Incidences (Extraordinary Classics) [Paperback]

Daniil Kharms (Author)

Book Description

Series: Extraordinary Classics | Publication Date: July 1, 1994

This title offers vignettes and stories by the Soviet avant-garde writer dealing with everyday events characterized by violence, deprivation, and alienation.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

One often-forgotten aspect of twentieth-century literature is the extent to which Russian writers participated in the more extreme manifestations of the avant-garde. Futurists and constructivists abounded in pre-Stalinist Russia, and only gradually did such labels become terms warranting prison or professional oblivion. One of the last members of the Russian avant-garde was Kharms (1905-42), a Leningrader who combined a taste for the absurd with a mastery of the miniature. He wrote tiny "incidences," which are absurdist parables in which it seems that Kafka and a circus clown collaborate in commenting on daily life in Stalin's Soviet Union. Kharms' habit of ironic subversion attracted official notice early. He was first arrested in 1931, years before the great purges. Released in 1932 but rearrested in 1941, he starved to death in a Leningrad prison hospital during the siege. Most of the writings collected here were written in secret during the 1930s. They reflect the hunger, hopelessness, and constant fear of arrest of their time and are always delivered with a deadpan humor impossible to quite describe. They constitute a puzzlingly beautiful monument to a minor master. John Shreffler

From Kirkus Reviews

Gaunt vignettes, stories, scenarios, plays, and any other scrap of writing, however small, by a Soviet writer who was killed by the Stalinist regime. Cornwell's brief introduction heralds the Russian pseudonymously known as Daniil Kharms, a member in the 1920s of the left-wing literary avant-garde group OBERIU, which embraced absurd, existential, and experimental writing. As Stalinist intolerance rose, Kharms was declared subversive and allowed to publish only books for children; later he was denied publication altogether. He continued writing, enduring periods of persecution, poverty, and starvation before his 1942 death in a prison hospital. His body of work is scant and all the pieces short: Most are no more than a page or two; ``The Old Woman,'' his masterpiece, runs on for 29. Kharms takes as his subject matter everyday events, depicting them with absurd twists that lend political resonance. Carpenters, writers, families, and historical characters (Pushkin, Gogol, Michelangelo) survive the bizarre and often violent monkey wrenches thrown their way. More often than not, these ``incidences'' are fables that capture a national climate characterized by violence, alienation, deprivation, and disorder--the physical and mental realities, perhaps, of the author as well. The pieces' brevity often makes the book's pace bumpy and unsatisfying; these bare bones could use a little meat. The author's success in expressing himself within a wide range of genres and styles, however, is a triumph of observation and control, although the dramatic work ``Yelizaveta Bam'' demonstrates that this changeability can be as much of a chore for the general reader as it is a feast for the stylistic scholar. Nonfiction here is dull; Kharms's bluntness leaves no room for inference, and his letters, theories, and autobiographical sketches lack the bleak but compelling details of daily Russian life found in his creative writing. An anorexic though not anemic collection that can be fully appreciated only with knowledge of the author's biography. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (July 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852423064
• ISBN-13: 978-1852423063
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,339,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Russian Future, February 14, 2001

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[e-mail] (PARISFRANCE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Incidences (Extraordinary Classics) (Paperback)

The bulk of the fiction of Daniil Kharms was destined for his desk drawer. Though his work for children was widely published in the Soviet Union, his other efforts were unprintable, thanks to Stalin's iron rule. These tales have now been collected in "Incidences," an admirable work, edited and cleanly translated by Neil Cornwell, that highlights Kharms's eerie obsessions: a fear of old women and children, a love of falling bodies and a sensual pleasure in the scents and sounds of daily life. With remarkable precision and fluid language, the stories capture everyday tension in a land where an innocent knock on the door might mean entrapment in a bureaucratic maze or even death at the hands of the military. By yoking official policy with personal ire, Kharms reveals how deeply his contemporaries absorbed and understood their domination. And by casting his tales within the realm of the absurd he lifts anxiety into art. The pity is that his life was as brief as his stories: he was only in his late 30's when he died in 1942, probably in a Leningrad prison...

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars thank the translator, May 14, 2000

By 

brandon bueling (North Dakota, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Incidences (Extraordinary Classics) (Paperback)

humor teaches like nothing else. or so it seems. mr. cornwell's translation of these "incidences" transformed this collection into a classic in the english language. if you believe this might be possible. please don't lump this in with other "absurdist" works. mr. kharms stands high above mr. beckett or mr. ionesco. or so i would have it. good day.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good translation, poor quality paper, October 1, 2009

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Anna N. Corp (USA, Panama) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Incidences (Paperback)

This translation of Daniil Kharms work seems to be pretty good and gets the point of the stories. I owe and have read the russian original. The book also covers rear published (and translated) exerts from his erotica. An important book for anybody interested in Russian culture and psychology. The only minus is the paper quality: feels like a newsprint.