Collection “Mirror” for the Russian reader news. The news is important and very good. Let it seem at first glance that the stories and three novels (Angel of Death, Isolde, Mirror) included in the book are too feminine.
Irina Odoevtseva left Russia in 1923, spent most of her life in Paris, and in 1987, at the age of 92, accepted the invitation of the Soviet government and returned to St. Petersburg, the city of her youth and literary heyday. Before emigrating, she considered herself exclusively as a poet, but after that she began to write prose, which, unlike her famous memoirs, has so far hardly been published in Russia. That is why the collection “Mirror” is news for the Russian reader. The news is important and very good. Let it seem at first glance that the stories and three novels (Angel of Death, Isolde, Mirror) included in the book are too feminine. Their pages are really saturated with spirits and fogs, the heroines of Odoevtseva now and then choose a dress for themselves, try on evening shoes, powder and rush to a date. It seems that a little more, and all these stories of emigrant adultery, leaving boring and poor Russian husbands for brilliant and successful foreigners will turn into a melodrama, a boulevard. But no, never. This female prose was written by a woman who studied poetry with Gumilyov, communicated with Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Bunin, but most importantly, had an absolute poetic ear and sensitivity to the word. So, contrary to the theme of emigrant orphanhood that sounds here and despite the tragic outcomes, Odoevtseva’s prose delivers great aesthetic pleasure. The pink moon, the rain as rhythmic as breathing, the shades of love… The beauty and mystery of this world, which flickers a little, as if reflected in a mirror – this is what you will be left with when you close the book.
RUSSIAN PATH, 656 p.
Irina Odoevtseva (1895–1990), Russian poetess and prose writer, student of Nikolai Gumilyov, author of literary memoirs On the Banks of the Neva and On the Banks of the Seine (both – AST, 2009).