BABEL’S STORIES

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32394, 5 September 1970, Page 4

BABEL’S STORIES

you Must Know Everything. By Isaac Babel. Translated from the Russian by Max Hayward. Edited by Nathalie Babel. Cape. 283 pp. Notes, Appendices.

The outline of Babel’s career and bis belated rehabilitation is very well known, and has, no doubt, contributed to his literary fame. But it also explains the peculiar circumstances of the publication of this volume which, appearing about 30 years after the date of Babel's probable death, contains two stories which have never been published in Russian as well as a number which were omitted from the Soviet editions of the “Collected Works.” Max Hayward’s versions of the stories in this volume are the first translations in any language.

All but two of the stories in this collection were written before 1928 that is, before Babel’s political embarrassment and subsequent “silence.” Most of the them were first published in small periodicals and many of them were not rediscovered until after his rehabilitation in 1957. It seems odd that the search did not begin in the 19305, when Babel's reputation was enormous and his printed output minimal; but perhaps his editors were as apprehensive of Stalinist retaliation as he was. It is, nevertheless, hard to read these stories as insidious propaganda—Babel’s irony, though continuously apparent, is too subtle to worry the general reader who would interpret his ostensibly “reporting” style as objectivity. And, from what is suggested of the Soviet authorities’ attitude to his writings, their opinions were not complicated by literary sophistication. \

It does seem possible, though, that Babel might not have desired the republication of several of the stories which are in some ways inferior specimens of his work. But just as many are to be placed among his best, and all of them contribute to the strength of his literary reputation, which rests not so much on a few masterpieces as on the collective impact of his stories when read in quantity.

The various appendices which constitute nearly one third of the volume contain several speeches and

reminiscences connected with the Moscow commemoration of Babel's seventieth birthday, and an invaluable text of a speech delivered by Babel in 1937, in which he answers questions about his work; the latter was not published in Russian until 1964. In addition to the appendices, the stories are well supplied with relevant notes, and each story is prefaced by an explanation of the circumstances in which it was written and published.