Book review: The Anonymous Novel

THIS is an astonishing novel, both in its provenance and in its quality. I knew of Alessandro Barbero as a fine historian of the Middle Ages with books on Charlemagne and the later Roman Empire, but I had no idea that he was also a novelist, and such a novelist.

His book is first a quite remarkable piece of impersonation. He is Italian, his novel Russian, set during the Gorbachev years when Soviet certainties were crumbling and change and anxiety were in the air. But if I did not know that Barbero and his publisher were both honest men, I would never have believed that the author of this novel was not himself Russian. It is not only that he seems to know the times thoroughly – assiduous research can make that possible; it is not only that his picture of the settings of his fiction – Moscow and Baku – is so vivid and convincing – again good travel writers can bring this off. It is rather that the tone of voice, the habit of mind of his unnamed narrator and the realisation of his large cast of characters, even those who have only walk-on parts, all seem so utterly authentic that one might be reading a translation of a classic novel from the great Russian canon.

An author might achieve all this and yet in the end offer only a pastiche. He might be so intoxicated by his skill in impersonation, so enraptured by his mastery of manner, that he forgets to supply significant matter. His book might be merely clever (though even clever novels are rare). Barbero is saved from this by his shining and probing historical intelligence, by his fascination with the milieu he has explored and is depicting, and by his firm but unobtrusive and generous moral sense. The result is a novel which on the first reading seems like a masterpiece, a judgment that I would be surprised if a second reading did not confirm.

The plot turns on the investigation of a number of state trials in Baku 40 years ago – that is, in 1949. This has become possible thanks to Gorbachev's "glasnost", and the heroine of the novel, whose own grandfather was a victim of the rigged trials, is making it the subject of her thesis. But Baku is not Moscow, and a KGB general there has his own past and involvement in the purges to conceal. He has other reasons to shun the spotlight; he has become a radical Islamist (though still a whisky-drinking one) and then there is the question of the murder of an ayatollah who happens to have remained loyal to the Soviet Union. This is not something the general wants investigated, and just as obstacles are put in the way of the young historian, so also they are strewn in the path of the judge sent from the public prosecutor's office in Moscow to investigate that murder.

Enough of the plot, which the reader follows through a dense and intricately designed maze; the route is as circuitous and often puzzling as any in a Le Carr novel. (And Le Carr addicts will love this one too.) Yet, what is a plot for, as Scott remarked, "but to bring in fine things?", and there are fine things in spades.

First there is the picture of a society on the cusp of unnerving change, one in which it has become possible to say what previously could scarcely even be thought. In the depiction of these changing times, Barbero's political intelligence is apparent. So, however, is his skill as a novelist, for he contrives to integrate the socio-political analysis in his story of imagined characters. It never obtrudes itself; yet you can't ignore or forget it.

Then there is the richness of the detail. "Cherish the detail", Nabokov advised his students. Here, rooms, journeys, weather, clothes, meals, landscape, tastes, smells, trains, the Moscow underground, the mustiness of archives are all vividly presented. The reader inhabits the world the author has conjured up.

Finally, and best of all, there is the talk. Russians are great talkers and the novels floats on a sea of wonderfully varied, expressive and tremendous speech. The characters reveal themselves in their words, spoken or merely thought. (For in a good novel thought is a form of speech when presented dramatically, as it is here.) Some of the conversations are oblique as the speakers hide their meaning behind their words; others are utterly spontaneous as words and ideas tumble over each other. It is all quite marvellous, reminiscent not only of classic Russian novels but also of the way in which William Faulkner (who like other Southern novelists learned so much from Scott) made his characters live in what they said, in a speech in which memory and the immediate brush up against each other and become inseparable.

If you have any feeling for Russia or for the art of the novel, read this one. You will find it an enriching experience. The excellent and fluent translation by Allan Cameron does the book justice. Since he is also the publisher, he deserves to be congratulated for making this novel available to English-language readers.

I have only one complaint. It would have been helpful to have supplied a cast-list of the characters. Perhaps Cameron will supply one if demand is such that there is a second edition, as I trust there will be.