There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby - Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

My rating: 3/5


Book review:

Now that's a puzzling title, who almost screams: "Marketing plans!", because there is no story with such title in this collection. There is one story with the idea, yes, but the title is less shocking and more evocative - Revenge. I've learnt my lesson, in that I'll be suspicious of books with flashy titles from now on. 
The title of another translation of her stories is even flashier: There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself. C'mon! 


The stories are grouped in four sections, according to themes and  publication in Russia. Most of them are dark and surreal, with women and men on the brink of despair. Some characters are struggling between life and death, others are already dead. Some undergo mystical experiences, others are propelled into a parallel universe, a secondary reality which Petrushevskaya calls the Orchard of Unusual Possibilities.  

The harsh realities of living conditions under Soviet regime were no surprise, since I've spent my childhood in a communist country. Their novelty aspect was wasted on me; I don't think I even noticed the crammed apartments, the lack of food and other peculiarities presented in these stories, which could prompt other readers from the West to exclaim 'Oh, how could those poor people live like that?' It seems we were able to live and survive, after all. 

Despite my complaints below, I did find a couple of really good stories now and then, especially in the last section, “Fairy Tales”, which redeemed the entire collection:  
From Songs of the Eastern Slavs: Revenge
From Allegories: Hygiene, The New Robinson Crusoes
From Requiems: The Fountain House, Two Kingdoms, There’s Someone in the House
From Fairy Tales: The Cabbage-patch Mother, Marilena’s Secret, The Black Coat (my favorite)

My biggest complaint with these short stories is that a lot of them are way too short. As in one page short, in some cases. After finishing a couple of stories, I was quite puzzled by their shortness and thought my copy was defective. Moreover, the language seemed strange, like I was reading a résumé. 'There must be something more, the book I have is definitely faulty', I thought. I checked Goodreads and I was relieved to find the same complaints in a couple of reviews. 
Now, the translators say that these stories are so short because they are told in the manner of urban folk tales. Like the ones you hear spoken in whispers, with a mysterious air, at camp fires or in grandmother's back yard. This might explain their length, but couldn't prevent my dissatisfaction. 

Another complaint is that most stories are predictable. After reading one or two, I started to prophetize: 'Oh, this guy is a ghost', 'Ok, this woman is going to die' and so on. Not to mention that the stories are not scary at all. I couldn't have been more unflinching or composed as I was with these stories. The suspense and final revelation that are talked about didn't work for me.
It is said that Ludmilla Petrushevskaya writes in the tradition of Gogol and Poe; I don't remember any of their stories, but I hope they don't have the same rudimentary feeling about them.

There are good things about the stories, though, namely the ideas behind them. Some are really good and -to my knowledge- even original, and I'll probably remember them for quite a while. I was frustrated that these ideas, which had a lot of potential, were not developed into larger narratives. And again, the language. Sometimes it was really unappealing, but it might be the fault of translation (although I doubt that). 

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya's life could become an interesting story in itself: the death of her first husband (only 32 years old) prompted a risky trip to Lithuania, where she wanted to visit Thomas Mann's summer house but also promote her writing, which was banned in Russia. In spite of the freedom she tasted there, she had to return because of her child. Her writing was far from being political explicit, yet it was not welcomed in Russia because it was dark and full of despair. After Soviet Union began to fall apart, some writers who had never been allowed in print before - including Ludmilla Petrushevskaya - began to be published. She became a major figure of contemporary Russian literature, although she remains controversial.