The Dream Life of Sukhanov
I first read about The Dream Life of Sukhanov and had it stick, unlikely enough, in an alumni magazine. The magazine ran an interesting “alumni makes good” piece spotlighting Olga Grushin. Grushin is one of those people who has had such a remarkable life that it is difficult to imagine that they are younger than you. So I ran out and got her book.
Grushin was born in Russia, but did most of her schooling in Prague. On returning to Moscow she studied art history at the Pushkin Museum. She went on to win a scholarship to Emory University in 1989, becoming the first Russian citizen to attend and graduate from an American University. She served as an interpreter for Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center, was a research analyst at a law firm, was a translator for the World Bank, worked at a jazz bar, and now is an editor for a Harvard library. Somewhere in there she married, had a son, and wrote a book. Slacker.
A child of Glasnost, it is little wonder that the subject of Grushin’s novel is the personal price of change in the Soviet Union. Anatoly Sukhanov, her protagonist, is the editor of an official Soviet art journal, Art of the World. With the position has come a life of comfort and privilege. Soon after the book begins, Sukhanov begins dropping out of his present situation and into reveries, sometimes in mid-conversation. He loses himself in flashbacks and daydreams of his past life. Over the course of the book, we learn the true price of the comfortable life that he now enjoys.
As a young man, Sukhanov had been a promising young artist, chafing at the restrictions of the Soviet state. Ultimately, Sukhanov sacrafices his ideals, little by little, to create a better life for his young family. IN his current position, Sukhanov is responsible for maintaining the official party line on foreign artists. Usually this means writing an editorial about the capitalist madness that shows itself so plainly in the works of Dali, etc, for example. He is also required to denounce Chagall, a Russian, who was a mentor to one of his professors.
However, the Soviet Union is changing now that Sukhanov is in middle age, a man comfortable in his rut. Several opportunities arise for Sukhanov to reclaim his former ideals and life. How Sukhanov adapts to these changes and the opportunities afforded to him are the focus of the latter half of the book. I won’t give away any spoilers – let’s just say that this book is firmly in the mold of Russian literature.
I recommend this book if you like the Russians. Grushin is great at setting a mood and getting to the heart of her characters. My only complaint was that Grushin would suddenly change from a third person narrative to first person, sometimes mid-scene. She would say, for example, “Anatoly returned from school to find…” Then he would begin the next paragraph, “I hardly wondered about it at first…”. The “I” being Anatoly. Weird. Maybe there was a clue there that I missed. Maybe Anatoly is trying to hide that he is the true author of the book, and I missed it. I don’t know. It hardly matters. I was almost halfway through before I noticed. Once I did, it was a little distracting trying to figure out what was going on. Outstanding novel at any rate.
If all goes well this week, this will be the first of three novels by “modern Russians” that I’ve read recently, with “recently” being interpreted fairly broadly. Now that I think about it, “Modern” will be stretched a little bit, as will “Russian”. It’ll make sense.
November 6, 2006 6:45 am 
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By Beth, November 6, 2006 @ 12:55 pm
It’s on that ever-growing list.
By DJ Cayenne, November 6, 2006 @ 1:06 pm
If you read it, see if you can figure out the code of the shifts in narrative person.
By Dr J, November 6, 2006 @ 2:54 pm
Huh. Huh-huh. He said suckin’ off.
By DJ Cayenne, November 6, 2006 @ 3:07 pm
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give it up for Beavis!