The Enchanted Wanderer

The Enchanted Wanderer (2012) by Nikolai Leskov – Melville House – ISBN 9781612191034 – Condition: Very Good

Russian literature has a reputation for being serious.

Very serious.

There are often long winters, difficult moral choices, complicated families, unfortunate peasants, philosophical suffering and at least one person staring into the middle distance while reconsidering the meaning of existence.

Nikolai Leskov, however, knew how to make things a little stranger.

The Enchanted Wanderer follows the extraordinary life of Ivan Flyagin, a man whose existence seems to consist largely of surviving events that would have persuaded most sensible people to stay at home permanently.

He travels, serves, fights, suffers, falls in love, encounters monks, soldiers, aristocrats, horse traders and assorted other characters, and generally moves through nineteenth-century Russia as though fate has taken a personal interest in keeping him busy.

The result is part adventure story, part spiritual journey, part comic tale and part reminder that if you wander around Russia for long enough, something improbable is almost guaranteed to happen.

Leskov was fascinated by Russian life in all its oddness, contradictions and variety, and this story gives him plenty of room to explore it.

Ivan is not presented as a neat, straightforward hero. He is impulsive, tough, flawed, emotional and frequently carried along by circumstance. His life unfolds less like a carefully planned career and more like a series of events that somebody forgot to stop.

That is part of the appeal.

The story moves through violence, romance, religion, guilt, redemption and absurdity, often changing tone with remarkable ease. One moment may feel almost like folklore, the next like social satire, and the next like a confession delivered by somebody who has seen far too much and somehow remains standing.

There is also the distinct pleasure of reading a Russian classic that does not require three generations of family trees and a notebook containing twenty-seven patronymics just to keep track of who has entered the room.

This Melville House edition from 2012 presents Leskov’s tale in a smart modern format, making it a particularly appealing way into a writer who remains less widely read in English than some of his enormous-bearded contemporaries.

The book is in Very Good condition, which is more than can be said for several of the characters by the time Leskov has finished with them.

Ideal for readers of Russian literature, literary adventures, nineteenth-century fiction, folklore-infused stories, or anyone who likes protagonists whose life plan appears to consist of “carry on and see what happens.”

Another excellent survivor from Crappy Old Books — containing wandering, suffering, strange encounters, spiritual reflection and enough Russian unpredictability to make an ordinary weekend seem embarrassingly uneventful.

Keep browsing: See more Fiction books Other books by Nikolai Leskov