St Petersburg Times, Russia
June 2 2006
Survival of the fittest
By Katherine Shonk
Special to St. Petersburg Times
In DBC Pierre’s latest novel, newly unconjoined twins in London and a
young woman fleeing the war-torn Caucasus find themselves similarly
unversed in the ways of the world.
A pair of newly unconjoined twins, set loose in London, must decide
whether to embrace freedom or remain within their safe, familiar
cocoon.
A young woman from a war-torn republic in the Caucasus leaves home in
search of a better future for herself and her family.
These are the two storylines that DBC Pierre launches in alternating
and eventually intersecting chapters in his second novel, `Ludmila’s
Broken English.’ (His first, `Vernon God Little,’ won Britain’s
prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2003.) Though they inhabit very
different corners of the globe, twin brothers Blair and Gordon
`Bunny’ Heath and Ludmila Derev face a similar challenge – the need
to adapt to an alien environment – and are similarly ill-equipped to
face the adventures that will befall them.
Blair and Bunny, born attached at the trunk, are lifelong wards of
Britain, sequestered in the Albion House Institution, a
`centuries-old jumble of menacing architectures crouched deep in the
northern countryside.’ Acting on the theory that Bunny has become
Blair’s parasite, the British health service, `newly privatised’ in
the novel’s slightly futuristic setting, arranges for the brothers to
be surgically extricated from each other at the age of 33. Once they
have recovered, they are dispatched for four weeks’ community leave
in the bustling capital.
Meanwhile, in the fictitious post-Soviet backwater of Ublilsk
Administrative District Forty-One, Ludmila and the rest of her family
find themselves similarly cut adrift by a formerly paternalistic
state. Farcically, the Soviet Union abdicated its responsibility for
the Derevs’ well-being to the drunken, incestuous head of the
household. Just pages into the novel, Ludmila’s grandfather attacks
her, leaving her with a sobering choice. `The equation was suddenly
this: if Aleksandr sodomised her, he would more quickly be persuaded
to sign his pension voucher, and bread would appear on the family
table that night. … And if she wet the air with lusty squeaks,
there might even be orange Fanta.’ Soon after accidentally killing
Grandpa by stuffing a glove in his mouth, the young heroine confronts
another crude Catch-22: Her grandmother advises her to make up for
the deceased’s pension by choosing between prostitution and work in
the munitions plant. Ludmila lucks out only when the family realizes
that the sale of their tractor might temporarily stave off the wolves
at the door.
So the novel’s three protagonists set forth on what might have been a
collision course, if only it didn’t take such a very long time for
their paths to cross. Blair leaves the institution without looking
back, eager to plunge into the sex, hedonism and sheer normality he
has been denied. Asexual Bunny would just as soon cower through the
month of freedom, eating bacon and sipping gin. Ludmila, after
killing a second man (the tractor’s buyer) for untoward advances, has
the most ambitious plan. She heads to neighboring Kuzhnisk to meet up
with boyfriend Misha, a deserting soldier from the local conflict.
Together they intend to travel overseas and join the ranks of those
who `wouldn’t tolerate the inconvenience of war in the place where
they lived.’
`Ludmila’s Broken English’ begins boldly, perhaps too boldly; played
for laughs, the passage in which Ludmila kills her lustful
grandfather is liable to lose a few faint-hearted readers. Subsequent
chapters, in which Blair and Bunny quibble endlessly over the
possibilities afforded by their liberation, are more likely to turn
off even more, due to tedium and, for non-Brits at least, an excess
of slang and inside jokes. This is a shame because, after this uneven
start, passages of brilliance lie nestled within the novel’s dense,
darkly comedic middle.
Most successful is Pierre’s cutting portrayal of Ublilsk, a
civilization in rapid decline. The novelist researched this portion
of his book by visiting Armenia and frequenting Russian-bride web
sites, and he fixes a keen eye on the degradation and desperation
that can exist in forgotten pockets of the world. The description of
the region’s bread delivery echoes the matter-of-fact bleakness of
Alexander Solzhenitsyn:
`As keeper of the bread depot, the last registered business of any
kind in the district, Lubov’s power was absolute. The depot was a
mildewed cockpit from which she piloted the destinies of the
district’s last mollusc-like inhabitants. Every week, a forlorn
box-car was uncoupled from a train on the main line, and pushed on to
a disused siding that ran to within four kilometres of Ublilsk. …
Oafish young men met the wagon each week, carrying metal bars and
sharpened chains for security. Rumour had it they now also carried a
gun. They were Lubov’s retarded son and nephew – for the stigma of
feeble blood twice stained her – and they would heave and pull the
wagon as far as the track would allow, then unload the bread into
sacks, and carry it over their backs to the depot. … The town had
several simple faces rumoured to be the cost of a dirty loaf.’
Even more vivid is Ubli, the tongue Pierre gives his characters,
`said to be the language most exquisitely tailored to the expression
of disdain.’ The Ublis’ dialogue is presented as word-for-word
translation, a technique that at first feels stilted. But once the
reader acclimates to common Ubli turns of phrase such as `gather your
cuckoos,’ `don’t toss gas,’ `cut your hatch,’ and the ubiquitous
`Hoh!’ it becomes delightfully daffy, as does the natives’ constant
pushing of their chins at anyone who gets the slightest bit on their
nerves. In Ublilsk, contempt is the local currency; beyond the
district’s borders, its expression is the only source of power.
`Imagine!’ Ludmila scolds a sweet young woman who attempts to
befriend her in Kuzhnisk. `A new and important visitor and you waste
the crucial first hour, the golden hour, with squeakings about
yourself!’
Ludmila’s unwavering crabbiness lends the story some inspired humor;
unfortunately, it stands in the way of her development as a fully
rounded character. When a crooked Kuzhnisk biznesmen signs her up on
an `Internet introduction service,’ it’s clearly time to start
worrying, but the girl’s tough exterior impenetrably lacquers over
her underlying pathos and naivete. The story of what happens when
conjoined twins are separated and cut loose in society should also
set the stage for compelling drama, but the brothers remain too
rigidly defined – Blair is the wild one, Bunny the priss – to retain
much interest. And Pierre’s failure to recount the specifics of their
separation – we are told that they `shared certain organs,’ but not
how they are divided up on the operating table, or how the twins are
(or are not) physically altered by the procedure – seems an odd
oversight for an otherwise scatological writer.
When the twins do finally meet up with Ludmila (yes, the introduction
web site plays a role), the results are unsatisfyingly brief. Nearly
all of the novel’s major characters converge in Ublilsk for a
gruesome finale that seems to want to be chilling, but instead comes
off feeling flat, even predictable.
Still, those who like their literature in the grotesque vein of
William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor will appreciate Pierre’s
transplantation of the tradition to a very different southern clime.
The Caucasus is unexplored territory in contemporary English-language
fiction, and in many sections of `Ludmila’s Broken English,’ Pierre
does an admirable job of introducing a new audience to the horror and
black humor to be found there.
Katherine Shonk is the author of `The Red Passport,’ a collection of
short stories set in contemporary Russia.