UNDERNEATH THE BUNKER

[In 2007, or 2008, or thereabouts, I was accused of having invented the writer Yevgeny Nonik. I issued the following riposte]

Dear Readers,

There are better ways to start ones summer holiday than to discover that you are thought to be a vulgar cheat. But then I am a critic – and well used to such things. Juice off a goose’s posterior, as they don’t say. As you can imagine, I have over the years developed a mature manner of reacting to such vehement charges. I ignore them. As the ever-busy letters page on this website proves, I am not unhappy to give fools their space. Everyone deserves their space. However, you will doubtless notice that I am not in the habit of responding to my – or my colleagues – detractors. Much as I value their various pedantic complaints, I do not think it wise to encourage them to up their game, for whilst I believe that the questioning nature is the only nature, I have little time for that odious beast, the Cynico-Supreme.

Having said that, I prepare myself at present to break this habit of a lifetime. Faced with the accusations of two such Cynico-Supremes I am for once unnaturally compelled to answer them. Why is this? I cannot say. Possibly I fear that their joint attack might, through its volume if not through its content, meet the odd kind ear. Just as likely I am simply seizing the chance to put a few details right, thus accepting the charge that I have been vague, though refuting the suggestion that such reticence is blanketing a crude conspiracy.

Let us deal with the first and worst of these Cynico-Supremes. The man in question is one Howard St. John – a figure with whom I am unfortunately quite familiar. Far too regularly I see his name at the bottom of some letter in a literary paper, complaining about one thing or another, with very little if any reasoning behind his arguments. His particular talent, in his own estimation, seems to be for unveiling what he thinks to be a hoax. He lives, as his letter confirms, ‘in anticipation of a swindle’. The only problem is that, for all his efforts, he has yet to expose anything at all: each of his attempts at uncovering a deception turning out to be deceptions in themselves. You may remember his claim that Josef Skvorecky was a middle-aged Californian woman who had never even been to Czechoslovakia, or his attempt to prove that ‘Moby Dick’ was plagiarised from a second century Greek poem. Needless to say that both of these challenges fell flatter than the proverbial pancake. Indeed, now that we find him aiming his ineffectual weapon of destruction at yours truly, one is hardly driven to shiver with fear.

Still, one cannot help but wonder what it is that compels Mr. St. John to make these consistently outlandish charges. Has he no faith in anything? It seems not. In the erroneous belief that it is pure cynicism that makes a good critic, he feels it is his right to question anything and everything, without recourse either to evidence or to consequences. Admittedly, the literary world has seen its fair share of hoaxes. Writers have, on occasion, masqueraded as other writers. But is this excuse enough to distrust the identity of every scribbler on the earth? To the Cynico-Supreme, the answer is yes. This breed of people will attack anything.

To their number, we might also include my other detractor, Ms Glenda Harstein, whose equally vitriolic letter formed a rounded gesture of support to Mr St. John’s argument, with just as much attention to carelessness. I quote her primarily concern: ‘Is Yevgeny Nonik a cardboard cut-out behind which the sturdy frame of Georgy Riecke cowers like a fattened farm animal on a Sunday morning?’ To which her answer seems to be, yes, of course, undoubtedly, undisputedly, indeed. And yet to St.John’s catalogue of evidence she adds very little, preferring to channel her criticism against my publishing house. I shall answer this latter charge in time. Firstly, however, I must deal with issues arising from the main thrust of the attack, undeserving though they are.

If I will admit anything, it is that I have been indistinct at times in reference to details particular to Yevgeny Nonik’s life. I am aware of this, yet by no means apologetic. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I do not in fact know that much about Nonik’s life. The second is that I am reluctant to draw readers into his work by means of dwelling on his exceptional life story. This is, I believe, a very fair concern – and one appropriate to a man in my position. If we at Underneath the Bunker are determined to avoid the Hollywood tactics of the popular book trade, then it is entirely apposite that we should make every attempt to work in this manner. I value Nonik above all for his writing, not for the fact that he is a mad and mysterious Russian wordsmith living in Watford.

Nonetheless, if there really is a demand to know a few more details, than I shall see to it that you have them. I am not prepared to be accused of hiding anything. Therefore, know ye this. Yevgeny Nonik was born in Moscow. He worked for some while as a postman; other than this, I am unsure as to his other forms of employment, education or details regarding to his upbringing. He moved to London at the age of thirty and was five years later registered as an inhabitant of an asylum in the vicinity of Watford on the grounds that he was ‘clinically insane’ and ‘prone to identity problems’ – an example of which is said to involve his being ‘under the impression that he was constantly being attacked by a giraffe’. He has a brother and a sister, the latter of which owns a small farm outside Cambridge where, amongst other things, she breeds guinea pigs. I have met her and can vouch for her existence as a woman of some substance. It is to this woman that all the little profit made from Yevgeny’s novel has gone. As to why I have not been able to extract further information regarding Yevgeny from her, I can only say that she has been reluctant to divulge and that I have had little choice – as a man of honour – but to respect her decision.

As to the circumstances under which Nonik’s prose came to me, as previously stated, I owe much to the nurse under whose supervision the insane Russian has been for the last few years. It was she who – in respect to her knowledge of the Russian language – recognised the quality of the work and passed it onto me, in its un-translated form. This detail alone seems to have escaped both St.John and Harstein, who appear to be under the misinterpretation that Nonik was writing in English. If there can be any explanation for this error of theirs, it might lie in my previous hesitation in mentioning the work of the translator, another detail for which I shall not apologise, for the following reasons. Firstly, I have never hidden the fact that Nonik was translated, nor the identity of the translator, Rudolph Winkler. Secondly, though I failed to mention Winkler’s role in my original description of the project, I did so to protect rather than the harm his reputation. Winkler is and has long been a close friend of mine: a man of considerable talent who has in the past translated work by writers such as Pyetr Turgidovsky and Petra Norblov. He is, however, like many translators, a quiet man: the kind of creature who, were he an insect, would be the type that live happily in the shade of large rocks, not one of those drawn to ceaselessly buzz about electric lights. I have kept quiet his involvement, therefore, not on account of my ‘arrogance’ but his ‘modesty’.

The question of translation leads to the pivot on which this conspiracy theory leans. This is the so-called resemblance that St.John and Harstein have discovered between Nonik’s prose and my own, at the heart of which is our ‘choice of vocabulary’ including what the former thinks to be ‘frequent references to squirrels’ and a ‘plethora of ambiguous metaphors’. As to the squirrels, I am merely bemused and cannot say that I have ever noticed it myself. Concerning the ‘ambiguous metaphors’ I find this to be based on a rather rudimentary value judgement, not to mention it being a certain case of the pot calling the kettle black. St.John begins his letter after all, by stating that ‘the seeds of doubt are sprouting upon my troubled brow’. Meanwhile, his friend Harstein positively revels in the idiosyncrasies of her prose style, whilst having the sheer cheek to insult mine. As for this matter of Nonik and I sharing the same tendencies, I can supply three reasons why one might think this to be so. The first and most likely is that it is simply a coincidence. A confession ensues: so prepare yourself for a shock. I use the same words as a lot of people. But does that make me a plagiarist? Of course not – with the same sort of stones we can all build different houses. The second reason may be that there is some sort of resemblance in styles, not between me and Nonik, but between me and Nonik’s translator Winkler. Being that we have known each other for years and share the same good taste, I do not find this either surprising or suspicious. Lastly, I ought to make it known that the somewhat signposted use of the word ‘molasses’ – of which I am indeed inordinately if not obstinately fond – can be linked to me, but hardly in such a way so as to make me the creator of a dangerous hoax. Nonik did use the word ‘molasses’ – or Russian equivalent – in his work, which was his own choice and unconnected to my frequent use of the word ‘molasses’ in my own work. However, Nonik did not chose to have his novel titled ‘molasses pry with wantonness’, as it should be clear to all that he did not mean to write a novel at all. I can take the blame therefore for selecting his phrase ‘molasses pry with wantonness’ as the title, though the words themselves were originally arranged by the author alone.

The only remaining issue to deal with concerns Mrs Harstein’s side swip (or should I say, restless poke) at my publishing house, Upside-Down-Then-Backwards which, she complains, publishes ‘at the rate of two books every year’. Accurate though this figure may be, she seems to be missing the point, presuming that our low rate of production is in some way connected with diminished ambitions and/or lack of submissions. Let me assure you: there is no lack of writers desiring to have their work published by us and absolutely no need for me ever to make up the numbers by inventing them. If I were to consider a piece of fiction written by myself, rest assured I would not be so timid to hide like a small child behind the gravestone of a pseudonym. Know this: if the publishing house is not prospering – which invariably it is not – this does not mean that it is failing. On the contrary, its failure to worm its way into the hearts of the public is more a badge of honour than anything else. I am not one to chase the acceptance of everyone; rather it is my desire to receive the love of a chosen few. Experimental literature will never be to everyone’s taste: Upside-Down-Then-Backwards has the sense to understand this truism and to accept it. We would always rather maintain our high standards and fail than lower them and succeed – something you Cynico-Supremes, in all your dry-eyed wisdom, may never understand. As for those who have criticised us for not remaining entirely true to the idea that all of our published books ought to be read, as the title goes, upside down and backwards, let me assure you now that this was in fact never meant to be the case. Again, I am not a man who favours rules. I would not be so foolish, therefore, as to constrict or restrict my readers, or myself for that matter, simply in order to obey a law which was never written in stone. So, whilst I continue to fully support the practice of interpreting literature while standing on ones head, I fully appreciate that it can be just as well interpreted by lying in a tub of Armenian egg-custard.

Here ends my riposte; my counter-punch; my measured reply to unruly allegations spewed from the maws of the needlessly mocking. In truth, I ought not to have granted them so many words, but I am not unkind – and in all hopefulness this reply of mine will have convinced all readers of the spuriousness of this attack against my character. It will ensure, in short, that the ‘guillotine’ which Mrs Harstein has set up for my execution shall grow rusty through disuse, or else polished clean in preparation for a line of cynics such as herself and her hoax-happy companion, Mr St.John, whose ‘yours sincerely’ I shall here reproduce, only this time without irony.

Yours sincerely, Georgy Riecke

Further Reading:

Yevgeny Nonik Archives