Customer Reviews

The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (European Classics)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ivan Chonkin is an inept private in the Soviet army on the cusp of World War Two who first finds himself ordered to guard an airplane in a distant village, then finds himself forgotten by the authorities, and finally remembered and with a vengeance.

`The Life and Extraordinary Times of Private Ivan Chonkin' might be called a Soviet Catch-22 [Catch-22: A Novel (Simon & Schuster Classics)] for its seemingly absurdist send up of life in the Red Army. I say 'seemingly absurdist' because, like Catch-22, one suspects there is more than a little truth in Voinovich's portrayal of bureaucratic tomfoolery. Chonkin himself calls to mind George Macdonald Fraser's McAuslan (McAuslan in the Rough), the bumbling private in a Scottish Highland regiment. Others have likened it the The Good Soldier Svejk: and His Fortunes in the World War (Penguin Classics), which I have not yet read.

The background of Stalinist terror gives Voinovich's work a darker cast. Army bureaucrats endeavor at all costs to keep a low profile to avoid attracting the attention of the higher ups. Such attention is too often accompanied in their minds with imprisonment, exile, or death.

A favorite bit occurs late in the book when a regiment has surrounded the village in order to take Chonkin into custody. Chonkin has taken seven members of the secret police captive and the regiment has come to the rescue. (In the meantime, Chonkin has turned this group of seven into such efficient farm workers that word soon reaches the newspapers and even Comrade Stalin. The local chairman feels certain doom is sure to follow such success.) The captain of the secret police escapes, but falls into the hands of army, which he mistakenly thinks is the German army. Much hilarity ensues.

Although the book is somewhat an artifact of the Stalinist era and is almost certainly even better if one can read it in the original Russian (alas, I cannot), the book still rates five stars and my highest recommendation in part for the rare look it provides into life in the wartime Soviet Union and in part for its timeless portrayal of army bureaucracy, and the universal slacker, Ivan Chonkin.

Funny, good-natured look at a bumbling Soviet private sent to guard an airplane which is stuck out in the sticks just prior to the German invasion in 1941. Satirizes all manner of things Soviet, most especially bureaucracy and the pomposity of its upper echelons. Somewhat similar to The Good Soldier Svejk in this respect, but at a much more manageable size and pace. Some really funny bits about Comrade Stalin. Especially recommended for Russian literature devotees, but should be enjoyable to most. There is a sequel called Pretender to the Throne.

For those who may think that Russian literature is unrelieved doom and gloom, crime and punishment, endless Slavic heaviness about the meaning of life from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, Vladimir Voinovich's The life and extraordinary adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin is a masterpiece of comic writing that you will not want to miss. Chonkin is the not quite as bright younger brother of Jaroslav Hasek's Good Soldier Svejk, with this exception: Hasek's hero wears the mask of naiveté, but after a while we can tell that it is just that, a mask, and that Josef Svejk is a lot more clever than he is letting on. Ivan Chonkin, on the other hand, really is as naïve as he seems. He is trying to do his best by Stalin, the Red Army, and the Soviet Union; it's just that the people running the Soviet Union are dangerous idiots who can't quite comprehend just how dangerously stupid they really are.

Voinovich published the novel in France in 1975, for reasons that are clear just as soon as you start reading; no Soviet censor could allow its publication inside Russia, given the subject matter-in his time Stalin had writers imprisoned and executed for less trenchant criticism of him and his rule. The targets of Voinovich's hilarious satire is Soviet society itself and all of its institutions, beginning with Stalin himself and the Communist party, the Soviet military and its officer corps, the secret police, collectivized agriculture and the crackpot genetic theories of Lysenko, party propaganda, political officers, and World War II. There is little in Soviet life that does not take a hit as the patriotic and conscientious Private Chonkin, who is not the greatest soldier in the world but is doing the best that he can, tries to do his duty and creates mayhem in the process. Read it and enjoy.

Voinovich was expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union, because of his poignant satire. The guardians of the communist order could not stand his free, humorous exposition of the follies of the Soviet society. "Private Chonkin" is his masterpiece. Voinovich shows much that plagued the Soviet society: pervasive alchoholism, bureaucratic intransingence, sychophantic officials, horrific abuse of power, and the spread of pseudo-science (much fun is made in the book of Lysenko's approach to evolution.)

Voinovich is not bitter or angry. He finds a place for good-natured humor, even amid the appalling conditions of Russian's brutal rural communism. This book is invaluable to all those who want to be acquainted with the character and spirit of communist despotism in Russia in the twentieth century. But in the end, one does not put down this book feeling discouraged and sad. Orwellian gloom does not prevail here. And why is that? Because people retain the ability to laugh at themselves and at the life around them, not taking too seriously grave doctrines and events. Chonkin survives the advent of terror, and his simplicity and good nature prove superior to dogma and repression, suggesting, at least to me, that a single human being is generally more valuable than all utopian doctrines and insane plans for implementing them.

A previous reviewer compared Chonkin to the WWI story of a Czech soldier named "Good Soldier Svejk" which is a classic of military bumbling. This is more of a statement of problems of the Soviet System as it existed just before WW2. Chonkin is a 'so-so' soldier (a misfit) who is sent to a small collective farm (a kolkhov) to guard a damaged airplane. Though he is to be there for only a week, with the German Barbarossa attack he is forgotten about. So he goes about his orders as expected.

Some one (a neighbor) reports him to the authorities, who order that Chonkin is to be arrested as a deserter. All of the rest of the story hinges on the propensity of the Soviet system never letting the right hand know what the left is doing, nor why, nor how, nor when. There are constant digs about the clumsyness and inefficiency of the system and how people go about trying to be invisible.

Keeping in mind that the book was written in the middle sixties, it is a true attack on the time of Brezhnev and his inability to be the "Stalin" that he wanted to, as the system ground slowly to oblivion. This story wasn't printed in Russia until after the fall of communism, but was widely circulated as a 'samizdat' (which is an underground printing) and famous for its' attack on the system.

I wasn't expecting this book to be as accessable as I found it. I know next to nothing about life in Russia during the outbreak of WWII, and I knew going in that this was a novel about a man in the Russian army. I figured there'd be numerous names and references to people, places, and policies I'd have to gloss over, and just hope I'd get an idea of the book. I was wrong.

I was also wrong in thinking that it wouldn't be that funny. I found it amusing and entertaining to see slapstick in a "European Classic". But, it wasn't stupid humor. It seems as though Voinovich had a lot of thought behind it, twisting it around so it not only made the reader laugh, but also tied into the plot.

The only thing I thought it may have lacked was character development. It is a short novel, but I felt as if I didn't really get to know Gladishev, Chonkin, or Nyura. Perhaps given a few more pages, I could have identified with these characters a bit more. But, since they are from a culture so foreign to myself, perhaps it would have taken a lot more for me to identify with the characters. Perhaps it's my own sheltered way of life that inhibited a stronger connection with this novel.

If anything, this book is a fabulous introduction into Russian culture at the beginning of WWII. Being that it is a fiction/comedy however, there may not be a lot of accuracy in its content, but it at least leaves one with a sense of lifestyle to which these characters live.

I am a native Russian speaker and have read this is the book in its original form. I was just having a friendly argument with someone and in the process found this. I had no idea some poor SOB translated it into English (I really don't envy him).

Now I have no idea how good the translation is and to me it's practically impossible to translate Russian into English well, especially when it's something funny. However, if it's even half as funny in English as it is in Russian it'll be the funniest book you'll ever read.

While reading the book I found myself dying laughing 85% of the time to the point where I'd have to stop reading for one or more of the following reasons. I'd get terrible stomach cramps, couldn't see anymore due to the fact that I was completely teary eyed, or go into unending fits of coughing. Enjoy.

This was the selection of my book club. I was a little leery, because unless it's EXTREMELY well done, satire doesn't work for me - it's an all-or-nothing proposition. Anything less than Mark-Twain-level and I can't be bothered.

Well, "Private Chonkin" was a pleasant surprise. I had the feeling that the writer and/or translator had a lot of fun with this one - I kept hearing a giggle off the page as I read. As is always the case with satire, it helps to be somewhat familiar with the reality that's being skewed, but in this case, it's not a requirement for enjoying the book.

The premise is pretty good, and ripe for satire - hapless nudnik of a soldier is assigned to guard a downed plane in a remote village in the Soviet Union just before the beginning of WW II. His superiors forget about him as he settles into the life of the village, and when they finally remember him, all hell breaks loose as he proves to be a lot smarter than any of them. The author skewers everyone and everything, but none as savagely as the Party and the Army.

The depictions of life in remote areas can be hair-raising; the villages, the people, and their lives are pretty primitive. I had the sense that this part of the world hadn't changed in centuries. And I also had the feeling that these were accurate descriptions, rooted in some pretty harsh realities. The only parts that I felt bordered on tedium were the lengthy descriptions of Private Chonkin's dreams; they played a role in the overall satire but otherwise didn't move the story forward.

With translations, it's hard to tell what you're really appreciating: the art of the writer or that of the translator. Obviously, the translator has to have something to work with, but the nuances could be credited to either. That said, I found this book well-written and highly amusing, and I recommend it to anyone who appreciates this kind of writing.

This is one of those books you will never forget reading. It's hilarious. I read it 15 years ago twice, and still remember how terrifyingly funny it was. My favorite part was when Ivan and "savant" Gladishev were having a serious conversation about global sh**t turnover and drinking moonshine, and when Ivan asked what was it made out of, Gladishev proudly said it's made out of sh... and sugar... and gave him a recipe... You picture everything while you read, you are there, it's like watching a great comedy. You will laugh to tears. It's very well written and so easy to read. Lots of dialogs are written in language used by Russian people living in the rural areas, and I just hope it's as funny in English translation as it is in Russian.

This book served as my introduction to Vladimir Voinovich. It has to be one of greatest Soviet satires ever written.

If you are going to read this book you MUST also read "Pretender to the Throne The Further Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin". "Pretender to the Throne" is essentially part II of this book and, in my opinion, even better than part I. Voinovich masterfully unfolds the chaos of the Soviet Union through the simple life of Ivan Chonkin, a common Russian soldier. This book will leave you laughing outloud.

I highly recommend this and other works by Voinovich. Voinovich should have a place in every Russian Literature library!