ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

July is Spanish Lit month at Winston’s Dad so I checked my Spanish TBR shelf at Goodreads and chose the one with the most intriguing title.  The Faint-hearted Bolshevik by prize-winning author Lorenzo Silva is apparently required reading for bankers, has been made into a film, and has also been recommended as a text for senior school students because it’s a contemporary Spanish classic.  (They’d never get away with that here in Oz, there’s a lot of bad language in this book, especially at the beginning where the narrator is really angry.)

The plot revolves around a narrator who uses different names to suit the occasion, and he has good reason to be evasive about his identity.  He is an investment banker who hates his job and finds modern life meaningless.  The story begins when he is caught in heavy traffic and in a moment of inattention drives into the car in front of him.  No one is hurt and the damage is minor, but the driver, who identifies herself as Sonsoles when they exchange names, goes into an abusive rage.  This is the trigger for the narrator to engineer a little ‘amusement’ in his boring life, and he decides to have his revenge.

The Faint-hearted Bolshevik challenges its readers to reconcile distaste for this stalker with his rather attractive qualities, one of which is that he likes Schubert.  I’m listening to one of the stalker’s favourite pieces, the Trio 100, as I write this, and I listened to his Fifth Symphony as I loafed in bed in the morning while I finished the book.  (I couldn’t listen to the Winterreise because it’s a song cycle and I can’t concentrate on writing when there are words to distract me).

I also found myself charmed by this protagonist’s instincts for empathy:

Of all the striking photographs in the world, there is one that inspires awe regardless of ideology or prejudice: the one of the four Russian grand-duchesses, the daughters of Nicholas II who were put to the sword (of whatever sort) by the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg after the Revolution.  It doesn’t matter whether you are an atheist or orthodox, reactionary communist or an econotechnoliberal, a supporter of the monarchy or someone who believes that every last drop of blue blood should be poured down the drain as soon as possible.  Those four perfect faces, those four proud and angelic children, forever united by their tragic destiny, leave an indelible impact on whatever small piece of heart we may have left. (p. 60)

However, this empathy for those four perfect faces, those four proud and angelic children takes a disconcerting Lolita-esque turn when the narrator discovers that his victim has a fifteen year old daughter.  She, like many fifteen-year-old girls, thinks she is more sophisticated than she really is, so she is fortunate that this narrator is a romantic at heart.  There are moments of sly humour when the author portrays the discomfiture of his would-be seducers, for yes, there are two of them, but the reader experiences another shift in perspective when this thirty-year-old man realises he does not mean the girl any harm.

Unfortunately that is not the case with some low-life characters who happen upon the scene, and the denouement is a shocking commentary on modern life in large anonymous cities.  And I think this is why the book is a worthwhile choice for senior school students, and a salutary read for anyone else.

Author: Lorenzo Silva
Title: The Faint-hearted Bolshevik
Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor and Isabelle Kaufeler
Publisher: Hispabooks Publishing, 2010, first published in 1997
ISBN: 9788494094828
Source: personal library, purchased from Fishpond.

Available from Fishpond: The Faint-hearted Bolshevik