FYODOR SOLOGUB - LITTLE DEMON
Translated by Ronald Wilks, Penguin Classics, 2013
Sologub isn't a household name like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky or Chekhov. One of numerous 'forgotten' Russian writers, his novel "Little Demon" appeared in the early years of the twentieth century and was a great success, and by rights should be as well-regarded in the West as "War and Peace" and "Crime and Punishment."
This isn't a grand scale epic or a deep psychological study, it's a tale of a paranoid and sociopathic school teacher in some unnamed provincial town. In that sense it is quintessentially Russian - there are no French-speaking toffs in their palaces, just an array of intriguing gossipy locals and the 'action' doesn't stray far from three or four houses and their idiosyncratic occupants.
Despite this apparent claustrophobia and small-mindedness, the novel is nonetheless a page-turner and a good laugh : I haven't read anything like it in Russian literature.
One aspect of the novel that greatly surprised me was its eroticism. (Mild spoilers ahead). Let's face it, most the Big Names of Russian literature were rather reticent about sexuality, perhaps due to the censorship of the times. When "Little Demon" was published in 1907 no doubt censorship was still an issue, but this did not stop Sologub from transparently portraying both the non-standard proclivities of the main character and the sensual escapades of two young characters.
What struck me about Sologub's portrayal of sexuality beyond surprise at what he got away with, was how well he was able to write scenes of intimacy. Writing about sex has always been tricky, from the vague allusions of the nineteenth century to the modern age where the choice seems to be between clichéd snapshots of 'perfect' people having 'perfect' sex, or ugly warts-and-all clinical descriptions a la Irvine Welsh or Michel Houellebecq.
Sologub gets it exactly right. Rather like how dramatic tension in a sci-fi flick is broken the moment the aliens appear, so it is with dramatising sex: the sensual scenes in "Little Demon" work so well because nothing actually happens - it is all slow, smouldering, tantalising build-up and suggestion. Incredibly powerful writing.
Fyodor Sologub then, joins the likes of Nikolai Leskov and Andrei Platonov in the ranks of criminally neglected Russian writers whose superb works deserve far wider recognition.