Press

Review: Valeria Jarova, “Sobesednik” magazine (translated from Russian)

The “Beastly Crime Chronicles” - detective book series for kids, where animals act as main characters. “The Right of a Beast” is a second book in this series by Anna Starobinets. Everything is serious here: a real murder is under investigation. But careful parents can be relaxed here. The first book by Starobinets  from this series - “Inside the Wolf’s Den” - proved that it doesn’t scare kids, on the contrary, it’s much more interesting, than common thievery, because it’s more crucial. Besides, there is a parody for adults and also a social drama – not as serious as Orwell’s, but nevertheless: when animals act like people, you can’t avoid parallels with human world, and their world is as imperfect as ours. An exciting storyline without inappropriate baby talk, but with great jokes for kids (adults often get shocked by kids’ jokes but here the humor is well-balanced) – exactly what is needed for modern kids.

Extract: “You need to lose weight, my dear, – Piglet said anxiously. – You are delightfully fat, but it’s better to sacrifice beauty then being killed and eaten. Don’t you know that  Nina Palna always bakes the very best and fat pigs with nuts, apples and honey? I won’t make it if this happens to you. I’d better love a skinny you”.

sobesednik.ru

Review: Galina Yuzefovich, “Meduza” (translated from Russian)

A short book by Anna Starobinets (well known mainly for spine-chilling adult horrors and smart kids detective stories) named “Look at him” is a classical witness text. Not a world of fiction, just a transparent and anxiously sharp story telling how her unborn baby was diagnosed with “fatal development condition”, and what happened with Anna, her family and her life afterwards.

A baby, who lives inside you, pushing, moving, breathing, but due to some absurd unfair tragedy won’t survive out of mother’s body – it’s one of core women fears.  “Is he ok?” – is the first question, which every pregnant woman asks her doctor. Anna Starobinets happened to hear a negative respond to her question, and she records all the following stages with horrifying accuracy. What to expect from the doctors in such cases (answer is nothing good, this problem is considered to be insignificant and technical in Russian medicine, and mother’s feelings don’t bother anybody much). Where to seek support (the answer is nowhere, Russian perinatal tradition severely dictates mother immediately to get rid of unviable baby, regardless of physical and emotional shock, and even more, to consider it to be not a baby, but a “defected fetus”).  How the family members will react (answer is it depends, but everybody will be confused and no one, even the closest and dearest person won’t be able to walk down to this hell together with the woman).  And the main, also the deadliest – how to decide to kill someone who is still alive, twitches his legs and totally depends on you - and how you do it from the technical prospective.

Starobinets’ book can be read as criticizing Russian perinatal medicine (in fact, after humiliating and dreadful experience in Moscow Anna’s family decides to run through enforced labor in Germany, where everything sorrowfully  happens, but at least it happens human wise), but such approach would be obvious simplification. Really terrifying process happens not outside, but inside, and this exact agony is described by author to its full burning and prosy simplicity. To make a fatal injection to your baby so it won’t suffer in labor, or to wait so it dies by itself. To look at your own born-non born baby or better not to? However cruel the Russian medicine can be or humanely German medicine appeared, none can provide answers to these questions, only the woman to decide, and whatever chosen decision will leave non-healing scam on her soul.

Actually that might have been it. “Look at him” by Anna Starobinets  is the crucial statement on the topic, which no one ever talks aloud in our country, and this reading - obligatory traumatic, but at the same time curing – is for any woman, and also for any man living together with a women and thinking of having children together with her. But – and avoiding it could have been a miserable mistake – it is also a very good, cruel to itself and to a reader, truly vibrant classical literature (which is expected the least from a witness text). And this makes “Look at him” an absolutely obligatory to read.

meduza.io