Praise and Reality: Sergey Dovlatov
A story of unappreciated life, which is now a subject of admiration.
Here is the humble writing about Dovlatov who touched my heart by his sincerity. Born in 1941 in Russia, he was a son of a simple family that was included in an artistic scene. His father was Jewish, a theater director. Mom was an Armenian actress. As Dovlatov was telling in his stories, they had no crucial impact in the art world, perhaps for good.
When I started reading his works, I had no idea where he lived, how he lived, and most importantly what huge role he has in today’s world of Russian literature. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to prepare to read him, because his writings, that turned out to be deeply autobiographical, depicted him and his life so abundantly and concretely that no other source would ever will.
His writing style is cynical and ironic. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. He described one accident that happened in his family as follows: “Then grandfather was arrested. For my father, it was a complete surprise, since grandfather was apparently a good person.“
He depicted life without pathos and told stories without supplementary romance. The reader will come across amusing comments like “Relative clarity appears in my life after taking a shower”, or “Boris sober and Boris drunk are such different people, they’ve never even met”. He was sure that the issue of flat feet is present for one single reason — not attending physical training.
All his attempts to publish his works in Leningrad were fruitless. In his work, “Pushkin Hills” he has a monologue stating the following: “You don’t get paid, that’s what is bad. Go work during the day, write at night. Cause emotional shock to the reader. That’s a task for life. But what if it doesn’t work out? Well, you yourself said, morally, a failed attempt is even more noble. At least, because it is not rewarded.”
He depicts how hard it was to be an individual in the Soviet Union, and how much harder it was to be a bright one. Dovlatov went into a blacklist of Russian literature. His tries were declined continually. The reasons varied from source to source. Some were thinking that perhaps the reason was that he was discussing the most controversial theme at that time, more particularly Soviet reality.
While getting familiar with his writings, the reader who doesn’t know anything about Dovlatov will shape a solid opinion of what the writer’s life looked like. He had an ordinary childhood, was not a good pupil and a student either. He was telling his studying “culture” was bad but diverse. Occasionally, he was becoming a participant of the district chemistry olympiad. After, Fs were following even from literature class. At the age of 15, however, he won first place in the All-Union competition for young poets. In student years, as he was writing, he was busy smoking and drinking and constantly threatening his mother with marriage, hell knows who.
Dovlatov was writing that the point he understood during his life is that it’s wrong to divide people into good or bad ones. Dovlatov was showing how it is to be a journalist in the Soviet Union, he was hiding neither good nor bad parts, showing each character’s true self.
I guess the unapologetic honesty was the reason the Soviet Union refused to publish his works. He had problems with the government, and if he didn’t decide to move to New York he would get arrested in his hometown.
He emigrated with his wife, daughter, and mom. A man with a family, unaware of the language, a journalist with a package of unpublished works he had no idea what to do with.
Step by step they started to move forward in a foreign city, with profoundly different rules and settings. America differed from the Union dramatically. Dovlatov was agreeing that freedom is what the US was offering. In his writings he was addressing this point and telling that America was an idea of heaven for them. As a matter of fact, heaven was what they were deprived of.
The writer had an ironic idea of himself.“I was not published in the Soviet Union. This means here I’ll become an Art Buchwald”.
After so many years of unsuccessful tries, Dovlatov was finally published in a well-known magazine New Yorker after 6 months of their arrival in the US. Surprisingly he gave a quite cold reaction to it. The reason was how he described it: he waited for this moment way too long.
A misunderstood and unappreciated life when it was alive was born in the Soviet Union. An individual whose purpose as he was writing is to tell how ordinary people lived. He depicted the essence of living, everyday life of a Russian, their flaws and blessings. A person whose humor and straightforwardness were driving people mad. His talent was not welcomed, his writing style was “wrong”, the topics he was discussing were in a blacklist of Soviet literature. A person who had to leave his home, to make a living. Who missed his hometown until his last days. An individual who would stay undiscovered to the world, if he stayed. His life was burdensome, he was working hard for his family to live a moderate life. He saw his hard work being rejected for years. Dovlatov passed away when he was not even 50.
After reading a couple of his stories, I got interested in what people were writing about him. Students still write a thesis about his works, they tell the world their excitement and love towards the Russian writer. He is now one of the most popular Russian writers of the 20th century. Sergey Dovlatov was considered forbidden in Soviet Society, and yet, four works of the author are included in 100 books recommended by the Ministry of Education of Russia for independent reading. His works are disassembled into quotes, his name is vastly recognizable in the world.
I feel sorry that this kind of exceptional people have to go through such a tough life, be ill-treated and left in a foreign country. He didn’t receive the approval until the very last years of his life. Dovlatov was writing that writers don’t become exceptional from a happy life. Perhaps, that is true.
