AT HIS SIDE. THE LAST YEARS OF ISAAC BABEL. Introduction by Anne Frydman. Forewrod by Grace Paley. Trans. Anne Frydman / Robert L .Busch.

Pirozhkova brings to vivid life the man many consider to be the greatest prose writer of the Soviet period.

The Soviet Union was singularly successful in murdering its intelligentsia. Isaac Babel (1894-1940), one of the great Russian writers of the century, disappeared into the gulag in 1939 and was executed in 1940. Pirozhkova met him in 1932 and became his second "wife" (Babel never divorced his first wife, who had moved abroad) while she was an engineer-designer on the Moscow subway system. She lived with him until the NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) arrested him. Comparisons inevitably come to mind with the memoirs of Nadezhda Mandelstam (Hope Against Hope and Hope Abandoned), wife of poet Osip Mandelstam, who was also exterminated by Stalin. Yet Mrs. Mandelstam was intimately acquainted with her husband's work and preserved much of it for posterity, in some cases by memorizing it, whereas Babel ordered Pirozhkova not to read his drafts or engage him in literary conversations, and she obeyed. One wishes she'd contravened his orders. Pirozhkova's observations are often less than edifying about Babel the author: "Babel spent a great deal of time writing, and he finished many works." Still, her memoir is an invaluable guide to the writer's day-to-day existence, and says a lot about his relations with other Soviet and Western writers. Paley's poetic foreword reveals Babel the writer for American readers.
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A wife's evocative memoir of the vibrant and creative world of her husband and of the generation of extraordinary men and women whom Stalin destroyed. Although considered one of the masters of the Russian short story in this century (The Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories are his most famous works), Isaac Babel remains relatively uncelebrated outside of Russia. A full-scale biography does not exist. This new volume, by Babel's second (but unofficial) wife, is an intimate, heartwarming, and inspiring account of the years the two spent together in the 1930s up until Babel's arrest and murder in 193940. He clearly possessed both a unique talent and a genius for friendship. He insisted on merriment; his modus operandi was joking, and he even attempted to joke with the NKVD agent who arrested him. His kindness ``bordered on catastrophic,'' and his generosity was notorious. Although enormously well read, he disliked literary discussions and participated in them with only one man, his dear friend and mentor, Maxim Gorki. Pirozhkova also offers an intimate portrait of Babel's interactions with his intellectual compatriots, including both the well-known (Sergey Eisenstein, Andr‚ Malraux) and the obscure. The main criterion for earning Babel's admiration seems to have been giving free reign to one's imagination. Pirozhkova strings together a series of memorable portraits made even more striking by the fact that nearly everyone described was tried and murdered, like Babel himself. This English translation of the second, uncensored, Russian edition of 1989 appears with an informative, if unnecessary, introduction by Frydman. The insightful, engaging text gracefully stands on its own and would have been better served by a glossary of the many artists, intellectuals, and politicians discussed. Pirozhkova has written a moving tribute to Babel's art and his life, as well as to the agony and degrading hardships suffered by Stalin's victims and their families. (photos) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Babel (1894^-1941) was a celebrated master of the short story and a victim of Stalin's reign of terror. Curiously, he has never been the subject of a full biography, and little was known about the final years of his life until Pirozhkova, his second wife, wrote this deeply affecting memoir. Pirozhkova, a highly regarded engineer who worked on the Moscow subway, tells the story of their all-too-brief but very happy time together with extraordinary directness, a dignified eloquence that allows the terrible weight of Babel's tragic death to sink slowly and indelibly into our consciousness. She kept no journals but remembers specific conversations and events with great clarity, relating stories that emphasize Babel's dislike of literary discourse, love of merriment, and nearly "catastrophic" kindness. Pirozhkova describes Babel's writing methods and mourns for all the unpublished work that was confiscated and lost when he was arrested in 1939. Systematically lied to, she believed that Babel was alive for many years, but the sad truth is that he was killed shortly after his travesty of a trial. His spirit lives on, however, both in this bittersweet memoir and in his powerful fiction. Donna Seaman

A master of the short story, Isaac Babel (Red Cavalry and Tales of Odessa) first met second wife Pirozhkova in 1932 and was separated from her by arrest in 1939, two years before his death in a Siberian concentration camp. Frydman's introduction and Grace Paley's foreword do a good job of explaining Babel's personal qualities and the brutal times in which he lived. Pirozhkova, who was a construction engineer, describes in great detail aspects of Soviet life during the Thirties and World War II. The stories of everyday life are fascinating, bizarre, and wonderful views of how life continues in the midst of political and human tragedy. Babel's character, his meeting with Pirozhkova, and their love story are beautifully drawn. Babel's arrest, execution, and Pirozhkova's attempt to find out the truth forms a terrible and harrowing narrative. Pirozhkova shows Babel with other literary and artistic figures, in conversation about the times, and with his friends and politicians throughout the country. A touching, detailed, and humane book. Recommended for large literature and Soviet/Russian studies collections.?Gene Shaw, NYPL
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