Malva Landa (Ukrainian language)

On the outskirts of Lviv there is a dump—an entire labyrinth the size of a small town. The people who live there age extremely slowly, drink the wine “Chervonyj Sazhotrūs” (Red Stench-Runner), sponsor guerrilla movements across the world, discuss lofty matters, and dream of getting out of deep hiding to show everyone where the crayfish overwinter. The main character wanders into the labyrinth searching for a strange girl who had to live—and die—in his mind. As it turns out, thoughts have a habit of materializing. The author has no problems with imagination, but his humor is potentially dangerous for the reader: sometimes there’s a chance you might dislocate your jaw.

The book reveals a huge number of historical “facts” previously unknown: for example, the story of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who in reality were growing bananas in greenhouses! Throughout it, you recognize references both to classics and to modern mass culture; combined with a large number of poetic sketches and quite technical wordplay, this makes for a text that’s difficult to take in at first—but alive and breathing.

Ukrainian:

Jurij Vynnychuk’s novel “Malva Land” is a real challenge for today’s reader—even simply because nowadays it rarely happens that anyone can get through 540 pages. That’s how much Ukrainian prose is no longer written by neither Shevchuk nor Zahrebelnyi. However, the most resilient hedonists find in the text total pleasure bordering on the erotic, and sometimes even growing into something uncharted—or, as some say, transcendental. Vynnychuk, as a desperate erotomaniac, doesn’t know how to write any other way.

“Malva Land” can be considered the peak of his work—or, let’s leave room for a little masterly self-improvement, at least a landmark text in which burst of imagination, a permanent craving for alterity, batyar tenderness, and non-canonical patriotism have all fused together. Yes, precisely stoic patriotism and the search for the “inner Ukraine.” An Ukraine of twilight, evening, underground, low, intimate—one word: subconscious, or even unconscious. A fantasy trash-heap where charming creatures live—clackers, blaze-beetles, karakons, wire boas, apparitions, mermaids, demons—where there is the Sea of Borshchiv and where coffee is served “trash-heap style.” That is where the events take place. The heroes are no worse than exotic tales, so they also have odd names—Bumbliakovych, Fruzia, Lyutetsia, Zimmermann, Kuzelia, Kurdelia, Trankvilion Pups, Dziun’o, Shrbutyakh…

Vynnychuk turns to an unreal-fantastic reality: one that always existed in spite of official, visible reality. Or is it only Ukrainian?

An age-old pull of Ukrainians toward guerrilla warfare finds in the stubborn underground spirit of Vynnychuk its full, vivid expression. The reader hides in “Malva Land” as if in a cache, because it is comfortable for them in the surreal world of Vynnychuk—its peculiar kindness and tender attentiveness to every detail; its elegant humor and gentle sorrow; airy cynicism and stylistic color. The alternative country of “Malva Land” is neither El Dorado—we will never find it—nor Atlantis, which we have long lost. Vynnychuk’s Ukraine grows genetically out of the Ukrainian fairy tale—our eternal “there once lived a grandfather and grandmother,” invented by the people—so kill me—[they did it] not for morals, but for pure pleasure. Vynnychuk took up the fairy-tale strategy, and he didn’t go wrong. This author is well versed in various kinds of pleasure. The search for the mysterious poetess Malva Land is first and foremost a search for an ideal. And what is an ideal, if not the eternal “high” of reading—or rather listening? After all, fairy tales aren’t read; they’re heard!

Will Vynnychuk’s fairy tale have a happy ending? Will the Sea of Borshchiv ever dry up? Will our hero find the mysterious poetess Malva Land? Vynnychuk’s fairy tale, like everything beautiful on this earth, never ends. So 540 pages (or several hundred megabytes) are actually not enough—because you want more and more—but they are quite enough to fall in love with this prose forever.