Alexievich Vol. 5

Reading Alexievich again, the fifth volume now of hers, the most recently translated Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories—which actually dates from the mid-80s, when the Russian original chronicling childhood memories of WWII was published. Astonishing material again, the same as all her previous work; one page after another in the first third that has been read thus far.
         Two particular thoughts occur at this point. One is the remarkable testimony her work provides from so-called common humanity. Again her witnesses are often workers, cooks, cashiers, locksmiths and printers; the professional classes are largely in the minority. And yet what articulations are offered by these unlikely commentators. With what force and penetration do their voices ring out.
         The record presented is quite literally stunning; a reader needs to pause regularly every little while to absorb the matter. This great tide of human experience held within short fragments carries a weight of feeling and insight that overloads the mind one episode after another. The genesis from such sources is remarkable and conclusive; it is unlike any other example one can bring to mind from the cannon, or from anywhere else in cultural record.
         A couple of years ago a friend here in Melbourne had been read some passages from the post-war Soviet period book (Secondhand Time); after two or three paragraphs his suspicions were quickly raised. Such words as these could not have emerged from some anonymous nobody, a postal worker or radio technician, the listener suggested. Authorial manufacture was the understandable thought.
         The second point that occurred was what did literature such as this suggest for all the writing schools everywhere in our Western form, the most notable included among the rest. Enough has been seen now of the famed Iowa classes to suggest something may be amiss, or at least highly questionable, in that much celebrated workshop model. The remove from the communal, shared experience is the most pertinent matter.
One carried Alexievich around like a prayer book. Like a rock someone had given you that must be transported to a summit or some promontory, it was spontaneously expressed some days ago to the doubting Thomas cited above.
The Buchenwald segment just now (p. 132-36) presenting the darkness from the smoke of the chimney and the captivation of a yellow flower in the field where the transported labourers worked was overwhelming.