Iramifications: An Adventure Novel (Glas New Russian Writing) [Paperback]

Reading the occasional book in translation is a worthwhile exercise, simply because different languages and different cultures can sometimes produce writing that is very different from the anglophone stuff we are used to. Iramifications is one of those novels that is quite unlike the stuff we are used to.

The basic premise is that there are two Odessa based shuttle traders, Shenderovich and Alla, who mistake a St Petersburg tourist - Givi - for their third partner. After much drink, Givi agrees to accompany Shenderovich and Alla on a mission to Turkey to buy products for resale back home. Somewhere, somehow in Islanbul, Givi and Shenderovich end up being transported to a mythical land populated by eastern mystics, demons and nubian asses.

The real world narrative is strong and convincing. We get a good insight into the displaced nature of the world of the shuttle trader - the drinking, the boredom mixed with the glamour, the danger... But the transformation is a harder sell and one that is not entirely successful. To start with, the mystical land appears to be a series of episodes in which Givi and Shenderovich meet strange, sinister people, realise they are in peril, escape and fall into the hands of the next bunch of strange, sinister people. There are moments of humour, particularly as Shenderovich in particular acts like a cynical, mocking slob as the eastern mystics engage in eastern mystical rituals and speak their peculiar brand of fantasy-novel mumbo-jumbo. We see scorn as he talks to Givi, but ham-fisted attempts at imitation as Shenderovich thinks he might be able to reach a position of advantage by doing so. But ultimately, the fantasy-novel mumbo-jumbo goes on for too long, and the different perilous situations blur into one another.

There is some intrigue in the latter stages of the novel as Givi and Shenderovich believe they have regal heritage - and become locked in a bitter struggle for a throne in which they do not really believe. But this ended up in weirdness that might be too much to truly allow suspension of disbelief. Nevertheless, there were interesting ideas on friendship, loyalty, greed, ambition and how far people will believe the unbelievable if they see personal advantage in doing so.

Throughout the novel, there are interludes as stories and legends are told - sometimes over ten or twenty pages. This rather breaks the flow, and it's not always clear exactly how the teller of these legends has come to know them. Perhaps it was part of the magical transformation process that seemed to affect the key characters. But in any case, the stories were obviously supposed to form an important strand of allegory but understanding it might have required a degree of concentration that I did not have.

At the end, Maria Galina has left an afterword which explains how she drew up her characters and explains that she had wanted to write a modern version of Sinbad. Not having read Sinbad might have had me at a disadvantage, and the aurthor's explanations did help in understanding what had been going on a little - but ought a novel to need such an explanation?

This is a novel that has a bold idea, but perhaps it lacks something in terms of execution. The pacing is not quite right and as the weirdness sets in, there is not enough of a thread of reality to hold on to. Some scenes could have been lost with no great detriment - the desert scenes in particular. The action could have moves straight from Istanbul to Iram, thereby reducing the number of eastern mystical characters and giving each of them more opportunity to establish a distinct identity in the reader's mind. The desert characters just add noise and confusion that fogs the important scenes. Nevertheless, for all its faults, the novel does offer food for thought on how the new Soviet Union works and the kind of escapism that its reading public are seeking.