#silverduvan

Fairy Tale by Martiros Sarian, 1971

There is something at the horizon, closing in on the vast Russian fields. Russia is changing. Revolution is around the corner, whispers are heard of class, socialists, riots. Bely drops the reader into the slowly intensifying turmoil that in many ways defined Russia in the early 1900s. Here, people are offering resistance any way they can; demanding a fair wage or joining the flagellation cults are both ways of defying the old and safe structures. Everything in The Silver Dove is happening at the edge of an abyss, one that lies in the near future of both our main character Daryalsky and of Russia herself. Daryalsky is an educated Muscovite, a poet, who like many others at this time leaves the metropolis for the rural parts of the country. Here, he has a fiancée, a girl from a noble family that could easily pass in any romantic literature from the century before: young, kind and innocent to a fault, blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked. And yet, there is something about this time, about this point of history, that makes her and her family and their manors and gardens impossible. Instead, Daryalsky becomes entranced by a simple, pockmarked peasant woman, as well as the secretive cult she belongs to, the one that has named her as their own Virgin Mary. 

The Evangelists (in four parts) by Natalia Goncharova, 1911

The prose is difficult to pin down. At first it’s heavy, gaudy almost. Distinctly purple with odd repetitions, it made me worry that The Silver Dove would be a chore to get through. But what at first seemed amateurish and outdated soon gained some sort of rhythm, and for some chapters, the text seemed to be living and moving. I say for some, because being Bely’s first novel, this book can be pretty uneven at times. There are chapters that seem more like awkward attempts at a more traditionally romantic style, and the results are plodding and dull. But, overall, The Silver Dove is intriguing rather than heavy thanks to a playfulness and willingness to experiment that shines through, and I’m happy it does, because the better parts of the book are extremely intriguing, and a testament to Bely’s skill at building an atmosphere. The heat is suffocating, flies are abundant, and nature here is very much alive, almost to the point of consciousness. This is where the ornateness of his prose and all of that curious repetition falls into place, and something remarkable happens: all senses leave their assigned places and are taken in as if at once, everything becomes saturated with perception, the text turns as heavy as water, pooling into a complete cacophony of impressions. There is something surrealist about Bely’s use of nature; it is a constant witness and spectator, the Russian forests and plains are ever present in the world of The Silver Dove. Everything whimpers and snakes and whispers. This way of putting feelings and senses over realism earned Bely a ban on his books in Soviet Russia, even though he himself was sympathetic to the communist cause. Maybe some of the authorities’ discomfort also stemmed from the fact that The Silver Dove isn’t a glorifying manifesto. Sure, the struggles of its time are all here; the struggle between city and countryside, intellect and hard work, civilization and the plains; the tug of war between East and West causes the entire weave of the book to shiver and quake - but there seemingly are no clear winners. A dangerous concept to a power who preferred literature to be useful and serve their purpose. They might’ve also disagreed with the book’s heavy dose of occultism (the parts featuring it might be its best - Bely is remarkably good at depicting the intense feel of ongoing, ecstatic rapture). Unfortunately, Bely often disappears into side tracks long enough to interrupt the almost trance-like atmosphere that he’s built. But the amazing, breathless stretches that we do get are enough to make this a good book, and one worth reading.