Skip to main content

Senya Malina Tells it Like it Was by Stepan Pisakhov: book review




Senya Malina Tells it Like it Was (from 1924, English version 2014) is set in northwest Russia in the rural village of Uyma (Weema) near Arkhangelsk (Archangel).

Written by Russian Stepah Pisakhov (1879-1960), translated by British Blackwell Boyce (1963-), and illustrated by Russian Dmitry Trubin (1962-) it is 40 short stories with the same narrator – Senya Malina.

Senya Malina is a villager – a Pomer (which means ‘the people by the sea’) – who tells tall tales with great embellishment and exaggeration. He calls the people of his village, merritimers (maritimers), and lives with his wife (Missus Malina), horse Karka, dog Rozka, and cat Moorka.

In the story ‘Don’t Like It—Don’t Listen’ he begins with a description of Weema, with its salmon, cod, owls, polar bears, seagulls, eagles, and penguins. The sea has water as ‘clear as hundred-proof vodka’ and a river runs from the sea right through his little village.



Senya Malina quickly launches into his fantastical anecdotes and stories. He rounds up ducks and teaches them to add and multiply. A seagull with a raspberry-coloured beak delivers notes and care packages. He walks across the sea on a pair of super-long stilts. Perepilika, a 40-year-old woman, has an encounter with a bear. And in the 1890s, Senya Malina was on the first train to ever travel from Arkhangelsk. His magic tambourine made grain grow so that by noon the crop would be ready to harvest and he’d have bread for supper that evening.




In ‘Raspberry Streetlamps’ he was assigned the job of installing lamps and lampposts along Weema’s main street. He compacted snow by jumping as high as he could, which stopped the snow’s descent. The flakes compacted into columns, which became the lampposts. When the sun came out, the moment the sunbeams touched his lampposts ‘the posts lit up a fiery raspberry colour.’  

He had ‘one rutabaga that swelled to such a size it blocked the lane that runs along the downriver edge of our garden.’ The Great Rutabaga led to the neighbours launching a lawsuit for vegetable trespass. Fortunately the grand woman, Perepilika, came to the rescue. ‘She carved out a road through the rutabaga so wide that two wagons overloaded with hay were subsequently able to pass each other on it.’

I like the tales of his youth when he was a lumberjack. And the tale of him catching fish with his longjohns underwear (while he was completely naked). The story ‘French Snuff’ is wonderful – he tells that he fought against ‘Nappy Bonaparte’ (the French general), who gave him a beautiful gift of a snuff box – even though readers know that Malina wasn’t even born during Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign. This fact doesn’t stop Malina from fantasizing about his conquests.



My copy is autographed by Blackwell Boyce and has 20 colour plate illustrations. These drawings are magnificent and capture in detail the outlandish stories. Senya Malina is depicted as a short oldish man with ruddy cheeks and a red nose – just like he really was.

The reason there are a lot of references to raspberries is because Malina is Russian for raspberry!

The easy-to-read stories, loose translation to capture the essence of the comedic events, and humorous drawings all make this a funny, captivating read that will keep readers entertained from beginning to end.













MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing...
1 comment
Read more