“A chronicle of the soul of an intellectual in an absurd world”

Lina Kostenko’s Notes of a Ukrainian Madman has been called one of the most awaited books in the history of Ukrainian literature. It was long-awaited indeed, not only in terms of the text, but also in terms of the author’s return to the literary scene. For the previous 20 years Lina Kostenko has kept silent, yet she stayed close to Ukrainian life, focusing on observation and analysis of Ukraine in the world and the world in Ukraine, as well as the situation in society, politics, journalism, and literature. Her works often show the absurdity of Ukraine’s reality, which is now becoming more prominent, and hence more expressive. But this novel is not only about the Ukrainian “madness.”

Few events are able to cause such a media sensation like the launch of the first prose novel by Lina Kostenko Notes of a Ukrainian Madman (published by A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA, 2011, with the pressrun of 10,000). Maybe, for the Ukrainian journalists, who packed the premises of UKRINFORM to the full, this event will be a turning point.

Incidentally, in the book Kostenko is generous towards journalists: “We still have journalists. They are the eyes of a sleeping society.” However, she speaks about “the intoxication of the word” several pages later. The thing is that, as Kostenko admitted, over the past 10 years the work on the book regularly made her enter the “journalism area.” “I needed you, though you were not aware of this,” Kostenko told the journalists.

This need was caused by the genre stylistics of the novel which is in a sense a research of the quality in which Ukraine entered the third millennium and its relations with the world and every single person living on its territory. The main character, a 35-year-old programmer, who embodies the author, is taking a direct part in the world’s absurd processes, and his “main trauma,” as he admits to himself, is Ukraine.

The novel and its vigor show that Ivan Malkovych was quite right, calling Kostenko “a young prosaic.”

The “young prosaic” does not want Ukrainian reality to be preceded by the prefix “post” anymore, which has largely defined our lives over the past 20 years. “We are approaching the 20th anniversary of our independence. Sooner or later literary criticism, history of literature and history on the whole will reflect on this period: what literature the writers have given to the independent Ukraine. We have very talented people, wonderful writers, young ones and even younger,” Kostenko noted when presenting her novel. “For some reason our literature is called ‘ukrsuchlit,’ someone set this example. This word carries something unpleasant in it. True, it is also called ‘postmodern.’ And ‘post’ means ‘after.’ And what is awaiting us? Instead of coming to the finish line with the ‘post’ prefix, with a defeat, it would be better to set out and think of victory.”

In the novel she puts these words into the consciousness of the main character: “It’s only ‘post’ everywhere. Someone must shoot from a starting pistol,” he thinks. There is one more phrase: “Our dead have been long ago demanding the frontline of national rescue,” or “The front of national dignity is upheld by the dead. When will the living do so?”

Like Berestechko, which has been recently republished, Notes also speaks about winning over the defeat. In other words, from another epoch, without complicated parallels for those who haven’t yet learned their history, or poetic language which is hard to perceive, in the way our “mad” Ukrainian reality demands.

WHAT DO OUR FIRST READERS THINK ABOUT THIS?

COMMENTARIES

Ivan DZIUBA, Ukrainian scholar, philologist, culture expert, public figure, academic of the NAN of Ukraine, the first reader of the first layout of Notes:

“Notes of a Ukrainian Madman is a chronicle of a Ukrainian intellectual’s soul in a world of absurd processes, both of Ukrainian and planetary scale. The planetary absurdity reaches him via information storms, whereas the Ukrainian one attacks with everyday routine and social problems. Being experienced on the individual level, the chronicle creates a high emotional and intellectual one. Absurdity, ruinous for Ukraine’s national reality and the status of a man on the whole causes resistance. The Maidan becomes an arena and symbol of this resistance. The high ethics of the Maidan withstand oblivion and apostasy. Rich in deep and frequently bitter contemplations on the humiliation of all things humane in the contemporary world and Ukraine’s historical destiny, the novel will help Ukrainians understand themselves. And if it will be translated into foreign languages, which is very desirable and important, it will help the world see Ukraine and themselves with Ukrainian eyes.”

Iryna SHTOHRYN, journalist, Radio Liberty:

“Lina Kostenko said once, ‘A man becomes a man, when he belongs to a people.’ We can rephrase it: ‘People become a people when they have Lina Kostenko.’ Indeed, Kostenko is a person of genius. We are very lucky that she is close. She thinks the way we do, feels the way we do, and at the same time is able to express everything in the apt language of a genius, which hits you right in the solar plexus. Kostenko’s novel, Notes of a Ukrainian Madman tells about what happened to all of us. I remember myself and my friends in the 1990s, when we tried not to lose our profession, find some guidelines, then the new millennium. Everything that has happened to our society has been recreated and reflected upon in Notes of a Ukrainian Madman. Kostenko’s novel has a clear message to all of us: time has come to change the country. ‘Think globally – act locally,’ Kostenko quoted academician Vernadsky as saying (sic). Notes of a Ukrainian Madman is our verdict and at the same time justification and impetus to action.”

Viktor RYBACHENKO, vice president of the Association of Political Psychologists of Ukraine:

“Lina Kostenko is a poet. Though on Friday she presented her first prose novel, it seems to me that a poet’s prose writing is still a form of poetry. Therefore I perceive Notes of a Ukrainian Madman as a ground where the poet’s heart is competing with the information-rational dragon embodying the world. And in this world of madness a normal person starts to feel like a madman.

“Kostenko is known as a loner, but the book has proved that in all these years she remained in an extremely close relation with the entire world. Notes of a Ukrainian Madman is an encyclopedic cross-section of the moral-psychological displacement, felt very subtly by the poet. The world is displaced by a landslide, from the normal positions and the position of all things beautiful to primitivism, bitterness and getting stupid. This phenomenon is taking place everywhere: Kostenko analyses the events in the whole world and she sees moments of madness everywhere. Therefore, in my opinion, the second target of the book is to remind people that there are highers values, senses, things you should try to achieve. And the world is moving in the opposite direction. And the hero, who is pointedly average, finds himself in a complicated situation: on the one hand, he wants to live normally and develop, on the other hand, he is blocked in this world. Therefore this book is about a normal person, who, in a mad world, wants to preserve himself and suffer the blows of destiny, holes in his heart and self-respect. What Kostenko says on behalf of the man is an attempt to change the viewpoint. And as an author she is breaking stereotypes with this stand.

“One should read Notes of a Ukrainian Madman very slowly and attentively. There is a colossal amount of information about the events we have witnessed. On the one hand, there is lyricism: Kostenko paints it in reserved strokes. Emotional and rational things in the book are very balanced. At the same time it is obvious that the world has no mercy for the lyrical ‘I,’ or human emotions. This is my initial perception of the book.

“I liked that Kostenko looks wonderful, she is in good shape, and is absolutely clear in her conclusions and assessments. It seemed to me important that she rises against the phenomenon of ‘ukrsuchlit’ and all bitchy things that exist in Ukraine and the world. It is important that presenting her first prose book, she is willfully modest. But Kostenko’s first prose book is very strong. Time is needed for reflection. Kostenko is surprising in this book. Those who love and know her verse should get accustomed and accept the new Lina Kostenko. She remains a poet, but at the same time she is a thinker, an analyst, a person having a moral right to assess the quality of good and evil things. In her book Kostenko ascertains the evil that is coming upon us in a very distinctive manner.”

We invite everyone who has already read Notes of a Ukrainian Madman to discuss the book on Den/The Day’s pages.