Ludmila Ulitskaya and the inconveniences of death
Ludmila Ulitskaya's Funeral is singularly comprehensive and cohesive. Its pages tell the stories of the characters surrounding Álik's deathbed: Irina, his first great love; T-shirt, their teenage daughter; Nina, his current wife; and Valentina, his lover. It's New York, the summer of 1991, and it's clear Álik won't last long. This melting pot, which has everything going for it, and whose very mention already seems tense, will also feature old friends and newly arrived Russian émigrés who use the house as a meeting place for exiled Russians.
Since the plot seems to unfold from that bed, including the priest and the rabbi who dispute the dying man's spiritual direction, there's a touch of a play in the way the novel is constructed—and a touch of comedy, or tragicomedy, that lingers throughout. Through the narrative voices of the four characters named here, the author weaves a web through which she reveals, beyond their own personalities, their lives, their contexts, and their dynamics, the figure of Álik. Each one views him through their own lenses, lending depth to the image of all those surrounding his bed, as these parts of the narrative convey the context and complexity of the interpersonal relationships established there. Thus, the scene itself is charged with tension.
The novel is short and gains particular momentum due to its narrative structure. The author chose a fragmented work, jumping between voices and points of view, which increases the immersion into each character's psyche. By viewing everything—and Álik—through multiple lenses, the web becomes more complex, and so does the sense of intimacy with the plot and characters. At the same time, the author's alternating points of view also adds richness to each event, allowing for a panoramic view of everything that led up to that moment.
Death, as the book's driving force, gains particular prominence, not only as the event where the narrative axes converge, but also as a driver of existential reflections. Confronted with the final days of a man's life—a man so important to these characters, for various reasons, both past and present—life as it is is woven, including fears, regrets, and hope. In other words, the author chooses a situation and from there outlines life, explains the human experience, relentlessly linking elements together or delving into the characters' thoughts or emotions. All of this is seamlessly conveyed in the narrative, without seemingly serious events becoming overwhelmed with solemnity. Instead, the tone is almost always comical, and even in the details, the author chooses to create lightness, creating a rush of reading on the other side. The very choice of creating a dynamic reading also contributes to this sensation, with the book being put together in an almost addictive way, with some pieces sticking together, and one mind unraveling the next.
The very idea of exile also features prominently in the book, with its inherent multiplicity of elements. In other words, it appears as the axis from which identities and relationships are established, from longing for one's home country to adapting to a culture or even establishing a community abroad as a way to create a familiar sense of belonging. In this way, the author portrays exile as an interpersonal phenomenon, rather than an individual experience, always presenting it in its dynamic collective context, even when the narrative focuses on a single person.
The year 1991, when Álik's death approaches, is not innocuous, a mere temporal framework, but rather a metaphor for the end of international politics as it was known: one political system was born and another died. The parallel with what happens there is clear: at death's door, the man forces those close to him to confront their past and their future, and above all, his absence. Yet, after reading, it will be the issues of family tensions that weigh most heavily, oscillating between tragedy and comedy, with the author always direct, always refusing sentimentality, the brooding of grief. As she weaves her prose, the author reveals the subtleties of interactions while simultaneously showing the reader the tensions and resentments that are part of relationships. Indeed, it is surprising to see how such a small space can be filled with so much, be it history, politics, family, or love. In other words, the author begins with a family nucleus, and from there, the prose takes flight, the text soars, reaching the entire world. Humor is used subtly, constantly present, even helping to highlight moments of tension. And even in these moments, one feels the emotional depth of Ulitskaya's writing, with clean, fluid prose—a prose that forgoes fat, which is all muscle. The narrative is short, the reading is quick, and in a New York apartment, it reverberates with life as a whole.
The author writes according to the old spelling agreement
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