THIS IS MY BOOK: «Pismovnik» by Mikhail Shishkin

Oleksii Botvinov — pianist, founder of Odessa Classics

«Pismovnik», a novel by Mikhail Shishkin that has received numerous awards and been translated into more than 30 languages, is an absolute masterpiece of intellectual prose.

his book made the strongest impression on me of everything I have read over the past decade. The novel is multilayered, and everyone will find in it something close to them — whether it be an emotional shock, an intellectual game, unexpected historical facts, or philosophical reflections on the essence of being.

By the way, speaking of historical facts, how many people remember the long-forgotten war at the beginning of the twentieth century, when, during the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China, Russians, Americans, French, Japanese, Italians, and the British found themselves in one coalition?

It is to this war that the young writer Volodya goes as a volunteer. He goes in search of inspiration and new life experiences. The narrative form is an epistolary novel. The hero’s beloved, Sashenka, lives a long life, while Volodya dies at the very beginning of the military campaign. Or does he?

From the moment Sashenka receives the notice of his death, the structure of time and space undergoes unexpected transformations. The exchange of letters continues. Different interpretations of what is happening are possible: the heroine imagines these fictional letters; the writer evenly distributes the events that happened to Volodya at the war across Sashenka’s long and dramatic life; the hero writes letters from the afterlife; or something else — but it is clear that «the link between times has been broken».

By the way, the novel contains many allusions and direct references to Shakespeare. The author seems to be in an internal dialogue with Hamlet and War and Peace. (Incidentally, the novel’s title, difficult to translate, was replaced in England with Light and Dark, clearly hinting at Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece.)

«Pismovnik» is a novel of great emotions. And of an incredibly refined, perfect language — on the level of Nabokov, Bunin, and Bulgakov. Many phrases remain in the memory like poetry. This is a book about the main questions. And it is not surprising that after writing «Pismovnik», the author took a pause from large forms — it is very difficult to surpass this book. A true classic of world literature.

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