Death & The Penguin tells the story of a failed writer Viktor Alekseyevich Zolotaryov who lives a lonely life in Kviv, scraping by on selling short, very short, stories. He lives with Misha, a King penguin which he rescued from the local zoo because it could no longer afford to keep all its animals. Viktor is a lonely, melancholic character and Misha is no substitute for human friendship. Misha “brought his own kind of loneliness, with the result of two complementary lonelinesses creating an impression of interdependence rather than amity.
The setting is Ukraine in the late years of the 20th century. Ukraine is throwing off the constraints of membership of USSR and trying to embrace the freedoms of The West but has become a corrupt and lawless society with most of wealth in the hands of a few. The bleak setting of the country is well-captured, with the novel offering a stark portrayal of life in a post-Soviet society.
Kurkov says that he chose a penguin for Victor's companion because they normally live in colonies, so to live in isolation is completely alien to them. In the same way the people of Ukraine after living a collective life organised by the state are suddenly cut adrift and have learn to live more isolated, individual lives.
Misha is a mirror of Viktor. The pengin roams around the flat, occasionally stopping and heaving a sigh, like an old man weary of both life and himself. At a funeral Viktor bends down and talks to Misha: Well Misha, he sighed stooping to the Penguin’s level, that's how we humans bury our dead. Turning at the sound of his master's voice, Misha fixed on him his tiny sad eyes.
Things look up for Viktor when he lands the job of writing obituaries of notable people for a national paper but very quickly we realise that all is not as it seems – Victor has to be anonymous. “In your own interest”, the chief editor says, and extra details for the obituaries are to be provided by the paper’s crime department. Nearly all the obituraies concern people with a nefarious past. When his boss sends him to Kharkov to meet a correspondent the man is murdered, and the dangers of Viktor’s new job become clear.
As the main plotline of the story develops everything becomes more sinister and threatening, but who is behind the threats is a mystery. Viktor is in the dark and so are we. He is told he has to disappear for a short time for his own safety and later even his boss has to flee. Viktor is shocked to be told he is indirectly responsible for the deaths he writes about, but how? When he confronts the editor with this news, he is told he is safe as long as he knows nothing - “The full story is what you get told only if and when your work, and with it your existence, are no longer required.”
We get the impression of two sides at war with each other with Viktor, an unwitting pawn, caught in the middle. But who are the goodies and who are the baddies? All is not fully revealed until the end when Viktor reads his own obituary and knows the truth of his boss’s warning.
The gloomy nature of the story, in which the sun rarely shines, is lightened by other characters.
Sergey the local militiaman becomes a friend and provides Viktor with an escape to a Dacha for New Year. But even here the safety and tranquillity are shattered by an explosion that blows a burglar to pieces and by the unexpected and shocking present of a gun that Viktor receives.
When one criminal character has to flee, he leaves his 4-year-old daughter Sonya in Viktor’s care, and together with Nina who Viktor employs as a nanny, she brings the normality of family life to his home. But poor Viktor struggles to shake off his habitual pessimism and inability to take control.
“Friendship, something he has never had. Any more than a three-piece suit or real passion. Life had been pale, sickly, and joyless. Even Misha was down in the dumps, as if he too, knew only a pallid life devoid of colours, emotions delights and joyous splashings of the soul.
Pidpaly, a penguin expert also provides some light relief yet he tells Viktor: You missed out on the time of abundance, you have, said the old man regretfully. Every century there is five years of abundance after which everything goes to pot. You won't see the next five I'm afraid, I certainly won't, but I did at least come in for one lot.
Viktor knows that somehow he is involved in a criminal operation, but he prefers to shrug his shoulders, gaze out of the window, drink vodka and carry on his normal life.
…he had made no effort to grasp what was taking place around him. Until recently, with the arrival of Sonia. And even now, life around him was still dangerously unfathomable, as if he had missed the actual moment when the nature of events might have been fathomed.
And again:
Although he could not help thinking about it, he found it easier to do so every day, having recognised the complete impossibility of ever changing his life. Harnessed as he was, it was a question of hauling his load until he dropped. So he hauled.
But despite his pretence Viktor is trapped and this aspect of the novel makes for a melancholy read. Even at the end, although Viktor escapes to the Antarctic, we are left wondering what happens to him, to Sonya and Nina and above all to Misha.
The novel is surreal, often bleak but full of black humour. A drunk fisherman sees Victor, Sergey and a penguin.
Eyes fixed on the Penguin, the fisherman shook his head. “Look”, he said at last, “is that a Penguin you've got there or am I seeing things?” “You're seeing things”, Sergey assured him firmly. “Christ”, he whispered aghast.
Viktor asks about one of the victims: How did he die? Like they all do, tragically.
One of the strengths of the novel is its ability to combine humour with darker themes. The relationship between Viktor and Misha is often amusing, and the absurdity of Viktor's job as an obituary writer adds a touch of black comedy to the story. However, the novel is also full of poignant moments that explore the loneliness and despair that Viktor feels as he tries to navigate his difficult and dangerous life.
Death and The Penguin is a blend of humour, suspense, and social commentary. Kurkov's writing style is sharp and witty, with a dark undertone that keeps the reader on edge throughout the novel. The portrayal of Kiev's post-Soviet society is bleak and realistic, highlighting the corruption, poverty, and crime that were prevalent during this time. It is a satisfying and thought-provoking read.
Some Quotes
The poor and sinless did not exist, or else died unnoticed and with no obituary. The idea seemed persuasive. Those who merited obituaries had usually achieved things, thought for their ideals, and when locked in battle, it wasn't easy to remain entirely honest and upright. Today's battles were all for material gain, anyway. The crazy idea list was extinct survived by the crazy pragmatist…
“Drink up!" urged the Chief. "There's no escaping fate. Drink while the champagne lasts!”
Life seemed easy and carefree, despite painful moments and less frequent scruples over his own part in an ugly business. But what, in an ugly world, was ugly? No more than a tiny part of an unknown evil existing generally, but not personally touching him and his little world. And not be fully aware of his part in that ugly something was clearly a guarantee of the indestructibility of his world, and of its tranquillity.
Something was wrong with his life, he thought, walking with downcast eyes. Or life itself had changed, and was as
Life was a road, and if departed from at a tangent, the longer for it. And a long road was a long life - a case where to travel was better than to arrive, the point of arrival being, after all, always the same: death.
He looked into that future and saw so clearly as if for the first time in his life, everything that obstructed the peaceful path for him. It was, oddly enough all connected indirectly with his beloved Misha. Misha had drawn him into a mournful circle of people with an enhanced degree of mortality and now Misha alone could free him from them.
Ukraine Context
During the recession, between 1991 and 1999, Ukraine lost 60% of its GDP and suffered from hyperinflation that peaked at 10,000% in 1993.The situation only stabilized well after the new currency, the hryvnia, fell sharply in late 1998 partially as a fallout from the Russian debt default earlier that year. The legacy of the economic policies of the nineties was the mass privatization of state property that created a class of extremely powerful and rich individuals known as the oligarchs.
From the political perspective, one of the defining features of the politics of Ukraine is that for most of the time, it has been divided along two issues: the relation between Ukraine, the West and Russia, and the classical left-right divide.[155] The first two presidents, Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, tended to balance the competing visions of Ukraine,[156] though Yushchenko and Yanukovych were generally pro-Western and pro-Russian, respectively. There were two major protests against Yanukovych: the Orange Revolution in 2004, when tens of thousands of people went in protest of election rigging in his favour (Yushchenko was eventually elected president), and another one in the winter of 2013/2014, when more gathered on the Euromaidan to oppose Yanukovych's refusal to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement. By the end of the 2014 protests, he fled from Ukraine and was removed by the parliament in what is termed the Revolution of Dignity, but Russia refused to recognize the interim pro-Western government, calling it a junta and denouncing the events as a coup d'état sponsored by the United States.[157][158][159]
Wikipedia entry for Andrey Kurkov:
Kurkov has written 19 Novels: His books are full of black humour, post-Soviet reality and elements of surrealism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kurkov
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