Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire [Hardcover]

Jose Manuel Prieto (Author), Thomas Christensen (Author, Translator), Carol Christensen (Author, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2000

Combining the intellectual sophistication and luminous prose of Nabokov with the worldview of a scion of Castro's Cuba, Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire is a novel of immense power and originality from one of the most exciting new talents in Latin America. J. lives on the fringes of Eastern Europe, a smuggler fencing the flotsam of communism's collapse. Offered a commission to illegally trap a rare Russian butterfly, he decides to use it as an opportunity to smuggle V., his Russian lover who has no papers, back into her homeland. In the port of Odessa, she disappears, so J. continues alone to a small village on the Black Sea, where he waits, reading her letters, hoping to find both the butterfly and the way to lure V. back into his life. Equal parts bittersweet love story, international intrigue, and one man's quest to write the perfect love letter, Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire hails the arrival of a writer of international stature. "A cutting-edge work touched by the magic of great literature." -- Gabi Martinez, La Vanguardia (Barcelona)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Cuban-born Prieto infuses this story of two hoodlums in love in 1990s Turkey and Russia with wisdom that transforms it from a mere romance into an allegory for current economic transition in Eastern Europe. A young smuggler called J. first meets the alluring V. in Istanbul. Having accepted an assignment to trap a rare butterfly for illegal sale, J. tries to smuggle V. (who carries no official identification) across the Turkish border and back to her homeland when he goes butterfly hunting in the coastal Russian countryside. Once J. and V. arrive in Odessa, V. vanishes, and yet she continues to write J. a series of elliptical letters, which he continually tries and fails to answer. J.'s search for butterflies is a perfect metaphor for his love for V., whom he has hopelessly idealized. With J. drawing upon some of the most passionate correspondence of all timeDincluding the tormented missives of Abelard and Heloise and the suicidal letters of Heinrich von Kleist and his adulterous loverDas models for his own love letter, his quest gains historical resonance. The book buzzes with beguiling lyrical profundities, but Prieto knows how to create a claustrophobic atmosphere as well, adding to J.'s list of worries: a nosy neighbor breaks into J.'s apartment and steals his letters from V., mistaking them for links in a treasonous plot. Meanwhile, it's clear that V. embodies the independent spirit of post-Communist Russia, shucking off J. just as contemporary Russians are abandoning their previous way of life. Although flashbacks tell much of the story, the narrative is seamless. Well-crafted rhapsodies, in conjunction with a competent sense of pacing, keep it in a perpetual state of graceful yet gripping motion. Prieto isn't quite a Nabokov or a Kundera, but his promising debut should appeal to fans of delicate, pointed prose like theirs. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Cuban-born Prieto, who spent 12 years studying and working in Russia, has written a novel that is at once entertaining in its own right and also a homage to Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator of this structurally complex tale, J., is an international smuggler hired by a Swede to capture a rare butterfly. However, in Istanbul he meets the beautiful V., who has been lured from her Russian village into a life of white slavery. J. soon contrives to help V. escape and return with him to Russia, but like most risky plans, this one comes to a different ending than J. had counted on. The connection with Nabokov is more than butterflies, as Prieto appropriates the (later) Nabokovian manner of slipping Russian phrases and sentences into his text. Furthermore, J. is something of a linguist (having a rudimentary to excellent knowledge of various languages, as his trade would require) and a well-read one at that, who often makes literary allusions. Prieto's a good enough writer to handle that neo-Nabokov style, and he succeeds on the whole despite an ending weakened by his metaphysical bow to Dostoevsky (whose work Nabokov disliked). Frank Caso
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr; First U.S. Edition edition (November 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802116655
• ISBN-13: 978-0802116659
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,099,636 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Witty, Delicate, Delightful, February 6, 2002

By 

wordtron (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire: A Novel (Paperback)

Imagine the precocious offspring of Borges and Nabakov. Then imagine said progeny in front of a typewriter, living off the sum total of his parental royalties. The result would be something like this. Read it slowly, savor its many smile-inducing similes, like comparing the accumulation of traffic at a red light, and then it's release at a green light to that of a drop of water approaching its maximum weight before falling off the tip of a leaf. Something like that. I'm not the author. Obviously. Just a reader who enjoyed the author's work. Like the wings of a butterfly -- delicate, intricate. You'll want to chase after it again and again.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The lost art of letter writing..., July 7, 2002

By 

cnyadan (Bavaria, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire: A Novel (Paperback)

I liked this book well enough reading it, even though it is a bit slow for my style. Actually, in the present, not a whole lot happens other than the main character has made his way to the Crimea on the pretense of trying to find a specimen of butterfly that is said to be extinct, but if he finds, he will be paid a pretty penny for.

However, there's more to the book than a butterfly place. J. (the main character) is a player.. He makes his money buying things, selling things, transporting things across borders, etc. "Professional smuggler", if you will. He thinks he's the master of his game.

And maybe he is one of the masters of the goods-running, but he wasn't expecting V., a beautiful Russian woman, who played on his feelings, then used him to escape Turkey and return to her native Russia. J. is convinced that somehow, since she has managed to contact him through the post, that he can study the art of letter writing to somehow find favour with her once again.

With such a scenerio, the 'more classic' writing style fits well. Reading this, one can almost imagine that one is back in the late 1800's, despite the fact that the map of Europe has changed drastically, and one of J.'s wares that comes up many times are night-vision-goggles. At the same time though, had I not a lot of "down time" to actually sit and read, I'm not sure that I would have had the patience needed to enjoy the 'atmosphere' of the book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unique and absorbing. Not, however, lite reading., July 22, 2006

By 

David J. Gannon (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire: A Novel (Paperback)

Nocturnal Butterfiles of the Russian Empire is a very complex and convoluted book. Written by a Cuban writer, the story nominally revolves around a Cuban smuggler in Russia who is attracted to, and decides to rescue, a Russian expatriate in Istanbul from a life of sexual enslavement. The real subject of the book is the ways in which social upheaval can color one's life and philosophy in ways that one cannot originally imagine.

The essentials of this story are laid out quickly and succinctly at the beginning--virtually the only quick and succinct aspects of this novel. For this is a very densly wriiten and convoluted text. Prieto imbues the protagonist's--identified only as J--voice with endless layers of descriptive detail that run on in ever longer extended sentences that often encompass four or five complete sub-subjects within it's bounds. This does not make for light reading. On the other hand, Prieto is blessed with a truly wonderful ability to render the visual into the verbal, leaving a seemingly endless series of complex visual mental images in one's head with every turned page.

Although superficially the two main characters are on every level unlikable, Prieto infuses them with such introspective flair and bravado that one comes to sympathize with them and, therefore, take the threats to their enterprise very much to heart, making this the most unlikely of suspense novels. The only other book I can remotely compare it to id Smilla'Sense of Snow, another dense and multi layered story involving somewhat repulsive protagonists one nevertheless gets to care about deeply.

While this one takes some effort to get through, the effort is well worth while. This is a very compelling and engrossing read.