Cape of Storms [Paperback]

Nina Berberova (Author), Marian Schwartz (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0811217655 | ISBN-13: 978-0811217651 | Publication Date: November 1, 1999

Cape of Storms, one of the great Russian writer's most fascinating novels, was published serially in 1951 in the Novyi Zhurnal -- and Nina Berberova herself, late in life, took the old migr journals off a shelf and handed them to distinguished translator Marian Schwartz. Now this forgotten, riveting late masterpiece is available in English for the first time.

Centering on three half-sisters, Cape of Storms treats a very specific generation, born in Russia but raised in Paris: a lost generation, having suffered childhood traumas, and now neither really Russian nor truly French. The three sisters -- Dasha, Sonia, and Zai -- share the same father, Tiagin (portrayed by Berberova as an attractive, weak-willed womanizing White Russian). As the specter of war looms, and the sisters enter adulthood, each chooses a different path: Dasha marries and leaves for a bourgeois, expatriate life in colonial Africa; Sonia studies philosophy, becomes obsessed with radical politics, and ends a suicide; Zai, the youngest, an appealing adolescent, flirts with becoming an actress or a poet. It is a shattering book, which opens with an absolutely hair-raising scene of Dasha witnessing her mother's murder at the hands of Bolshevik thugs, and ends as the blitzkrieg sweeps towards Paris. Cape of Storms is unparalleled in Berberova's work for its high drama, its starkness, and many shifts of mood and viewpoint.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Cape of Storms, as Nina Berberova's epigraph reminds us, is also known as the Cape of Good Hope--and in this aptly named novel of émigré Russian life, both hope and storms abound in almost equal measure. The book follows three half sisters as they pass from the terrors of revolutionary Russia to the quieter but no less perplexing environs of pre-World War II Paris. Dasha, Sonia, and Zai are neither quite Russian nor quite French. Bereft of both country and creed, they struggle to reconcile themselves with a world come loose from its moorings--and doing so means wrestling with some ancient and difficult dilemmas. What is freedom? What is harmony? Is there any such thing as absolute truth? Or, as Sonia puts it in her last, desperate hours: "Who is to blame? What is to be done?" She echoes, of course, the famous questions posed by Herzen and Chernyshevsky respectively, questions that Russian thinkers have visited and revisited ever since.

The book begins with gentle Dasha, the eldest, who preserves an unrufflable poise even after witnessing her own mother's murder. Like Vera, the heroine of Berberova's The Book of Happiness, Dasha's "dizzying equilibrium" keeps her in constant tune with the world around her. That's in contrast to beautiful, chilly Sonia, who lives only for ideas, doesn't care about the patches in her dress, and dreams obsessively of unity, harmony, and "totalitarian happiness"--all things that come naturally to Dasha, who Sonia both scorns and envies: "Well-balanced human beings! They all end up the same way: they get fat and die surrounded by grandchildren." Somewhere between the two extremes is trembling little Zai, who believes that all Russians are either insects or nails, either victims or oppressors. In Paris, she discovers that there is enough bread for everyone, writes fanciful poems about washing the kitchen floor, dabbles in acting, and tries earnestly to learn how to live as a free being.

This sort of expertly nuanced characterization almost takes the place of narrative in Cape of Storms. It's not that the novel is without external plot; on the contrary, it boasts a miraculous healing, a marriage of convenience, and a suicide, as well as several love affairs that end in disillusionment or betrayal. Yet most of these stormy events occur almost off-stage. Berberova is after something quite different than melodrama: that is, the record of three consciousnesses attempting to locate themselves in physical as well as philosophical exile, one failing, one settling for the unexamined life, and one sinking back into fear. Her style throughout is elliptical, unsentimental, simple yet fiercely personal--the sort of thing Chekhov might write if he had lived separated from everything that he loved. "All dualism is painful for me," Berberova wrote in her autobiography, The Italics Are Mine. "What is it really, this world? And what am I in it? Am I at one with it? Does it agree with me the way I am? Or could it be that only by perishing can I merge with it?" Sonia muses, and sad to say, we think we know the answer. Elegantly written and masterfully translated by Marian Schwartz, Cape of Storms is further proof that Berberova's talent was overlooked for too long. --Mary Park --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Originally published in 1951 as a serial in Novyi Zhurnal, Soviet Russia's principal literary journal, Berberova's epic novel is a dark Little Women, a feminine Brothers Karamazov. Three half-sisters, each of whom emigrated from the Soviet Union to France at various times to live with their father Tiagin, an ex-colonel in the Russian army, take turns describing their lives in Paris on the brink of WWII. Dasha, who as a small girl saw her mother brutally murdered by Bolsheviks, cuts short a potentially mystical destiny by marrying a dull banker. The beautiful Sonia buries herself alive with cynicism and contempt. Zai, the youngest, is the most hopeful of the bunch, confusedly waffling between passions for boyfriends, family members, poetry and acting. As explained in the book's epigraph, the title refers to the Cape of Good Hope, discovered in 1486 by Bartholomeu Dias; Dias called it the Cape of Storms because he failed to sail around it. Similarly, the sisters never manage to realize or even fully articulate their respective dreams. Berberova, herself an ?migr? who was best known in her lifetime for her memoirs and criticism and recognized posthumously for The Ladies of St. Petersburg and The Book of Happiness, works of fiction also translated by Schwartz, excels at switching between voices and moods. Each woman's personality is artfully distinguished, the existential odes to solitude leavened with doses of pointed humor. At one point, just after Sonia decides, "I had nothing in common with this city, this country, this continent, this planet, and never would," she wonders, "Should I have a glass of wine in the corner caf?... Or should I order coffee?" Available in English for the first time, this is a work of high literary merit.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811217655
• ISBN-13: 978-0811217651
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,878,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A World Divided Crossways, November 25, 2008

By 

Kristen Hannum (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cape of Storms (Hardcover)

A nearly perfect novel, Cape of Storms is the story of three Russian half sisters finding their way in a world that constantly threatens to tear us down.
The youngest sister, Zai, has a stark choice - to go the way of her sister Dasha, who has chosen happiness, or the way of sister Sonia, who has chosen unhappiness.
Sonia would today be diagnosed as clinically depressed - and some readers may rebel at Berberova's depiction of her life as a "choice." That is, after all, part of the definition of mental illness - that depressed or schizophrenic have no choice.
Here's Dasha, in the opening lines of the novel: "It often seemed to Dasha that inside herself it was like a starry sky. And in fact, when she looked inward she4 seemed to be standing at the brink of a great chasm. There, at her very core, deep down, where her thoughts were anchored, reigned calm, quiet, and clarity... Sometimes Dasha felt as if she were sitting above a precipice with the stars beneath her; often she would linger with them for a long while..."
Later on, Dasha thinks, "the world was carved up a long time ago, not length-wise, between good and evil, but cross-wise, between happiness and unhappiness..."

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reviewed by Judy Gigstad, March 27, 2000

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Bookreporter.com - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cape of Storms (Hardcover)

Berberova's original CAPE OF STORMS was published in 1951 in the Novyi Zhurnal. For the English language reader, knowledge of Russian history at the time of the Revolution must be assumed. The author plunges immediately into the setting where a mother is brutally raped and murdered by Bolshevik criminals. Dasha, one of three daughters sharing the same father, witnesses the bloody crime. Her natural father Tiagin comes for her, and they leave the tumultuous city to live abroad, resting finally in Paris. But Tiagin leaves behind his baby, Zai, for his wife's lover to raise.

A third daughter, Sonia, lives in Paris and is the child of his present wife. Dasha and Sonia do not meet their sister Zai until she is 14. The second chapter is the story of Zai's separation from the family who raised her and her assimilation into her father's family. Both Dasha and Zai exhibit a detached awareness of the people most important in their lives. Each seeks self-fulfillment in Parisian culture but each remains unable to form close associations with its people.

Sonia's story is the most poignant but the least understood. Her portrait is painted through the author's introduction of her diary. Born to a French mother, unlike her Russian sisters, Sonia's personality is the most like a native Russian. She is highly educated but without direction --- a misfit in her political time. Berberova could have placed Sonia into the American culture of "flower children" and not missed a beat.

Each character in the novel is tragic. Berberova's style is difficult to follow because of her transitions to multiple points of view in rapid succession. She dedicates much of the novel to philosophical wanderings into the psyche of each main character. However, none realizes their dream by the end of the book. Zai, the youngest, comes the closest to accepting her world.

From Sonia's journal comes her philosophy. "Because in the world everything flows logically out of everything else, because everything tends to flow down, a miracle flows into the everyday, despair flows into suicide. It's going to happen."

Dasha embraces the Parisian social elite by marrying into her employer's family and moving to Africa. Her letters are without salutation, as if she is incapable of showing her love. Although she adapts well to life's changes, she remains outside the realm of deep emotion. For her, the death scene in Chapter One is the barometer that controls her outlook on all of life.

CAPE OF STORMS is a difficult book to enjoy because it opens the wounds of revolution that strike three girls tragic emotional blows for their entire lives. It is, however, a study of the methods the human mind chooses to cope with life's difficult choices.

--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read Carefully, March 27, 2001

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Cape of Storms (Hardcover)

Ms. Berberova's work has been praised as work that resides on the same tier as, "The Old Russians". High praise but not presumptuous as her book, "Cape Of Storms" demonstrates. And like many Great Russian writers her work is not something to casually stroll through. She demands your attention to detail, and her style can leave you wondering which turn you may have missed. None of this detracts from the reading, and some of the confusion may be due to translation, which no book benefits from.

The very beginning is critical to the book as it begins to piece together three sisters that share much but not always the same parentage. If you miss anything here, the rest of the book won't work unless you begin again. Whether their formative years are on Russian or French soil these three women could not be more different. Sonia is giving to asking questions that center on why, what, and who, and when the answers are not forthcoming it decides her fate.

Dasha will eventually find herself in Oran in circumstances much more pleasant that either of her other siblings/partial siblings, and Zai remains for the most part the most enigmatic of the three. The book also takes the forms of first person narrative, a diary that belongs to Sonia, tremendous dialogue, and is host to major events that take place largely out of the mainstream of the book, even while described on the book's pages. Further layers are added to the story when pre-war Paris is the locale for most of the book, and the life of being part of an emigration, and not part of so much else also runs through the work. The ideas of what an émigré is and is not, is part of, and all they can never be, is extensively debated.

I have read two of this Author's books, and I have enjoyed them both. They are for those times when you want a book that demands your attention as opposed to a lighter diversion.