Growing up under Khrushchev and Brezhnev was no party, but drama was. In the novel “The big green tent”, the Russian author Lyudmila Ulitskaya takes the reader back to the post-war era. She does this by conjuring up a multitude of characters: high and low, townspeople and farmers, drunkards, daydreamers and dreamers. Mostly young Muscovites. This is familiar material to the author; she was one of them. Against the dark background of censorship and surveillance, a colourful, comical, absurd, creepy and downright life-threatening story unfolds about living and surviving when one has now been born into the world at the end of the Stalin era. Traitor in exile Ljudmila Ulitskaja (b. 1943) is a popular author in her home country. Not with Putin, of course. In recent years, she has been increasingly critical of him. She is active in the human rights organization Memorial, which last year was among the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. In February one year ago, Ulitskaya went into exile in Germany. At the time, the novel “The big green tent” was already 11 years old. An unintended side of the war in Ukraine is a prolific flow of interesting literature from Ukraine and Russia. Some may know the name Ulitskaja from before. This is her fourth book in Norwegian, and she is also still on the list of people who have been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Dead kitten and eternal friendship It starts with a kitten that some young people used as a throwing ball. Three boys of primary school age take care of the poor animal, which dies very soon. But the friendship between Ilja, Mika and Sanja survives throughout the 30 years the novel covers, even if the Lagnad – or the KGB – leads them in very different directions. Around the three of them there is a wealth of people: lovers, spies, mothers, grandmothers, teachers, friends and betrayers, the last two could easily be one and the same person. The novel is like the great Russian novels of the 19th century: like a wide river that occasionally branches off and then returns to its main course. It is still possible to keep up. The story is told in the mouth of an adult, all-knowing narrator who steers us back and forth through the drama without giving in to our feelings. “The mother (…) hit him where she hit with her skinny little fists, and roared in a loud, cracking voice until she fell over herself. Many years later, when Mitja had become a doctor, he diagnosed her with hysteria.” But then the mother was dead. This is one of all the peripheral characters who are portrayed with few words and great precision. Beautiful and terrible The sharp-sighted narrator in the novel shows not least what happens to people in a system where silence can lead you to a higher level both in career and material prosperity. Betrayal and selfishness become the winning formula itself. Some try to oppose, like Ilja. He spreads illegal literature and gets burned for it. Sanja has lived in exile in classical music since he was a child. Mika is the good person who helps people in trouble without asking questions. He lives the most dangerous of the three. In short: Lyudmila Ulitskaya tells a completely different version of Soviet history than Putin. This is a novel about what a totalitarian society does to people. But it is also a story about friendship that far exceeds one’s own interests. It is the story of love, both mutual and one-sided. Not least, it is a story about all the wonderful old women and all the teachers who see such reckless weirdos as Ilja, Mika and Sanja. The depiction of the naked old women in the hot tub and of the literature teacher who opened up the world to the three, I will remember forever. “The big green tent” is beautiful and terrible at the same time. news reviewer Photo: Cappelen Damm Title: “The big green tent” Author: Ljudmila Ulitskaja Genre: Fiction Publisher: Cappelen Damm Pages: 592 Published: 2023
ttn-69
“The big green tent” by Ljudmila Ulitskaja – Reviews and recommendations
