, poor and hungry, was happy! He had his passions, his loves, his convictions, and he was happy. This, then, speaks to the end of the story--but i said i wouldn't write about that now, so I'll stop. (I just love that very important "but"!!!)
It seemed perfectly clear to me on the first reading speeding through that sex had occurred. And that it was not how Guy de Maupassant died per se that was so disturbing to the narrator but that Fate could and would strike you down mid-stride regardless of how well-lived your life might have been.
I’ve often admired writers who achieve ambiguity in their stories like Babel does in this story. I wonder how it’s done. I’ve set out to write “an ambiguous story” before but found it a formidable challenge. Maybe it’s something some stories have in them due to the circumstances and language that accrues in them and other stories don’t, and forcing a story to “be ambiguous” before any words were even on the page was part of my problem.
That exquisite attention to every word — But! — is what makes writing and reading so much fun. I expect that if Babel could see all this close reading he'd have a few 'well-turned celebratory sentences' to throw back at us for further enjoyment.
Yes, and there is so much humor in the placement of this sentence ("But the happiest of all was Kazantsev") coming right after hearing of the squalor they live in. A well-timed joke.
Mary I too love the reminder that the short story is beautifully tuned as George says, and for this reason I think the ambiguity is a key to understanding the point of this story. To me, the ambiguity of the 'did they, didn't they' feeds into the narrator's (and Raisa's) love of 'the story'.
I think the 'message' of this story is that, life is beautiful in the story, and we can keep it that way, we can choose to generate possibility, to feel joy, it's a choice that we can make:
That Kazantsev has never been to Spain but 'a love of that country filled his being' sets the tone for that to be a possibility, Kazantsev creates that story which creates his love for Spain.
My favourite line which (to me) confirms the importance for the narrator of living in 'the story' is, 'I was sober and could have walked on a single board, but it was much better to stagger, and I swayed from side to side, singing loudly in a language I had only just invented.' So after the 'sex-or non-sex' possibility has passed, the narrator tries to keep the joy alive walking home, where the ugliness of life could seep in, but he doesn't allow it, because he keeps hold of joy the existed in that drunken feeling and generates new possibilities in a new language.
I love that focus on the generation of possibility and the joy that comes from that - all the breast assessment feels like evidence of that. The narrator gets through life by generating possibility. I think we are being told, in possibility there is the joy and possibility is an essential ingredient a story.
That 'the happiest of all was Kazantsev' says to me that Kazantsev will never have anything take the possibility of loving Spain away from him, the possibilities are infinite - he has never - and presumably may never visit Spain. No real experiences of Spain are allowed into his story.
The detail of the fact of whether they did or they didn't - slips out of the story world by the narrator's choice. The did-they-didn't-they question has an important function, it demonstrates the narrator's ability to be like his idol - to be a great story teller, and leave that possibility for the reader to experience the joy of.
What a beautiful post, Marissa. I love all that you've said here about possibility. In the end of the story, though, i do think our narrator sees that some possibilities are dire. So we have to examine our life choices and figure out what is important. The part where Maupassant is said to be like an animal--well, we all are animals, but we can live our lives on another, higher level. I don't agree with you that the sex was meant to be ambiguous, but i appreciate your comments. I'm of the mind that no writer should leave the climax of a story off of the page. And so I don't think Babel would do that. To me, he felt he'd put it right there--but our modern minds don't see it.
Thanks Mary, I am always amazed at 'the way into' these incredible stories we study here. This one is a case in point. I would love to have witnessed Babel's development of it. I'd convinced myself that, in this story, he started out with an admiration for the power of 'the story', the way we can 'make', be 'makers'. Wow, so powerful! To me, it's as though Babel said, look at this creation tool humans have - the story - it's a collection of possibilities, we make our story - but our ability to shape the story is limited - like Maupassant trying to put up a fight against the disease, throughout his symptoms, he 'wrote incessantly', perhaps as a way to gain control of a story, when his own life story was controlled by his illness.
I think it really demonstrates the foundational intention of 'the story'. I am very interested in 'intention' or 'motivation' or more just possibly, 'the reflection of the author's heart and mind'. I wonder how much truth - or personal experience lies within? With the story ending with our narrator's heart constricted, I feel that pain of doubting if story telling can be enough, that which he relies on, that which he has found trust in, might not save him.
These great writers seem to have such a deep understanding of themselves. I am coming to understand that the bulk of the work for short stories has to be the observation of 'self' and a bravery to investigate and find forgiveness, to find those patterns in behaviour, those stories we tell ourselves to get by. And then to use the 'safe space' of short story to challenge their effectiveness, to watch those 'behavioural crutches' fail but then, despite, be readopted for the comfort they contain.
It is a communion I think to be able to feel the love from a writer via their characters. We are so fortunate to have the short story form and masters of it. When George speaks the 'organic system in which every element is humming and resonating and in touch with every other element', the space around these elements, the energy that makes them hum and resonate is surely love.
Thank you for all of this! You write: "These great writers seem to have such a deep understanding of themselves." My take is that it is through the writing that they come to such an understanding.
The short story writer has to make sure that their reader doesn't wander aimlessly through a grand hotel of thoughts. Self-discovery on the page has the possibility to get very messy. The writer needs the story to invites the reader to try the doors in one corridor, and gives them the key to one room.
The writer focuses attention via a series of decisions -a process of separating and considering at a micro level. (I think). But does all that happen on the page or is it because of who we are, and what we think about off the page that we can do that?
I know that that hotel metaphor is overly linear but I mean that the short story form enables or even forces the 'simplification' of the complex.
To offer the reader a focused journey towards recognising something (and recognising requires a perhaps muddled or unconscious shared knowledge - or truth, the writer needs to be attentive in the process of 'singling out' a strand of that knowledge, a truth, and making sure all the available light falls on that one thing. This is something that the time spent writing a story offers. It's a system of organising thoughts, in some ways.
It's so fascinating to imagine what the starting thought (or collection of thoughts) might have been for Babel in a story like this. Foresight and hindsight are the story apart.
Hi again, I found this quote from Babel on Wikipedia "Only by 1923 I have learned how to express my thoughts in a clear and not very lengthy way. Then I returned to writing." Babel valued reading a list of a hundred books (according to Wikipedia) many of them written by philosophers. It feels helpful to me to know that he advised focus preparatory reading, believing that, according to his partner, ‘'Reading that way will get you nowhere. You won't have time to read the books that are truly worthwhile. ‘ This approach makes sense to me reading his carefully focused thoughts via his stories. I suppose the exploration on the page is only as fruitful as what’s in the mind.
I went to Wikipedia to try to understand your comment better. Yes, Antonina Pirozhkova said that she was reading all sorts of things, and so Babel--thinking she was wasting her time reading lousy books--gave her a list of a hundred books he said she should read instead. I think this is the way most great writers are created: by reading good books and learning from them.
Before reading this, I was definitely in the "they did not have sex" camp. I think it all comes down to how one reads the various actions.
He kisses her, and her lips "tremble and swell." I think swelling indicates some arousal, but "tremble" could mean either fear or anticipation. If it is fear (which is how I read it), she's feeling two conflicting things at once, which I think is reasonable, considering the circumstances.
She staggers backwards and presses herself up against the wall. I took this to mean that she was trying to create space between them. She wanted to get away. I definitely didn't read it as some sort of offering. Then, "On her hands and shoulder spots began to burn." This could be arousal, but it could also be embarrassment. I read it as embarrassment.
When she tells him to move to another chair, my interpretation was that she was indicating a chair that was further away from her own. I know there's nothing in the text that suggests that, but believe it or not, that's how I read it.
The growled, "you're a funny one," after he knocks over her bookshelf, I read as, "I've really had enough of you."
Obviously, a big part of my interpretation is because I relate more to Raisa than I do the narrator, and if I were in Raisa's shoes, it'd have been a no-go. There's nothing in the story that makes the narrator attractive. What is she seduced by? His poverty? The way he's always ogling her and her maid? His condescending attitude towards her translations?
Although I'm frustrated by the idea that when a woman behaves ambiguously, that means she's being coy and flirtatious and not merely disinterested, after reading George's interpretation, I'm convinced that Babel intended for us to believe they had sex. This is because Babel probably related more to the narrator than he did to Raisa, and in the narrator's mind, Raisa was attracted to him.
As far as how that how that changes the story for me, it makes it less interesting. I thought the story worked better with Raisa rejecting him in the end.
Interesting! I could relate to Raisa wanting to have sex with this young man who opens up the world of Maupassant to her-- Maupassant, who is her passion! The most seductive thing imaginable to her! And so she gets him drunk. She playfully flirts with him. She unabashedly throws her arms wide against the bookshelf. She's chosen the moment no one is home. Her husband--she's not interested in him. I did not see disinterest in her actions. I saw just the opposite. And I also saw her as being in charge of the whole situation.
By the way, Amy. I want to say that i so appreciate your take on this! I didn't mean to imply that I am right and you are wrong. I really enjoyed reading what you wrote here.
I still don't see the attraction, but you're right, she IS in charge, and I think I didn't really take that into as much consideration as I could have. It's her house, and the place is full of servants. She could've had him thrown out at any moment--as a matter of fact, I thought that's what happened after he knocked over the bookcase. If she didn't have so much power, I'd have worried that whatever happened between them wasn't consensual.
I also read this, very strongly, as her saying no. Sure, he was a fun kid to tease, but below her in social standing. It is one thing to flirt with the cute young staff, and another thing to actually sleep with him! I read her saying "oh you are a funny one" as the rejection, and the implied reason for the rejection.
After all, we have only seen this through his eyes before. The same ones that ascribed sexuality to the maid, and every other woman that he has encountered. He is not a reliable narrator, he is a horny kid with delusions of his own importance (ex: his rejection of a steady job earlier).
I think that's where his reading of the biography comes in -- the realization that, like the theme of the rest of the story -- lusting for something that you can never have, like his landlord with his "motherland", may end rather poorly.
She seduced him! Her own husband does nothing for her. She's trapped like all women of that time were trapped. And here comes this younger man, able to bring her passion of Maupassant to life! She gets him drunk! And orders him around. Plays sexy role-playing games. Growls.
I talked about this in an earlier post, but I'm not sure what the point would be of the moment when the narrator learns of De Maupassant's fate and experiences a profound foreboding of truth if Raisa had rejected him. (First off, I doubt he would have swaggered home having just been spurned.) For me, it's more powerful and resonates with much more meaning— and feels necessary—if he DID just lose his virginity. If they didn't have sex, it would lead me to wonder what foreboding of truth Babel wanted us to take away from that ending. The narrator is relieved they didn't do it, because he could have ended up like De Maupassant? But he's safe for now? For me, it feels much more apt an ending if he had just experienced the height of lustful passion, and swaggered home on Cloud Nine. The contrast between that feeling and the deflating "foreboding of truth" feels so much more profound.
Was his walk home a swagger? I didn't read it that way. I read staggering, swaying, and singing. I've done all of these things both in joy and in despair.
Given that it says that Maupassant suffered from hereditary syphilis, it doesn't seem related to the narrator's sex life, at all, unless it just made him think about the potential for catching diseases, in general, but in my mind, there was no connection.
I don't know what the biographical information at the end is meant to convey, but I read it as the narrator discovering that Maupassant's life (the one that he has maybe been coveting) was actually pretty hard, and that life isn't what we think it is on the surface, just like maybe he discovered that things weren't what he thought they were back at Raisa's house. I read the story as a whole as the narrator going from naive to educated--or a simple view to a more complex view of life.
Yes, it is not a swagger or anything related to arrogance.
Я был трезв и мог ступать по одной доске, но много лучше было шататься, и я раскачивался из стороны в сторону, распевая на только что выдуманном мною языке.
Literal translation:
I was sober and could walk a single plank, but it was much better to wobble/stagger along, and I rocked/swung from side to side, singing out loudly in a language just invented by me.
Cleaned up:
I was sober and could walk in a straight line, but it was much better to stagger along, and I swayed from side to side, singing out in a language I'd just invented.
(trans. B.R. Granger)
Both translators went at this literally:
could have walked on a single board . . . (McDuff)
could have walked a thin plank . . . (Constantine)
In English, in most places an officer asks you to 'walk in a straight line.'
The word 'board' or 'plank' has a specifically Russian association:
пьян в доску ('p'ian v dósku') = 'dead "to the board"' = dead drunk
In English, he'd just be walking in a straight line; both translators decided to go the Slavic route, though, which may make for a quaint or exotic translation, but would just be standard in the Russian most likely.
шататься ('shatat'sia') = to rock, sway, reel; to wobble, be unsteady (or, colloquially, to loaf, lounge about, etc.)
раскачивался ('raskachivalsia')
раскачиваться ('raskachivat'sia)/раскачаться ('raskachat'sia') = to swing back and forth (as on a swing); to rock (as on a boat)
> from качаться ('kachat'sia') = to reel, stagger (while walking); to rock, swing (as on a swing); to roll, pitch (as on a boat)
Constantine translates the first, шататься, as 'stumbling.' That's missing the side-to-side movement, though, contained in the verb. I thought that 'stagger along' might capture some of the randomness of the movement. (McDuff has 'stagger.')
Yes, the story is about essence . . . The chambermaid is a carrier of licentiousness, and she is, in a way, a beacon of the lesser in the story, the dropping of standards perhaps. What one processes ('living under the influence') will get one, for good or ill, in the end.
What I find interesting in your view, Amy, is that you are one of the few (perhaps the only? there have been so many comments I'm not sure) reader here who identifies with Raisa.
We might say all the men don't identify with Raisa because they're... men. And it's true most men will identify with (their younger selves) lusting desperately after this supremely sexy woman. But it seems to me Babel directs us, men or women, to identify with his young narrator. As a natural effect of the first-person narration, certainly, and of the fact that Raisa's narrative POV is never introduced.
But also because Raisa is objectified to the extreme. She's one of the luxuriant Jewesses of Kiev and Poltava, fattened (pink!) by the wealth of their businessman/banker husbands. She has pink (!) eyes, or, later, her lashes are a kind of reddish fur. Her much-commented breasts are colossal. Her calves (nothing else to see in the dress of the time) are strong, soft, silk-clad, and apart.
As I suggested in the previous comment threads, she bears no more relation to reality than a Barbie doll built to different specifications. She's a sex doll with inflatable "lips". (And, I think, for the evasive oligarch Bendersky, she's a trophy wife).
Insofar as we're invited to feel intuitively what goes on in her mind, it's true it's positive. She doesn't translate well, but she immediately realizes that Narrator does, and is willing to learn from him (not simply to use him). She is touched and frightened by the story of his childhood (from her nouveau riche point of view, he must sound like Oliver Twist).
Still and all, there's not much to go on if we want to understand what she's doing pouring glasses from a never-empty bottle of fantastical wine while she's alone in the house with Narrator.
Maybe it is weird to identify with Raisa, I don't know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe George can make a poll.
I agree with you that Babel intended for us to identify with the narrator, which is why I think George's assertion that they had sex is probably right. However, I also believe it's possible that Babel intended it to be open to interpretation.
I've been on the fence about the "did they" or "didn't they" question although George's post has swayed me in his direction. That being said, like you Amy, I initially read a couple of Raisa's lines as her trying to slow down the action. On first read, my thoughts were that she was attracted to this man (his mind, his youth, his way with words...) and also that she enjoyed the attention and was contemplating taking it further but that his sloppy advances may have put a damper on things.
I saw her as teasing him—he's young and inexperienced and she's enjoying, and getting turned on by, his naiveté and enthusiasm. She's enjoying the power of her effect on him.
I hear you, I think that was just my initial read. As some others have noted, I may have been bringing in too much of a contemporary mindset to it. (My thoughts were - If I tell someone they're funny once, I may mean it. If I say it a second time, chances are I'm uncomfortable and desperately trying to figure a way out of the conversation)
She "prorychala" in Russian -- literally "growled."
An interesting question to consider might be one about the provenance of those scars "smoldering" on her powdered back. Are those the imprint of the intricate intercrossed pattern on the tall rigid backs of those "Slavonic" chairs, the alien matrix of her life -- or are they perhaps, metaphorically, and fancifully, the visual manifestation of his cutting a "clearing" through her too-correct and therefore lifeless translation of the "sole passion of her life," military-style, with a merciless machete of his pen?
I wonder, is there some connection with рычать/прорычать ('to growl,' 'to snarl') and рычаг, the lever the narrator speaks of for 'turning' language:
rychat'/prorychat' - to snarl, to growl
rychag - lever
Фраза рождается на свет хорошей и дурной в одно и то же время. Тайна заключается в повороте, едва ощутимом. Рычаг должен лежать в руке и обогреваться. Повернуть его надо один раз, а не два.
(Constantine)
When a phrase is born, it is both good and bad at the same time. The secret of its success
rests in a crux that is barely discernible. One's fingertips must grasp the key, gently warming it. And then the key must be turned once, not twice.
(B.R. Granger)
A phrase, when it is born, is simultaneously nice and nasty. The secret lies in the turn, barely perceptible. The lever should lie in your hand, warming up. Turn it once, never twice.
(Constantine, though, appears to go too far--adding material.)
The words may be unrelated, but the alliteration in the Russian is there. One, the narrator, turns the lever of language, and the husband--a lever of domestic abuse?
Those marks on her back are quite confusing. I figured she wore powder on her skin and when she leaned back on the intricate woodwork, she was left with patterns that resemble scarring. I do enjoy this idea you have raised of the possible metaphor nature of them!
These arabesques of scars are intriguing details, a touch of genius. I may be reading too much into them but, at first, I thought that, in her youth, she might have been badly wounded during a pogrom with a knout, a Russian flogging whip https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knout. I thought of pogroms when I read Raissa's husband description, in one translation – "a flat, strong body that was turned slantwise for the purpose of flight", in the other – "a lean, powerful body that always seemed poised to surge up into the air." I can't find the original Russian text, and English is not my native language, so I wonder whether Babel' wanted to suggest some kind of fight-or-flight response etched on Bendersky's body, or rather a kind of bird-like vulnerability. The kitschy, uber-Slavonic décor of their house gives me the impression that they want to appear "more Russian than the Russians", for obvious reasons of traumas and personal tragedies.
The translations are often inaccurate. They gloss over a few details, and Constantine's, while more lyrical perhaps, adds material. McDuff is loyal to the original, but overly so at times.
Она мотала завитой головой, бренчала перстнями и упала вдруг в кресло с древне русской резьбой. На пудренной ее спине тлели рубцы.
(Constantine)
She shook her curly head, her rings tinkled, and suddenly she fell into an armchair with ancient Russian carving. Scars shimmered on her powdered back.
-----
A кресло (kreslo) is an ordinary armchair (it could even be like a La-Z-Boy). If she is sitting up, the back, with an open dress, would be visible.
(Search for кресло, and you'll see the type of chair.)
тлеть (tlet') - to rot, decay, decompose; to smoulder
тлен (tlen) - decay, rot
They must be actual scars. Raisa may have been suffering domestic abuse for some time.
And I forgot, тлеть (tlet') can also mean 'to shine' or 'to glimmer' - it sounds like actual vision, but many readings are of course possible.
'Scars glimmered on her powdered back.'
'Scars flashed red on her powdered back.'
The 'red' here would incorporate the 'subtext' of the Russian word, рубцы ('scars'), which connects into 'red-coloured,' 'ruby,' etc. The words for 'ruby' and 'scar' have a similar root.
A lot of the subtext and hidden, rich associations are all forfeited in translation. (Amor Towles in 'A Gentleman in Moscow' hits this brilliant note, in English, of the Slavic sonance.)
All right, the Slavic graduate seminar is now over . . . Back to enjoying the story.
I wondered about that too, so I looked it up. Apparently as the disease progresses those lesions can appear anywhere…I’d attach a link but it’s too horrible!
To me, this is a story about the hunger for experience - one I recognise and remember from my own youth, even though I am far away in space and time from much of the context here. It is that small nugget of universally recognised truth that made the story such a pleasure, enough to make me move from unpaid follower to paid up member because I was so curious to unpack that pleasure in the company of other readers. What great responses. What a great thing to do in the face of the world and the times we live in. I am interested to see what people make of the ending, because reading through the comments made me think again about the role of syphilis in the story. I also see Raisa as fully in charge here and I buy the idea that she's done this before. I wondered about that final image of Maupassant, brains burned out, all that genius and passion eating itself alive. Because isn't this also a story about story-telling and truth-telling, and the price to be paid for that small nugget of truth, and how it is a price worth paying? It is doubly moving in light of the author's life and death.
George's discussion of ambiguity and vagueness will go into my G. S. Notes notebook. Otherwise, I'm not coming up with anything meaningful to add here. But if I were an alien visiting and the scene in question was translated to me I would wonder what's the big deal about sex between humans.
Thank you George, fascinating distinction between vagueness and ambiguity. I wonder, though: is it always applicable as you apply it perfectly to Gatsby and De Maupassant? I don't think so. Did Hamlet and Ophelia do it or not? I think they did. And much has been written by literary critics and avid readers (and script writers etc.) about whether they did it or not. It is one of the famous Shakespeare's cruces. On the basis of this 'vagueness' some authoritative figures (thinking of Shaw for example) criticised Shakespeare's plays for being, well, sort of unfinished. There are many points in Hamlet (just an example among many) which are certainly vague, not ambiguous. And they are of course wonderful. So my point is: vagueness, too, can be great! (sometimes)
Yes, but he kills Hamlet out of revenge for Hamlet killing his father, not because he's spurned Ophelia. Her suicide strengthens his resolve, but he was already on his way to kill Hamlet.
I feel as if I keep coming too late to the discussion--after reading all the wonderful suppositions about their behavior written by this thoughtful group-- yes, no, maybe. But here is my thought: Babel might not have meant to confuse us, but remember how many years ago he wrote this story, reflecting the values and mores of his time. He might have assumed that he gave us enough clues because we share his understanding of culture. If we were writing about a couple today, based on current surveys saying that young people start "going all the way" later than half a century ago, would we necessarily interpret their rolling around as consummated sex? Another thought I have is about the question: What does the maid with the licentious manner represent? I keep thinking of Jeffrey Epstein's groomer, Ghislaine Maxwell. To me, the maid was an experienced bodyguard for Raisa--after assessing the young scholar as basically acceptable or harmless to her mistress, she could disappear and let them have at it (whatever Babel intended). The whole breast thing, I believe, was just to reinforce how immature the scholar was--like a teenager with no control over his eyes. Finally, is it possible that the old white nag with the pink lips is actually Raisa?
I like the Ghislaine Maxwell parallel for the maid (though Maxwell was a facilitator). I too saw her as an "experienced bodyguard" for Raisa. I also (still) fear that she is a pair of hard eyes for Bendersky and will report.
They're decidedly ambiguous. If they're signs of syphilis, why would a wealthy hostess exhibit them (even powdered over?). It would be easy for her to wear a more covering evening dress.
Possibly. But where does it say clearly* that Raisa is considerably older than Narrator? Bendersky having attained a certain level of wealth could have chosen a trophy wife much younger than himself.
Yes! The author must know! I write books for film directors and consult with filmmakers who sometimes tell me they want to leave their ending “ambiguous” — but I’m afraid don’t really have a story to tell.
I love the toppled books - it is as though the literature that has been the reason for Raisa’s patronage and the quest for the narrator is toppled by their sexual hunger. Can the narrator learn to balance hunger for everything worldly with his intellectual hunger (and ambitions)?
I think the toppled books ARE the sex, orgasm, at least. In Anna Karenina we know Anna and Vronsky have had sex for the first time when Anna falls off the couch. Perhaps Babel is referring to that famous sex scene, aware that anything more explicit would be censored.
Good point, George, re the difference between vagueness and ambiguity. Your reading here does make a strong case for they did it, especially given the narrator's swaggering stagger as he departs. But I do feel there's something unsuccessful or unsatisfactory about it - the toppled furniture, her crucified posture and her ambivalent comment & growl. I don't think the young man's services will be required again!
Hmmm. I'm with Sea on that one! It occurred to me afterwards that maybe the toppling bookshelf and cascading volumes of Maupassant's works was an intervention by Maupassant trying to deflect the narrator from the next move - and then the truth of his grim end was a final 'I told you so' from the older author.
In a book of Babel's early stories, which includes 'In the Basement' and 'Guy de Maupassant,' we find:
Снимки великих князей, умерших в младенчестве, пряди их волос, дневники датской принцессы Дагмары, письма сестры ее, английской королевы, дыша духами и тленом, рассыпались под нашими пальцами. (ДОРОГА)
Pictures of grand dukes who had died in infancy, locks of their hair, the diaries of the Danish Princess Dagmar,* the letters of her sister, the Queen of England, breathing perfume and
decay, crumbling in our fingers. ('The Road,' trans. Constantine)
---
Северные цветы тлеют в вазах. (ЛИНИЯ И ЦВЕТ)
Northern flowers were withering in vases. ('Line and Color,' trans. Constantine)
(Babel jumps between present and past tense here, even from line to line . . . Constantine made it all past tense, probably for good reasons.)
---
Книги — истлевшие и душистые страницы, — они отвели меня в далекую Данию. (ВЕЧЕР У ИМПЕРАТРИЦЫ)
The books, their pages molding and fragrant, carried me to faraway Denmark. ('An Evening with the Empress,' trans. Constantine)
---
На лавках застыли сгорбленные немцы. В каждой трубке тлеет слабое пламя. Звезды сияют над нашими головами. Блеск луны достиг Волги. (КОНЦЕРТ В КАТЕРИНЕНШТАДТЕ)
The hunched Germans stiffen on the benches. A weak flame smolders in every pipe. The stars shine above our heads. The rays of the moon have reached the Volga. ('The Concert in Katerinenstadt,' trans. Constantine)
---
Вывеска над ворота ми развалилась, на ней нельзя было прочесть ни одного
слова, и у всех кучеров истлело последнее белье. (ЗАКАТ)
The sign above the gates had fallen apart, you couldn't read a single word, and none of the carters had even a single pair of underpants left. ('Sunset,' trans. Constantine = underwear was decaying)
---
Меер искривил истлевшие щеки. (КОНЕЦ БОГАДЕЛЬНИ)
Meyer twisted his decayed cheeks. ('The End of the Almshouse,' trans. Constantine)
---
The translations from Constantine are:
decay (n.)
were withering (v.)
molding (this must be an error in the TR, it should be 'mouldering,' v.)
'to mold' - to become moldy
'to moulder' - to crumble into particles: DISINTEGRATE, DECAY
smolders (v.)
had (none) left (maybe a mistranslation - their underpants were rotting away as they wore them)
Not, “You’re a funny one.” That is (calling a spade a spade) a mistranslation.
The Russian забавный comes from забавa, “fun,” “amusement,” “game,” “pastime.” (Not funny, haha, or weird or curious.)
And also, she addresses the narrator as Вы, formally, throughout. It’s a bit like saying, “You’re (a lot of) fun, Sir.” She keeps the distance, the officialness of their agreement to work on Maupassant intact. Juxtaposed with забавный, it’s provocative, volatile dialogue.
“You’re cute, Master Narrator.”
Notes from a simple reader who once delved into all things Slavic.
The perceptiveness of the group as a whole has enriched my weeks and months.
This question of “did they or didn’t they” reminded me of our debate over the ending of Maria Messina’s story, Her Father’s House. And I am just as confident that these two had clumsy, drunken sex as I am that Vanna let the sea take her.
The scene played like a movie in my mind, knocking things over, like one does when inebriated and realizing one has this sexual opportunity after all the flirting. It was also the noting of the time - leaving before the others would arrive home.
And then, of course the staggering and singing nonsense. One who misses the opportunity might walk home defeated. Quiet.
But the kicker was his reaction to reading about Guy du Maupassant’s syphilis. Not that he worried about an STD, but that the high of the romance and passion drifted back to reality. It just seems like that might make sense after a sexual encounter that ends with your partner in her nice home with her family arriving home and him back in the “frozen, yellow, foul-smelling street.”
There is something which as a reader and not a writer that I don't understand about George's last post. He points out that Babel must have known where the sex led 'otherwise, it would be impossible for him to “tune” the surrounding story sufficiently.' He then outlines four possible alternative scenarios which 'are all different stories'.
I can understand that the question 'What is the story I am writing' is of central importance to a writer. I have tried to imagine what Babel would have written differently for each of the four scenarios. You will not be surprised that I can't do it. Which element would he have had to modify so that 'every element is humming and resonating and in touch with every other element' ?
One reason that I can't do it (beyond the obvious! might be that for me the sex is not central. This is for me a story about language and literature and the four scenarios all have meaning for me as ways in which I have engaged with reading this story. Each of the 'four stories' hums and resonates.
Another is that I enjoy complexity and uncertainty (not vagueness).
Or is it just that I am overthinking. The narrator was there. He must know whether desire was consummated.
But that doesn't help me with the 'what would have been written differently' question.
Hi Adrian. In these threads, we've said before that a short story is sort of like a joke. Everything in a short story points to the climax/ending/meaning, just like everything in a joke points to the punchline. So, to me, for each of the scenarios George mentioned, the writer would have to carefully choose "how" to write the story, so as to lead to the climax/ending/meaning that the writer wished to convey. This story (Guy de Maupassant) takes us down a chosen path--nothing was put in there that isn't part of the road Babel wants us on, the road that points to the ending. This particular road takes us to the climactic sex scene (for those of us who read it that way). If the story were to culminate in no sex, we would have been on a different road all along, or at the very least, we would have turned off the road we all began on (for all the scenarios) and found ourselves on the "no sex" road. There, everything would point to "no sex." All stories are written this way (or I should say revised over and over until the story is completely on the road the writer means for it to travel upon). Everything points in the direction the writer wants you to go until you've reached the writer's chosen destination. So each of those scenarios would have been on their own, unique road where everything points to the destination. In that way, each story would be written differently (in terms of tone, chosen detail, plot, characterization, etc.). I hope this made sense. All of this is just my take on your question here. Others may see it completely differently.
"Everything points in the direction the writer wants you to go until you've reached the writer's chosen destination."
I'm thinking: and continues after you've reached that destination. In this case, Narrator goes home singing his head off in the streets. If he'd been repelled, or had made a fool of himself, he would certainly have been much more subdued. Drunkenness alone doesn't explain his euphoria.
Babel avoided overt sexual narrative by some fancy footwork with the furniture, then signed off on the accomplishment of desire by describing Narrator's wild behaviour after the act.
Yes, i completely agree. He wants to feel drunk again, though he's now sober. He is singing as he walks home. It all points to his feeling that he's had a wonderful, memorable evening!
'Everything points in the direction the writer wants you to go until you've reached the writer's chosen destination'
I get all that Mary. It is an excellent teaching point about writing, skilfully introduced by George's question. But how does it apply in this story?
Let's start where you say 'Everything points in the direction the writer wants you to go until you've reached the writer's chosen destination'. Straightforward if we know that. But what IS Babel's chosen destination?
'I was brushed with a foreboding of truth'
To be 'brushed' is only a light touch. A 'foreboding' likewise suggests rather than determines. There is no Ah-Ha moment only a partial insight. It has to be an insight because the fog is obscuring his view of the 'real' world.
We also know that by looking outwards, reading the words of SOME others, he gets things wrong: for example, Maupassant did not have congenital syphilis, he caught it in his youth; and it does not say in the Maynial biography that he ate shit.
But what he does in the last paragraph from 'And that night.....' is to reflect on his own life through the lens of Maupassant's, errors and all. He presents his resume of the biography as though Maupassant's life was an Odyssey. Everyone makes errors and behaves badly, even Odyseus, as part of living.
So within Maupassant the story, the narrator makes errors of fact, judgement and behaviour. He is passionate about living at a passionate, unstable period of his life. He desires. Is part of his foreboding the realisation that writing is dangerous?
In what way is the 'fact' of sexual consummation - as opposed to expectation or dream - an essential part of this story?
What words would have been written differently if the sexual desire was not consummated?
As a sort of postscript:
During Babel's tough period, prior to his being shot, he says some interesting things. He claims a right to make mistakes and a right to remain silent. He also disowns some of the things he has said or written in the past.
All of that was after he had written 'Maupassant' and so lie outside the story itself. Having discovered this part of his biography, I cannot unlearn it. You can judge whether it has affected my reading of the story.
Bąbel disowned some of the things he'd said or written in an effort to save his own life--that's how i understand it. For instance, the officer in My First Goose was based on a real person and Babel had to really wrestle his way out of that one. He had to disown some of the things he'd written because he knew he was in trouble for all of it. But I'm not a Babel historian, so I'll leave that be.
We haven't talked about the ending of the story yet here. As i've said ad nauseam throughout these threads already, i look forward to George's take. So your questions about that are all great, and next week maybe things will look more clear for all of us. I kind of doubt that Babel got anything "wrong," as you say. In fact, i'm guessing he purposely took liberties with the truth in order to write this story. To point to that ending. He is a writer of fiction--we can only look at the story itself, and not be beholden to any "facts" in his stories. They are not facts. They are fictions.
Lastly, I do think there is, more or less, an "a-ha" moment--a moment of realization in the narrator. It's right there at the end. And it's not small. It's pretty darn big. When you ask me "what is Babel's chosen destination?" I think the answer is that it's there on the page for us to decipher. He's not here to tell us--it's up to each of us to take out of the story what we take of it.
So our reading experiences differ. But in thinking about 'writing' I have a final wonder: the rules relating microdetails to ending are crucially important. Maybe Babel's genius, expertise, originality, lies in finding a way not to follow those rules too precisely allowing some readers to find meanings in this story irrespective of sexual consummation.
But Mary that is not the point that GS's introductory remarks were making. As I understood it we were asked to consider Babel's writing and whether it is internally consistent particularly with the ending.The analysis he presented was supportive of them having sex. Not everyone thinks that is the only outcome. So there is a question about whether Babel wrote this ambiguity into his story and if so , how he achieves it. Also, if he didn't intend such ambiguity what might he have written differently.
In other words, what the lessons are that can be learned particularly about writing ambiguity from analysis of Babel's writing in this story.
Babel was always re-inventing himself. He wasn't a penniless Jew, he had to learn how to be violent with Cossacks and he had to learn how to live in St Petersburg. He tells different stories of his life. They change according to circumstances and time. We all do that.
So how does it matter if there are four different stories embedded in the uncertainty about sex? There can be many stories running through a young person's head before they are brushed with forebodings as to who they are.
Wow. I hope I'm not the only one that feels like they should throw in the towel on writing fiction after reading one of George's substack letters. This was delightful and I don't think I've fully grasped this story until now. One thing that drew my attention was the rootlessness of all the characters, both Raisa and the narrator and her sisters and their husbands. They're all pretending in some way. The counterpoint I felt was the narrator's friend Kazantsev, the translator of Spanish literature, who "had a country of his own—Spain." (He's a teacher of Russian literature but like the narrator only finds meaning in someone else's literature.) I wonder if this is Babel tying in the notion of the Wandering Jew—as the Jewish population was freed of the shtetl, where did they go/what/who did they become? A sort of meta-look at both the rootlessness of youth and the rootlessness of a "young" population.
This interpretation also makes the ending hit harder for me. So if we assume they have sex, then in the span of basically a page we have him leaving, so happy he's choosing to swagger and sing instead of walk straight. He gets to the home he shares with his people, opens up is book, and guess what, the author who just inspired this act was actually deeply unwell and died a horrible death. It feels like a kind of ironic, very Babel joke to end on. And since that, and not the sex, is what leaves him feeling brushed by a "foreboding of truth," it feels all the more important.
Yes - a very Babel joke.
To reduce the character to two descriptors: he’s an artist striving for recognition, and a young man longing for sex. He admires Maupassant (but not Tolstoy - what a detail!) and, during this story, achieves one of his primary goals - sex. Easy for a young man to get drunk on that and think that life will now fall into place. (And maybe, like Maupassant, live the meta-dream where you not only have sex and write stories but write stories about having sex.)
But the Babel punch at the end implies he won’t have it all. Even when your ambitions are within grasp - he’s had the sex, he’s earning money for being literary - life always makes time to laugh at you. You can still get knocked to the bottom, eating shit and going mad. The antithesis of sexiness and greatness.
Given that De Maupassant died from advanced syphilis, seems to suggest that the character not only had sex, but is now contemplating one of the potential consequences of that.
The story ends with the narrator being "touched by a premonition of truth." I so look forward to next week when George writes about the ending. I'm guessing that death by syphilis is the overstory--the thing that happened--but that there is much more in the understory about following one's passions, living the life of an artist, and growing older in a mean world.
This rings so true, Mary. What you refer to as "the overstory," that of a man dying from a consequence of succumbing to his passion, makes so much sense for the "yes, they did it" version of the story. Otherwise what profound meaning would the ending have? "Oh thank goodness we didn't do it! I could have ended up like De Maupassant. Whew." For me, this story is about succumbing to our passions in the moment, and then experiencing the shift from joyful afterglow (come to think of it, the narrator would likely not be swaggering home if he'd failed to perform) to a profound, ironic truth of life: not only does no one get out alive, but on the way out, as a consequence of succumbing to our passions, we might end up eating shit and barking at the moon. Which, as Annemarie put it, is "the antithesis of sexiness and greatness."
Living our passions--it's a choice a person makes. But it can have it downsides. The story starts with his proclamation that he will live this way. And ends with his knowledge that it can have dire results. Loving this story more and more!
I am, too. And once again, broken record that I am, so grateful for story club for deepening my understanding of what makes a great story.
Yes!
I loved reading this. Thank you, George! I feel I've just been taken through a lawyer's closing arguments. Guilty of having sex! Yes! I won't write about your question here ("...to ask whether the ending of the story has more bite if they have sex or they don’t") since you'll be writing about the ending next week. I had been wondering if Babel purposely left the sex out of the story--or if he knew just how ambiguous he'd made things. I'm guessing he did NOT mean to confuse his readers. So perhaps it's the translation aspect, or perhaps it's our modern-day minds getting in the way. Because it seems clear that Babel did not mean to confuse us.
For we who are writers, I think this remark by you is something crucial to remember: "a short story is a beautifully tuned, organic system in which every element is humming and resonating and in touch with every other element." This is, of course, how the "gun in the first act must go off in the third act" maxim came into being. Everything in a short story is there for a reason, and every part speaks to every other part. Always good to be reminded of this.
One tiny bit of the story that I loved: In the very beginning of the story, the narrator writes of spending his days visiting morgues and police stations. He says he and his comrades live in dire poverty. And then, he writes, "But the happiest of all was Kazantsev." Leaving behind the part about Kazantsev having found a home in a country he'd never been, the line strikes me as important because of that word "but." It means the narrator, poor and hungry, was happy! He had his passions, his loves, his convictions, and he was happy. This, then, speaks to the end of the story--but i said i wouldn't write about that now, so I'll stop. (I just love that very important "but"!!!)
It seemed perfectly clear to me on the first reading speeding through that sex had occurred. And that it was not how Guy de Maupassant died per se that was so disturbing to the narrator but that Fate could and would strike you down mid-stride regardless of how well-lived your life might have been.
I’ve often admired writers who achieve ambiguity in their stories like Babel does in this story. I wonder how it’s done. I’ve set out to write “an ambiguous story” before but found it a formidable challenge. Maybe it’s something some stories have in them due to the circumstances and language that accrues in them and other stories don’t, and forcing a story to “be ambiguous” before any words were even on the page was part of my problem.
Right. It might work better to just write a story, and allow (leave space for) the ambiguous parts of your soul to come out to play.
Life itself is often (mostly?) ambiguous.
That exquisite attention to every word — But! — is what makes writing and reading so much fun. I expect that if Babel could see all this close reading he'd have a few 'well-turned celebratory sentences' to throw back at us for further enjoyment.
Perhaps in the end despite circumstances the Babel remains far more powerful than the Stalin.
Isn't it pretty to think so?
David, the Stalin (or the Putin) would tell you that bullets speak louder than words. :(
They are right about that, in the short term.
Yes!
Yes, and there is so much humor in the placement of this sentence ("But the happiest of all was Kazantsev") coming right after hearing of the squalor they live in. A well-timed joke.
Right? So funny!
Mary I too love the reminder that the short story is beautifully tuned as George says, and for this reason I think the ambiguity is a key to understanding the point of this story. To me, the ambiguity of the 'did they, didn't they' feeds into the narrator's (and Raisa's) love of 'the story'.
I think the 'message' of this story is that, life is beautiful in the story, and we can keep it that way, we can choose to generate possibility, to feel joy, it's a choice that we can make:
That Kazantsev has never been to Spain but 'a love of that country filled his being' sets the tone for that to be a possibility, Kazantsev creates that story which creates his love for Spain.
My favourite line which (to me) confirms the importance for the narrator of living in 'the story' is, 'I was sober and could have walked on a single board, but it was much better to stagger, and I swayed from side to side, singing loudly in a language I had only just invented.' So after the 'sex-or non-sex' possibility has passed, the narrator tries to keep the joy alive walking home, where the ugliness of life could seep in, but he doesn't allow it, because he keeps hold of joy the existed in that drunken feeling and generates new possibilities in a new language.
I love that focus on the generation of possibility and the joy that comes from that - all the breast assessment feels like evidence of that. The narrator gets through life by generating possibility. I think we are being told, in possibility there is the joy and possibility is an essential ingredient a story.
That 'the happiest of all was Kazantsev' says to me that Kazantsev will never have anything take the possibility of loving Spain away from him, the possibilities are infinite - he has never - and presumably may never visit Spain. No real experiences of Spain are allowed into his story.
The detail of the fact of whether they did or they didn't - slips out of the story world by the narrator's choice. The did-they-didn't-they question has an important function, it demonstrates the narrator's ability to be like his idol - to be a great story teller, and leave that possibility for the reader to experience the joy of.
What a beautiful post, Marissa. I love all that you've said here about possibility. In the end of the story, though, i do think our narrator sees that some possibilities are dire. So we have to examine our life choices and figure out what is important. The part where Maupassant is said to be like an animal--well, we all are animals, but we can live our lives on another, higher level. I don't agree with you that the sex was meant to be ambiguous, but i appreciate your comments. I'm of the mind that no writer should leave the climax of a story off of the page. And so I don't think Babel would do that. To me, he felt he'd put it right there--but our modern minds don't see it.
Thanks Mary, I am always amazed at 'the way into' these incredible stories we study here. This one is a case in point. I would love to have witnessed Babel's development of it. I'd convinced myself that, in this story, he started out with an admiration for the power of 'the story', the way we can 'make', be 'makers'. Wow, so powerful! To me, it's as though Babel said, look at this creation tool humans have - the story - it's a collection of possibilities, we make our story - but our ability to shape the story is limited - like Maupassant trying to put up a fight against the disease, throughout his symptoms, he 'wrote incessantly', perhaps as a way to gain control of a story, when his own life story was controlled by his illness.
I think it really demonstrates the foundational intention of 'the story'. I am very interested in 'intention' or 'motivation' or more just possibly, 'the reflection of the author's heart and mind'. I wonder how much truth - or personal experience lies within? With the story ending with our narrator's heart constricted, I feel that pain of doubting if story telling can be enough, that which he relies on, that which he has found trust in, might not save him.
These great writers seem to have such a deep understanding of themselves. I am coming to understand that the bulk of the work for short stories has to be the observation of 'self' and a bravery to investigate and find forgiveness, to find those patterns in behaviour, those stories we tell ourselves to get by. And then to use the 'safe space' of short story to challenge their effectiveness, to watch those 'behavioural crutches' fail but then, despite, be readopted for the comfort they contain.
It is a communion I think to be able to feel the love from a writer via their characters. We are so fortunate to have the short story form and masters of it. When George speaks the 'organic system in which every element is humming and resonating and in touch with every other element', the space around these elements, the energy that makes them hum and resonate is surely love.
Thank you for all of this! You write: "These great writers seem to have such a deep understanding of themselves." My take is that it is through the writing that they come to such an understanding.
For sure! I agree.
The short story writer has to make sure that their reader doesn't wander aimlessly through a grand hotel of thoughts. Self-discovery on the page has the possibility to get very messy. The writer needs the story to invites the reader to try the doors in one corridor, and gives them the key to one room.
The writer focuses attention via a series of decisions -a process of separating and considering at a micro level. (I think). But does all that happen on the page or is it because of who we are, and what we think about off the page that we can do that?
I know that that hotel metaphor is overly linear but I mean that the short story form enables or even forces the 'simplification' of the complex.
To offer the reader a focused journey towards recognising something (and recognising requires a perhaps muddled or unconscious shared knowledge - or truth, the writer needs to be attentive in the process of 'singling out' a strand of that knowledge, a truth, and making sure all the available light falls on that one thing. This is something that the time spent writing a story offers. It's a system of organising thoughts, in some ways.
It's so fascinating to imagine what the starting thought (or collection of thoughts) might have been for Babel in a story like this. Foresight and hindsight are the story apart.
Hi again, I found this quote from Babel on Wikipedia "Only by 1923 I have learned how to express my thoughts in a clear and not very lengthy way. Then I returned to writing." Babel valued reading a list of a hundred books (according to Wikipedia) many of them written by philosophers. It feels helpful to me to know that he advised focus preparatory reading, believing that, according to his partner, ‘'Reading that way will get you nowhere. You won't have time to read the books that are truly worthwhile. ‘ This approach makes sense to me reading his carefully focused thoughts via his stories. I suppose the exploration on the page is only as fruitful as what’s in the mind.
I went to Wikipedia to try to understand your comment better. Yes, Antonina Pirozhkova said that she was reading all sorts of things, and so Babel--thinking she was wasting her time reading lousy books--gave her a list of a hundred books he said she should read instead. I think this is the way most great writers are created: by reading good books and learning from them.
But I think George is a big romantic. Always a great thoughtful take
Before reading this, I was definitely in the "they did not have sex" camp. I think it all comes down to how one reads the various actions.
He kisses her, and her lips "tremble and swell." I think swelling indicates some arousal, but "tremble" could mean either fear or anticipation. If it is fear (which is how I read it), she's feeling two conflicting things at once, which I think is reasonable, considering the circumstances.
She staggers backwards and presses herself up against the wall. I took this to mean that she was trying to create space between them. She wanted to get away. I definitely didn't read it as some sort of offering. Then, "On her hands and shoulder spots began to burn." This could be arousal, but it could also be embarrassment. I read it as embarrassment.
When she tells him to move to another chair, my interpretation was that she was indicating a chair that was further away from her own. I know there's nothing in the text that suggests that, but believe it or not, that's how I read it.
The growled, "you're a funny one," after he knocks over her bookshelf, I read as, "I've really had enough of you."
Obviously, a big part of my interpretation is because I relate more to Raisa than I do the narrator, and if I were in Raisa's shoes, it'd have been a no-go. There's nothing in the story that makes the narrator attractive. What is she seduced by? His poverty? The way he's always ogling her and her maid? His condescending attitude towards her translations?
Although I'm frustrated by the idea that when a woman behaves ambiguously, that means she's being coy and flirtatious and not merely disinterested, after reading George's interpretation, I'm convinced that Babel intended for us to believe they had sex. This is because Babel probably related more to the narrator than he did to Raisa, and in the narrator's mind, Raisa was attracted to him.
As far as how that how that changes the story for me, it makes it less interesting. I thought the story worked better with Raisa rejecting him in the end.
Interesting! I could relate to Raisa wanting to have sex with this young man who opens up the world of Maupassant to her-- Maupassant, who is her passion! The most seductive thing imaginable to her! And so she gets him drunk. She playfully flirts with him. She unabashedly throws her arms wide against the bookshelf. She's chosen the moment no one is home. Her husband--she's not interested in him. I did not see disinterest in her actions. I saw just the opposite. And I also saw her as being in charge of the whole situation.
By the way, Amy. I want to say that i so appreciate your take on this! I didn't mean to imply that I am right and you are wrong. I really enjoyed reading what you wrote here.
Thanks, Mary. I didn't read it that way, but I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
I still don't see the attraction, but you're right, she IS in charge, and I think I didn't really take that into as much consideration as I could have. It's her house, and the place is full of servants. She could've had him thrown out at any moment--as a matter of fact, I thought that's what happened after he knocked over the bookcase. If she didn't have so much power, I'd have worried that whatever happened between them wasn't consensual.
I also read this, very strongly, as her saying no. Sure, he was a fun kid to tease, but below her in social standing. It is one thing to flirt with the cute young staff, and another thing to actually sleep with him! I read her saying "oh you are a funny one" as the rejection, and the implied reason for the rejection.
After all, we have only seen this through his eyes before. The same ones that ascribed sexuality to the maid, and every other woman that he has encountered. He is not a reliable narrator, he is a horny kid with delusions of his own importance (ex: his rejection of a steady job earlier).
I think that's where his reading of the biography comes in -- the realization that, like the theme of the rest of the story -- lusting for something that you can never have, like his landlord with his "motherland", may end rather poorly.
Very good points. I read it the same way as you. She liked to tease him sometimes, but would never seriously consider sleeping with him.
She seduced him! Her own husband does nothing for her. She's trapped like all women of that time were trapped. And here comes this younger man, able to bring her passion of Maupassant to life! She gets him drunk! And orders him around. Plays sexy role-playing games. Growls.
Hahaha!
I talked about this in an earlier post, but I'm not sure what the point would be of the moment when the narrator learns of De Maupassant's fate and experiences a profound foreboding of truth if Raisa had rejected him. (First off, I doubt he would have swaggered home having just been spurned.) For me, it's more powerful and resonates with much more meaning— and feels necessary—if he DID just lose his virginity. If they didn't have sex, it would lead me to wonder what foreboding of truth Babel wanted us to take away from that ending. The narrator is relieved they didn't do it, because he could have ended up like De Maupassant? But he's safe for now? For me, it feels much more apt an ending if he had just experienced the height of lustful passion, and swaggered home on Cloud Nine. The contrast between that feeling and the deflating "foreboding of truth" feels so much more profound.
Was his walk home a swagger? I didn't read it that way. I read staggering, swaying, and singing. I've done all of these things both in joy and in despair.
Given that it says that Maupassant suffered from hereditary syphilis, it doesn't seem related to the narrator's sex life, at all, unless it just made him think about the potential for catching diseases, in general, but in my mind, there was no connection.
I don't know what the biographical information at the end is meant to convey, but I read it as the narrator discovering that Maupassant's life (the one that he has maybe been coveting) was actually pretty hard, and that life isn't what we think it is on the surface, just like maybe he discovered that things weren't what he thought they were back at Raisa's house. I read the story as a whole as the narrator going from naive to educated--or a simple view to a more complex view of life.
Yes, it is not a swagger or anything related to arrogance.
Я был трезв и мог ступать по одной доске, но много лучше было шататься, и я раскачивался из стороны в сторону, распевая на только что выдуманном мною языке.
Literal translation:
I was sober and could walk a single plank, but it was much better to wobble/stagger along, and I rocked/swung from side to side, singing out loudly in a language just invented by me.
Cleaned up:
I was sober and could walk in a straight line, but it was much better to stagger along, and I swayed from side to side, singing out in a language I'd just invented.
(trans. B.R. Granger)
Both translators went at this literally:
could have walked on a single board . . . (McDuff)
could have walked a thin plank . . . (Constantine)
In English, in most places an officer asks you to 'walk in a straight line.'
The word 'board' or 'plank' has a specifically Russian association:
пьян в доску ('p'ian v dósku') = 'dead "to the board"' = dead drunk
In English, he'd just be walking in a straight line; both translators decided to go the Slavic route, though, which may make for a quaint or exotic translation, but would just be standard in the Russian most likely.
шататься ('shatat'sia') = to rock, sway, reel; to wobble, be unsteady (or, colloquially, to loaf, lounge about, etc.)
раскачивался ('raskachivalsia')
раскачиваться ('raskachivat'sia)/раскачаться ('raskachat'sia') = to swing back and forth (as on a swing); to rock (as on a boat)
> from качаться ('kachat'sia') = to reel, stagger (while walking); to rock, swing (as on a swing); to roll, pitch (as on a boat)
Constantine translates the first, шататься, as 'stumbling.' That's missing the side-to-side movement, though, contained in the verb. I thought that 'stagger along' might capture some of the randomness of the movement. (McDuff has 'stagger.')
Yes, the story is about essence . . . The chambermaid is a carrier of licentiousness, and she is, in a way, a beacon of the lesser in the story, the dropping of standards perhaps. What one processes ('living under the influence') will get one, for good or ill, in the end.
What I find interesting in your view, Amy, is that you are one of the few (perhaps the only? there have been so many comments I'm not sure) reader here who identifies with Raisa.
We might say all the men don't identify with Raisa because they're... men. And it's true most men will identify with (their younger selves) lusting desperately after this supremely sexy woman. But it seems to me Babel directs us, men or women, to identify with his young narrator. As a natural effect of the first-person narration, certainly, and of the fact that Raisa's narrative POV is never introduced.
But also because Raisa is objectified to the extreme. She's one of the luxuriant Jewesses of Kiev and Poltava, fattened (pink!) by the wealth of their businessman/banker husbands. She has pink (!) eyes, or, later, her lashes are a kind of reddish fur. Her much-commented breasts are colossal. Her calves (nothing else to see in the dress of the time) are strong, soft, silk-clad, and apart.
As I suggested in the previous comment threads, she bears no more relation to reality than a Barbie doll built to different specifications. She's a sex doll with inflatable "lips". (And, I think, for the evasive oligarch Bendersky, she's a trophy wife).
Insofar as we're invited to feel intuitively what goes on in her mind, it's true it's positive. She doesn't translate well, but she immediately realizes that Narrator does, and is willing to learn from him (not simply to use him). She is touched and frightened by the story of his childhood (from her nouveau riche point of view, he must sound like Oliver Twist).
Still and all, there's not much to go on if we want to understand what she's doing pouring glasses from a never-empty bottle of fantastical wine while she's alone in the house with Narrator.
"I'm drunk, darling!" she announces.
Sounds like a play to me...
Maybe it is weird to identify with Raisa, I don't know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe George can make a poll.
I agree with you that Babel intended for us to identify with the narrator, which is why I think George's assertion that they had sex is probably right. However, I also believe it's possible that Babel intended it to be open to interpretation.
I didn't mean to say it was weird... Just uncommon :)
I think Karen O’Rourke wrote a story from the perspective of Raisa. For one of Mary G.‘s prompts. #14?
Yes, she did! It was fantastic!
I missed all the end of that thread. Karen's fiction is really good!
I've been on the fence about the "did they" or "didn't they" question although George's post has swayed me in his direction. That being said, like you Amy, I initially read a couple of Raisa's lines as her trying to slow down the action. On first read, my thoughts were that she was attracted to this man (his mind, his youth, his way with words...) and also that she enjoyed the attention and was contemplating taking it further but that his sloppy advances may have put a damper on things.
I saw her as teasing him—he's young and inexperienced and she's enjoying, and getting turned on by, his naiveté and enthusiasm. She's enjoying the power of her effect on him.
I hear you, I think that was just my initial read. As some others have noted, I may have been bringing in too much of a contemporary mindset to it. (My thoughts were - If I tell someone they're funny once, I may mean it. If I say it a second time, chances are I'm uncomfortable and desperately trying to figure a way out of the conversation)
Been there, done that!
She "prorychala" in Russian -- literally "growled."
An interesting question to consider might be one about the provenance of those scars "smoldering" on her powdered back. Are those the imprint of the intricate intercrossed pattern on the tall rigid backs of those "Slavonic" chairs, the alien matrix of her life -- or are they perhaps, metaphorically, and fancifully, the visual manifestation of his cutting a "clearing" through her too-correct and therefore lifeless translation of the "sole passion of her life," military-style, with a merciless machete of his pen?
I wonder, is there some connection with рычать/прорычать ('to growl,' 'to snarl') and рычаг, the lever the narrator speaks of for 'turning' language:
rychat'/prorychat' - to snarl, to growl
rychag - lever
Фраза рождается на свет хорошей и дурной в одно и то же время. Тайна заключается в повороте, едва ощутимом. Рычаг должен лежать в руке и обогреваться. Повернуть его надо один раз, а не два.
(Constantine)
When a phrase is born, it is both good and bad at the same time. The secret of its success
rests in a crux that is barely discernible. One's fingertips must grasp the key, gently warming it. And then the key must be turned once, not twice.
(B.R. Granger)
A phrase, when it is born, is simultaneously nice and nasty. The secret lies in the turn, barely perceptible. The lever should lie in your hand, warming up. Turn it once, never twice.
(Constantine, though, appears to go too far--adding material.)
The words may be unrelated, but the alliteration in the Russian is there. One, the narrator, turns the lever of language, and the husband--a lever of domestic abuse?
The scars seem real, right, from the original?
No connection whatsoever, alas.
Thank you, I wondered whether the root might be connected.
Thank you for the direct translation!
Those marks on her back are quite confusing. I figured she wore powder on her skin and when she leaned back on the intricate woodwork, she was left with patterns that resemble scarring. I do enjoy this idea you have raised of the possible metaphor nature of them!
These arabesques of scars are intriguing details, a touch of genius. I may be reading too much into them but, at first, I thought that, in her youth, she might have been badly wounded during a pogrom with a knout, a Russian flogging whip https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knout. I thought of pogroms when I read Raissa's husband description, in one translation – "a flat, strong body that was turned slantwise for the purpose of flight", in the other – "a lean, powerful body that always seemed poised to surge up into the air." I can't find the original Russian text, and English is not my native language, so I wonder whether Babel' wanted to suggest some kind of fight-or-flight response etched on Bendersky's body, or rather a kind of bird-like vulnerability. The kitschy, uber-Slavonic décor of their house gives me the impression that they want to appear "more Russian than the Russians", for obvious reasons of traumas and personal tragedies.
So interesting--see what Brian Granger says about this as well further down in this thread.
Thanks, Mary, I will!
Was he seeing them just before they actually existed?
It's so confusing. She falls into the chair, and then the scars appear on her back. But how he can see them, i just don't know.
The translations are often inaccurate. They gloss over a few details, and Constantine's, while more lyrical perhaps, adds material. McDuff is loyal to the original, but overly so at times.
Она мотала завитой головой, бренчала перстнями и упала вдруг в кресло с древне русской резьбой. На пудренной ее спине тлели рубцы.
(Constantine)
She shook her curly head, her rings tinkled, and suddenly she fell into an armchair with ancient Russian carving. Scars shimmered on her powdered back.
-----
A кресло (kreslo) is an ordinary armchair (it could even be like a La-Z-Boy). If she is sitting up, the back, with an open dress, would be visible.
(Search for кресло, and you'll see the type of chair.)
тлеть (tlet') - to rot, decay, decompose; to smoulder
тлен (tlen) - decay, rot
They must be actual scars. Raisa may have been suffering domestic abuse for some time.
A few thoughts.
тлеть (tlet') - to rot, decay, decompose; to smoulder
тлен (tlen) - decay, rot
Does this mean that they could be pustules (as in syphilis)? Signs of moral decay?
(I just replied, but accidentally dropped the response in the general thread . . . Hope you can find it!)
Thank you!
Unless he’s seeing them in his mind.
Yes, that's a great thought.
And I forgot, тлеть (tlet') can also mean 'to shine' or 'to glimmer' - it sounds like actual vision, but many readings are of course possible.
'Scars glimmered on her powdered back.'
'Scars flashed red on her powdered back.'
The 'red' here would incorporate the 'subtext' of the Russian word, рубцы ('scars'), which connects into 'red-coloured,' 'ruby,' etc. The words for 'ruby' and 'scar' have a similar root.
A lot of the subtext and hidden, rich associations are all forfeited in translation. (Amor Towles in 'A Gentleman in Moscow' hits this brilliant note, in English, of the Slavic sonance.)
All right, the Slavic graduate seminar is now over . . . Back to enjoying the story.
You can go on as long as you like, that’s lovely! It seems our narrator was seeing ‘objective’ reality and with the eyes of his soul simultaneously.
This "graduate seminar" is amazing! Thank you so much.
Love all of this insight. Thanks so much!
I read those scars as the marks of syphilis…
I'm not the expert, but I think the sores from syphilis appear in a different part of the body....
I wondered about that too, so I looked it up. Apparently as the disease progresses those lesions can appear anywhere…I’d attach a link but it’s too horrible!
I'll take your word for it! Thanks for the clarification.
Thanks Mike...prorychala...love it^^
Could be. I thought of them as marks of someone’s passion…
To me, this is a story about the hunger for experience - one I recognise and remember from my own youth, even though I am far away in space and time from much of the context here. It is that small nugget of universally recognised truth that made the story such a pleasure, enough to make me move from unpaid follower to paid up member because I was so curious to unpack that pleasure in the company of other readers. What great responses. What a great thing to do in the face of the world and the times we live in. I am interested to see what people make of the ending, because reading through the comments made me think again about the role of syphilis in the story. I also see Raisa as fully in charge here and I buy the idea that she's done this before. I wondered about that final image of Maupassant, brains burned out, all that genius and passion eating itself alive. Because isn't this also a story about story-telling and truth-telling, and the price to be paid for that small nugget of truth, and how it is a price worth paying? It is doubly moving in light of the author's life and death.
George's discussion of ambiguity and vagueness will go into my G. S. Notes notebook. Otherwise, I'm not coming up with anything meaningful to add here. But if I were an alien visiting and the scene in question was translated to me I would wonder what's the big deal about sex between humans.
If I were an alien visiting, I might think "Holy Galaxies! Is THAT how they do it?"
I guess I am the alien in this instance.
Thank you George, fascinating distinction between vagueness and ambiguity. I wonder, though: is it always applicable as you apply it perfectly to Gatsby and De Maupassant? I don't think so. Did Hamlet and Ophelia do it or not? I think they did. And much has been written by literary critics and avid readers (and script writers etc.) about whether they did it or not. It is one of the famous Shakespeare's cruces. On the basis of this 'vagueness' some authoritative figures (thinking of Shaw for example) criticised Shakespeare's plays for being, well, sort of unfinished. There are many points in Hamlet (just an example among many) which are certainly vague, not ambiguous. And they are of course wonderful. So my point is: vagueness, too, can be great! (sometimes)
I guess the question is whether or not it matters if Hamlet and Ophelia had sex as far as the way the play ends.
Well, it's Ophelia's brother who kills Hamlet.
Yes, but he kills Hamlet out of revenge for Hamlet killing his father, not because he's spurned Ophelia. Her suicide strengthens his resolve, but he was already on his way to kill Hamlet.
I feel as if I keep coming too late to the discussion--after reading all the wonderful suppositions about their behavior written by this thoughtful group-- yes, no, maybe. But here is my thought: Babel might not have meant to confuse us, but remember how many years ago he wrote this story, reflecting the values and mores of his time. He might have assumed that he gave us enough clues because we share his understanding of culture. If we were writing about a couple today, based on current surveys saying that young people start "going all the way" later than half a century ago, would we necessarily interpret their rolling around as consummated sex? Another thought I have is about the question: What does the maid with the licentious manner represent? I keep thinking of Jeffrey Epstein's groomer, Ghislaine Maxwell. To me, the maid was an experienced bodyguard for Raisa--after assessing the young scholar as basically acceptable or harmless to her mistress, she could disappear and let them have at it (whatever Babel intended). The whole breast thing, I believe, was just to reinforce how immature the scholar was--like a teenager with no control over his eyes. Finally, is it possible that the old white nag with the pink lips is actually Raisa?
I like the Ghislaine Maxwell parallel for the maid (though Maxwell was a facilitator). I too saw her as an "experienced bodyguard" for Raisa. I also (still) fear that she is a pair of hard eyes for Bendersky and will report.
Yep, she’s a spy.
I’ve been having a lot of trouble accepting an old white nag, a slow white nag at that, indicating the culminating moment of passion.
I hope I’ve misinterpreted that.
The big word in that sentence is "fate"...
That too sounds less than joyous. Leaning now towards thinking those marks/bruises on Raisa were caused by illness.
They're decidedly ambiguous. If they're signs of syphilis, why would a wealthy hostess exhibit them (even powdered over?). It would be easy for her to wear a more covering evening dress.
Maybe just signs of “old age.”
(From the youngster perspective.)
Possibly. But where does it say clearly* that Raisa is considerably older than Narrator? Bendersky having attained a certain level of wealth could have chosen a trophy wife much younger than himself.
* sincere question, I may have missed something.
Yes! The author must know! I write books for film directors and consult with filmmakers who sometimes tell me they want to leave their ending “ambiguous” — but I’m afraid don’t really have a story to tell.
I love the toppled books - it is as though the literature that has been the reason for Raisa’s patronage and the quest for the narrator is toppled by their sexual hunger. Can the narrator learn to balance hunger for everything worldly with his intellectual hunger (and ambitions)?
I think the toppled books ARE the sex, orgasm, at least. In Anna Karenina we know Anna and Vronsky have had sex for the first time when Anna falls off the couch. Perhaps Babel is referring to that famous sex scene, aware that anything more explicit would be censored.
Wonderful if Babel was alluding to W&P, in view of Narrator's drunken comments on Tolstoy in Kazantsev's garret.
I love it when the books take flight!
I think you’re right. “Their pages flew asunder. They stood on their sides.” Doesn’t sound like it’s only referring to the books.
Good point, George, re the difference between vagueness and ambiguity. Your reading here does make a strong case for they did it, especially given the narrator's swaggering stagger as he departs. But I do feel there's something unsuccessful or unsatisfactory about it - the toppled furniture, her crucified posture and her ambivalent comment & growl. I don't think the young man's services will be required again!
That’s how I felt! Like maybe he finished fast— she was like, uh, you’re a funny one. Not something you’d say after a great roll around.
It depends…
Hmmm. I'm with Sea on that one! It occurred to me afterwards that maybe the toppling bookshelf and cascading volumes of Maupassant's works was an intervention by Maupassant trying to deflect the narrator from the next move - and then the truth of his grim end was a final 'I told you so' from the older author.
In a book of Babel's early stories, which includes 'In the Basement' and 'Guy de Maupassant,' we find:
Снимки великих князей, умерших в младенчестве, пряди их волос, дневники датской принцессы Дагмары, письма сестры ее, английской королевы, дыша духами и тленом, рассыпались под нашими пальцами. (ДОРОГА)
Pictures of grand dukes who had died in infancy, locks of their hair, the diaries of the Danish Princess Dagmar,* the letters of her sister, the Queen of England, breathing perfume and
decay, crumbling in our fingers. ('The Road,' trans. Constantine)
---
Северные цветы тлеют в вазах. (ЛИНИЯ И ЦВЕТ)
Northern flowers were withering in vases. ('Line and Color,' trans. Constantine)
(Babel jumps between present and past tense here, even from line to line . . . Constantine made it all past tense, probably for good reasons.)
---
Книги — истлевшие и душистые страницы, — они отвели меня в далекую Данию. (ВЕЧЕР У ИМПЕРАТРИЦЫ)
The books, their pages molding and fragrant, carried me to faraway Denmark. ('An Evening with the Empress,' trans. Constantine)
---
На лавках застыли сгорбленные немцы. В каждой трубке тлеет слабое пламя. Звезды сияют над нашими головами. Блеск луны достиг Волги. (КОНЦЕРТ В КАТЕРИНЕНШТАДТЕ)
The hunched Germans stiffen on the benches. A weak flame smolders in every pipe. The stars shine above our heads. The rays of the moon have reached the Volga. ('The Concert in Katerinenstadt,' trans. Constantine)
---
Вывеска над ворота ми развалилась, на ней нельзя было прочесть ни одного
слова, и у всех кучеров истлело последнее белье. (ЗАКАТ)
The sign above the gates had fallen apart, you couldn't read a single word, and none of the carters had even a single pair of underpants left. ('Sunset,' trans. Constantine = underwear was decaying)
---
Меер искривил истлевшие щеки. (КОНЕЦ БОГАДЕЛЬНИ)
Meyer twisted his decayed cheeks. ('The End of the Almshouse,' trans. Constantine)
---
The translations from Constantine are:
decay (n.)
were withering (v.)
molding (this must be an error in the TR, it should be 'mouldering,' v.)
'to mold' - to become moldy
'to moulder' - to crumble into particles: DISINTEGRATE, DECAY
smolders (v.)
had (none) left (maybe a mistranslation - their underpants were rotting away as they wore them)
decayed (v., past participle)
Other meanings:
тлеть (tlet')
= гореть (goret') - (1) 'to burn,' 'to be alight,' (2) 'to glitter,' 'to shine' . . . (3) 'to rot'
истлевать/истлеть (istlevat'/istlet') - a related word used above, with the word within it, is 'to rot, decay,' 'to smoulder to ashes.'
It feels as though the following ('smoulder') would apply:
> to burn sluggishly, without flame, and often with much smoke
Maybe these examples help the discussion. (Of course ignore anything which does not seem relevant.)
Other things are also at play in the language:
— Вы забавный, — прорычала Раиса.
“You’re fun,” growled Raisa.
Not, “You’re a funny one.” That is (calling a spade a spade) a mistranslation.
The Russian забавный comes from забавa, “fun,” “amusement,” “game,” “pastime.” (Not funny, haha, or weird or curious.)
And also, she addresses the narrator as Вы, formally, throughout. It’s a bit like saying, “You’re (a lot of) fun, Sir.” She keeps the distance, the officialness of their agreement to work on Maupassant intact. Juxtaposed with забавный, it’s provocative, volatile dialogue.
“You’re cute, Master Narrator.”
Notes from a simple reader who once delved into all things Slavic.
The perceptiveness of the group as a whole has enriched my weeks and months.
Ah, this clears that up thanks Brian.
She's being sarcastic.
Glad to hear that the notes find a home here, Iam.
This question of “did they or didn’t they” reminded me of our debate over the ending of Maria Messina’s story, Her Father’s House. And I am just as confident that these two had clumsy, drunken sex as I am that Vanna let the sea take her.
The scene played like a movie in my mind, knocking things over, like one does when inebriated and realizing one has this sexual opportunity after all the flirting. It was also the noting of the time - leaving before the others would arrive home.
And then, of course the staggering and singing nonsense. One who misses the opportunity might walk home defeated. Quiet.
But the kicker was his reaction to reading about Guy du Maupassant’s syphilis. Not that he worried about an STD, but that the high of the romance and passion drifted back to reality. It just seems like that might make sense after a sexual encounter that ends with your partner in her nice home with her family arriving home and him back in the “frozen, yellow, foul-smelling street.”
They done did it.
There is something which as a reader and not a writer that I don't understand about George's last post. He points out that Babel must have known where the sex led 'otherwise, it would be impossible for him to “tune” the surrounding story sufficiently.' He then outlines four possible alternative scenarios which 'are all different stories'.
I can understand that the question 'What is the story I am writing' is of central importance to a writer. I have tried to imagine what Babel would have written differently for each of the four scenarios. You will not be surprised that I can't do it. Which element would he have had to modify so that 'every element is humming and resonating and in touch with every other element' ?
One reason that I can't do it (beyond the obvious! might be that for me the sex is not central. This is for me a story about language and literature and the four scenarios all have meaning for me as ways in which I have engaged with reading this story. Each of the 'four stories' hums and resonates.
Another is that I enjoy complexity and uncertainty (not vagueness).
Or is it just that I am overthinking. The narrator was there. He must know whether desire was consummated.
But that doesn't help me with the 'what would have been written differently' question.
" This is for me a story about language and literature"
Yes -- and, I'm tempted to add, about the life of a serious artist.
Hi Adrian. In these threads, we've said before that a short story is sort of like a joke. Everything in a short story points to the climax/ending/meaning, just like everything in a joke points to the punchline. So, to me, for each of the scenarios George mentioned, the writer would have to carefully choose "how" to write the story, so as to lead to the climax/ending/meaning that the writer wished to convey. This story (Guy de Maupassant) takes us down a chosen path--nothing was put in there that isn't part of the road Babel wants us on, the road that points to the ending. This particular road takes us to the climactic sex scene (for those of us who read it that way). If the story were to culminate in no sex, we would have been on a different road all along, or at the very least, we would have turned off the road we all began on (for all the scenarios) and found ourselves on the "no sex" road. There, everything would point to "no sex." All stories are written this way (or I should say revised over and over until the story is completely on the road the writer means for it to travel upon). Everything points in the direction the writer wants you to go until you've reached the writer's chosen destination. So each of those scenarios would have been on their own, unique road where everything points to the destination. In that way, each story would be written differently (in terms of tone, chosen detail, plot, characterization, etc.). I hope this made sense. All of this is just my take on your question here. Others may see it completely differently.
"Everything points in the direction the writer wants you to go until you've reached the writer's chosen destination."
I'm thinking: and continues after you've reached that destination. In this case, Narrator goes home singing his head off in the streets. If he'd been repelled, or had made a fool of himself, he would certainly have been much more subdued. Drunkenness alone doesn't explain his euphoria.
Babel avoided overt sexual narrative by some fancy footwork with the furniture, then signed off on the accomplishment of desire by describing Narrator's wild behaviour after the act.
Yes, i completely agree. He wants to feel drunk again, though he's now sober. He is singing as he walks home. It all points to his feeling that he's had a wonderful, memorable evening!
'Everything points in the direction the writer wants you to go until you've reached the writer's chosen destination'
I get all that Mary. It is an excellent teaching point about writing, skilfully introduced by George's question. But how does it apply in this story?
Let's start where you say 'Everything points in the direction the writer wants you to go until you've reached the writer's chosen destination'. Straightforward if we know that. But what IS Babel's chosen destination?
'I was brushed with a foreboding of truth'
To be 'brushed' is only a light touch. A 'foreboding' likewise suggests rather than determines. There is no Ah-Ha moment only a partial insight. It has to be an insight because the fog is obscuring his view of the 'real' world.
We also know that by looking outwards, reading the words of SOME others, he gets things wrong: for example, Maupassant did not have congenital syphilis, he caught it in his youth; and it does not say in the Maynial biography that he ate shit.
But what he does in the last paragraph from 'And that night.....' is to reflect on his own life through the lens of Maupassant's, errors and all. He presents his resume of the biography as though Maupassant's life was an Odyssey. Everyone makes errors and behaves badly, even Odyseus, as part of living.
So within Maupassant the story, the narrator makes errors of fact, judgement and behaviour. He is passionate about living at a passionate, unstable period of his life. He desires. Is part of his foreboding the realisation that writing is dangerous?
In what way is the 'fact' of sexual consummation - as opposed to expectation or dream - an essential part of this story?
What words would have been written differently if the sexual desire was not consummated?
As a sort of postscript:
During Babel's tough period, prior to his being shot, he says some interesting things. He claims a right to make mistakes and a right to remain silent. He also disowns some of the things he has said or written in the past.
All of that was after he had written 'Maupassant' and so lie outside the story itself. Having discovered this part of his biography, I cannot unlearn it. You can judge whether it has affected my reading of the story.
Bąbel disowned some of the things he'd said or written in an effort to save his own life--that's how i understand it. For instance, the officer in My First Goose was based on a real person and Babel had to really wrestle his way out of that one. He had to disown some of the things he'd written because he knew he was in trouble for all of it. But I'm not a Babel historian, so I'll leave that be.
We haven't talked about the ending of the story yet here. As i've said ad nauseam throughout these threads already, i look forward to George's take. So your questions about that are all great, and next week maybe things will look more clear for all of us. I kind of doubt that Babel got anything "wrong," as you say. In fact, i'm guessing he purposely took liberties with the truth in order to write this story. To point to that ending. He is a writer of fiction--we can only look at the story itself, and not be beholden to any "facts" in his stories. They are not facts. They are fictions.
Lastly, I do think there is, more or less, an "a-ha" moment--a moment of realization in the narrator. It's right there at the end. And it's not small. It's pretty darn big. When you ask me "what is Babel's chosen destination?" I think the answer is that it's there on the page for us to decipher. He's not here to tell us--it's up to each of us to take out of the story what we take of it.
So our reading experiences differ. But in thinking about 'writing' I have a final wonder: the rules relating microdetails to ending are crucially important. Maybe Babel's genius, expertise, originality, lies in finding a way not to follow those rules too precisely allowing some readers to find meanings in this story irrespective of sexual consummation.
The best part about all of this is that each of us takes from the story what we take. There are no right answers.
But Mary that is not the point that GS's introductory remarks were making. As I understood it we were asked to consider Babel's writing and whether it is internally consistent particularly with the ending.The analysis he presented was supportive of them having sex. Not everyone thinks that is the only outcome. So there is a question about whether Babel wrote this ambiguity into his story and if so , how he achieves it. Also, if he didn't intend such ambiguity what might he have written differently.
In other words, what the lessons are that can be learned particularly about writing ambiguity from analysis of Babel's writing in this story.
ps no more from me on this I promise!
A further ps:
Babel was always re-inventing himself. He wasn't a penniless Jew, he had to learn how to be violent with Cossacks and he had to learn how to live in St Petersburg. He tells different stories of his life. They change according to circumstances and time. We all do that.
So how does it matter if there are four different stories embedded in the uncertainty about sex? There can be many stories running through a young person's head before they are brushed with forebodings as to who they are.
Wow. I hope I'm not the only one that feels like they should throw in the towel on writing fiction after reading one of George's substack letters. This was delightful and I don't think I've fully grasped this story until now. One thing that drew my attention was the rootlessness of all the characters, both Raisa and the narrator and her sisters and their husbands. They're all pretending in some way. The counterpoint I felt was the narrator's friend Kazantsev, the translator of Spanish literature, who "had a country of his own—Spain." (He's a teacher of Russian literature but like the narrator only finds meaning in someone else's literature.) I wonder if this is Babel tying in the notion of the Wandering Jew—as the Jewish population was freed of the shtetl, where did they go/what/who did they become? A sort of meta-look at both the rootlessness of youth and the rootlessness of a "young" population.
Don't throw in the towel! Use all of this as inspiration!
Thanks Mary! You're always so supportive!