Brothers, in a violent and well-founded invective against modern
Russian fiction. [Footnote: In Gorky's miscellany, _Beseda_. N3,
1923.] But though he sees the right way out pretty clearly Lunts has
not seriously tried his hand at the novel. [Footnote: As I write I
hear of the death of Lev Lunts at the age of 22. His principal work
is a good tragedy of pure action without "atmosphere" or psychology
(in the same _Beseda_, N2).] A characteristic sign of the times is a
novel by Sergey Bobrov, [Footnote: _The Specification of Iditol_.
Iditol being the name of an imaginary chemical discovery.] a
"precious" poet and a good critic, where he adopts the methods of the
film-drama with its rapid development and complicated plot, and
carefully avoids everything picturesque or striking in his style. But
the common run of fiction in the Soviet magazines continues as it
was, and it is to be feared that there is something intrinsically
opposed to the "perfective" narrative in the constitution of the
contemporary Russian novelist.




II

BORIS PILNIAK


Boris Pilniak (or in more correct transliteration, Pil'nyak) is the
pseudonym of Boris Andreyevich Wogau. He is not of pure Russian
blood, but a descendant of German colonists; a fact which incidently
proves the force of assimilation inherent in the Russian milieu and
the capacity to be assimilated, so typical of Germans. For it is