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Eugene Vodolazkin, internationally acclaimed novelist and scholar of medieval literature, returns with a satirical parable about European and Russian history, the myth of progress, and the futility of war.
This ingenious novel, described by critics as a coda to his bestselling Laurus, is presented as a chronicle of an island from medieval to modern times. The island is not on the map, but it is real beyond doubt. It cannot be found in history books, yet the events are painfully recognizable. The monastic chroniclers dutifully narrate events they witness: quests for power, betrayals, civil wars, pandemics, droughts, invasions, innovations, and revolutions. The entries mostly seem objective, but at least one monk simultaneously drafts and hides a “true” history, to be discovered centuries later. And why has someone snipped out a key prophesy about the island’s fate?
These chronicles receive commentary today from an elderly couple who are the island’s former rulers. Prince Parfeny and Princess Ksenia are truly extraordinary: they are now 347 years old. Eyewitnesses to much of their island’s turbulent history, they offer sharp-eyed observations on the changing flow of time and their people’s persistent delusions. Why is the royal couple still alive? Would the missing prophesy shed any light?
In the tradition of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, Julian Barnes’s A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, Vodolazkin is at his best recasting history, in all its hubris and horror, by finding the humor in its absurdity. For readers with an appetite for more than a dry, rational, scientific view of what motivates, divides, and unites people, A History of the Island conjures a world still suffused with mystical powers.
A brilliant piece of satire from one of the best voices in Eastern European literature. A history of a mythical island somewhere. Prince Parfeny and Princess Ksenia, who are 347 years old tell the tale. But there is also a monk, who is giving us the hidden, true history of the island. It's a book that is filled with wit and charm, but it makes you think and see the world in a different way, which is what all good literature does. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
The history of Eugene Vodolazkin’s island is traced from the Middle Ages to modernity. Prince Parfeny and Princess Ksenia live through 357 years of it, through a dozen wars with a dozen different leaders, including a revolution. The parallels to the Russian revolution, Stalin, and the Gulags cannot be avoided. Parfeny and Ksenia see history, time, as a fluctuation of Good and Evil, not as cause-effect events. Vodolazkin’s view of time is very different than the typical western idea, and only an author of his skill could write effectively through centuries without losing the freshness and depth of characters. He is at his best in talking about the art of the time, ultimately comparing it to the realistic style we recognize as Socialist Realism. The danger in narrating through the centuries manifests in Vodolazkin’s diluting the depth of the story and the characters. It also presents sudden huge leaps in time in time and place: a third of the way through the novel we are abruptly dropped into modern Paris where Parfeny and Ksenia are meeting with a French film director for a biopic with the prince and princess as consultants. This sudden leap into another time and place may be somewhat disorienting, but once we become accustomed to such time shifts, like eyes adjusting to a dark theater, we are comfortable when steamboats suddenly appear off the shores of the island. But it also risks some departures in character: consulting on a biopic of their lives simply does not seem like something these these two deeply sympathetic characters would do. Perhaps Vodolazkin was making a wry comment on too many writers’ eyes on film rights, often to the detriment of the original story. Other sections are superb: the smooth narration about Vlas, the Lord of the Bees and the conversion of his daughter, Melissa (new ruler of the island), shines. From a religious country to an atheistic revolutionary country back to a religious country, all done so skillfully we travel without realizing the transition. This is vintage Vodolazkin. Vodolazkin has displayed his unorthodox use of time and - as a medieval scholar - the Middle Ages in his previous novel Laurus, and for all his skillful craftsmanship, this may weaken his novels. Still, he brilliantly transcends frontiers of geography, politics, time, and history, and has produced a novel well worth reading.
Sometimes, with some books, it’s difficult to know where to start to describe them This is one of those times, and this is one of those books. It’s a dazzling work. It’s a fairy tale. It’s a documentary. It might be a history of Russia, or it might not. It’s a larger story than only Russia. The best I can say, and I’m still fumbling for words, it that it’s a cleverly written commentary on the state of Western civilization. It’s “A History of the Islandz” by Eugene Vodolazkin. Prince Parfeny and Princess Ksenia are 347 years old. If you want to know they’ve lived so long, you won’t find out if you keep reading. It’s simply that they have the genes for living a long time. They represent two branches of descendants from Caesar Augustus, who is said to have visited the island (never named, but it’s a large one) and on successive nights fathered the two children’s ancestors. Parfeny and Ksenia represent the northern and southern parts of the island, respectively, and their marriage was to unite the often-fractious people. Except Ksenia always wanted to be a nun. And Parfeny loves her so much that he honors her decision. They come to the throne while still children, and so successive regents are appointed. And like many regents often do, Parfeny’s and Ksenia’s regents often want to enrich themselves and run the show. And so, we follow the developments from barely post-medieval to contemporary times, including a quasi-Marxist phase known as “The Brighter Future.” The history is written by a succession of monks, human like the rest of us and subject to their own frailties, loyalties, and events. For a time, Parfeny and Ksenia offer commentary on the history being written. And then they’re asked to be the subjects of a film by a famous French director. Nothing really is real until it’s filmed, correct? But what makes like and what makes great film are often two different things. At times, you’re reading a history of Russia. And then you realize, no, it’s a history of Western Europe. But then you think it’s recognizably American. And then it comes to you: this is a book about Western civilization, a story made of so many impossible and often outrageous elements that it can be nothing other than true. Including the 347-year-old protagonists. A native of Kiev in Ukraine, Vodolazkin works in the department of Old Russian Literature at the Pushkin House in St. Petersburg, where he is an expert in medieval Russian history and folklore. His novel “Laurus” won the National Big Book Award and the Yasnaya Polyana Award and had been translated into 18 languages. He lives in St. Petersburg. “A History of the Island” will seem familiar because it is; it’s our story of Western civilization. It’s a commentary on this crazy culture we inhabit, a commentary on capitalism, Marxism, progressivism, and all the other isms; a commentary on Western man and Western Woman; a contemporary fairy tale that will have you reading to the final, revealing pages. It’s a wonder.
