THE POSSESSED slowly assumes material form
Dear readers! It has been a long time since I was able to update you on my life as a D-list writer. But I’ve really had my hands full with the arduous transition to the C-list. There are just all kinds of unexpected things you have to think about. No sooner than you have finished wrestling with the ontological problem of the author photograph, and are looking forward to a well-earned respite from self-consciousness, than you are liable to find yourself involved in email exchanges like the following, which took place between me and my my much-admired editor at FSG:
Much-Admired Editor. “Dear Elif!!! Would you send me a photo of yourself? Let me explain!! I was talking to our head of paperback design about possible covers for your book. One idea that occurred to me was–I’d like to see a funny drawing of you, of an Elif-ish person, making her way through the words. Of course, if you think this is a bad idea, I’ll forget all about it. And if you have some idea for how the cover should look, tell me!!! My boss wants to see an Elif-ish person peering up—possessedly—from a big book. Or maybe head-down behind a big mise-en-abyme of a cover of THE POSSESSED…”
Elif (thinking to herself: “The next time I write a book it is so not going to be about my idiosyncratic and charming vision of anything). “Dear Lorin!!! To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about a cartoonish representation of me on the cover. Aren’t I kind of a parody of myself already ? I think the idea I had for the cover in the back of my mind was a battalion of possessed-looking matryoshki… have you ever seen a whole army of them on a table, staring at you, like something out of Hoffman?”
Editor. “…As it happens, the designer and I had already discussed matryoshka dolls. We both really liked your creepy-armies-of-matryoshkas as a visual joke; the trouble is, it doesn’t say READING. It doesn’t connote books and their pleasures, or wonderful-Elif-in-the-universe.”
Elif. “…Well, OK I guess, as long as it isn’t like one of those pages they do in the New Yorker with the author’s enormous head surrounded by weird floating apparitions…”
Editor. “…No, we weren’t thinking of that guy. More like Roz Chast!”
I thought that was a pretty good joke. But… it wasn’t a joke! They really got Roz Chast to do this incredibly beautiful cover! I observe merely in passing, ain’t no Elif-ish people peering out of nowhere.
The most fun part was that they sent a preliminary sketch first—so not only was I able to see a little bit of the artist’s work process, but I even got to contribute suggestions. For example:
1. In the preliminary sketch, the dancing book in the bottom middle panel struck me as somewhat inappropriately cheerful, so I was like, “Could it maybe look a bit more scary and demented?”
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| Before | After |
2. Despite my relief at not to appearing on the cover myself, the possessed people in the sketch struck me as possibly too uniformly white. Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of my best friends are white people—it’s a demographic for which I have enormous respect. Nonetheless, nearly half of The Possessed takes place in Samarkand, where people don’t look like that. So I sent in a snapshot of my much-respected Uzbek literature teacher, Dilorom Salohiy… and Roz Chast really put a Dilorom-ish person on the cover!
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| Dilorom | Dilorom-ish person |
This has definitely been one of the high points in my C-list career, particularly since I have been such a longstanding admirer of Ms. Chast’s work. To this day, my mom and I often allude to the following cartoon, which appeared in the New Yorker back in in 1993, when I was in high school:
[Image courtesy of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon web site, which includes a useful and informative compilation of Masonic References in New Yorker Cartoons.]
It became a joke that, when my mother asked me to do something, I sometimes expressed my reluctance using the phrase: “I have five grandmothers and they all…” (e.g., “I have five grandmothers and they all make me watch the world ice dancing championships”). Over the past 16 years, we gradually adapted this locution for more general purposes—it works for pretty much for any story you want to tell in which you end up coopted by some other person into an embarrassing or awkward situation.
Well OK, I realize it doesn’t sound that funny just described like that (I actually called my mom yesterday to ask if she could think of an example, but we couldn’t come up with anything that would be appropriate for the public domain)… but all I’m trying to say is that Roz Chast’s work is very close to my heart, so I feel incredibly honored and moved that she did the cover art for my first book.
OK dear readers, that’s it for now… but I promise to be a more conscientious correspondent than I have been in the past couple of months…
“I have 535 grandmothers and they all live inside my 536th grandmother!”
Tags: author photos, beards, d-list, Elif's mom, Freemasons, publications, Russian literature, THE POSSESSED, Uzbekistan
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I like it! (I still like the Russian dolls better, but I would totally read it with this cover too)
August 10th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Great cover! Does having a known name do your cover automatically bump you to B-minus-list status? (Have you spelled out the criteria for list-status-hood anywhere?) Anyway, congratulations, can’t wait to buy it.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I loved reading about the cute joke between you and your mother — and, bingo, years later Roz Chast is doing the cover of your book. How’s that for divination! I’m looking forward to the book and your continuous ascent to the top of the A-list.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:58 am
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6700357.html
Prepub Alert
By Barbara Hoffert — Library Journal, 10/15/2009
[. . .]
Batuman, Elif. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. Farrar. Feb. 2010. 272p. ISBN 978-0-374-53218-5. pap. $15.
The publicist insisted that I look in to this “awesome” title, and I’m glad I did. Stanford literary professor [i.e. lecturer] Batuman, whose pieces have appeared in n + 1, The New Yorker, and elsewhere, writes about murder on Tolstoy’s estate, Pushkin in the Caucasus, and losing Isaac Babel’s last living relatives in the San Francisco airport. A sleeper hit among those in the know? With a national tour.
[. . .]
November 4th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
A starred review of The Possessed in Publishers Weekly, 11/2/2009, can be found here (if you scroll down):
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6704405.html?industryid=47142
November 17th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
A starred review of The Possessed in Library Journal, 11/15/2009, can be found here (if you scroll down):
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6705427.html
December 14th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Among PW’s Best Books of 2009:
Adventures in Russian Lit
by Scott Martelle — Publishers Weekly, 12/14/2009:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6711301.html
January 16th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
I can’t wait for the book to be released; I’ve been looking forward to it since I read Elif’s article on Russian bells in the New Yorker. Do you folks realize that Roz Chast has been painting pysanky eggs for several years? She had many on display at Julie Saul Gallery in Manhattan in December and I bought one–and I love it! Roz Chast has always been my favorite cartoonist and now her egg ( a real egg shell) joins my display of wooden eggs painted in Sergiev Posad and elsewhere in Russia. I am so happy to see her work on the cover of Possessed. What an interesting combination of art and literature!
January 17th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Wow, that is brilliant about Roz Chast and pysanki—I wish I could find more images online, they look amazing!
January 17th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Not included in the NY Times slideshow are:
the one she did for a school’s auction:
http://www.openfields.org/Eggs2004/chast1.htm
and the one she talks about at 6:07 to 6:22 in this video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2638475n
January 18th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
I have been reading more of Elif’s articles that are available online and I truly can’t wait for The Posessed to appear in print! I have loved Russian memoirs, history, and literature for decades, even more so after we adopted our children from Russia in 1996. EB’s writing clears up some misconceptions, provides a wealth of background information, sets contexts for those of us who have traveled only very little in Russia, and brings a sense of humor to the pursuit of a voluminous cultural expression. EB, please post info on any book tour appearances in the Chicago area.
As for the Roz Chast pysanky, she did a lovely magazine cover forThe New Yorker on April 12, 2004 with a drawing of a whole cluster of painted aggs, and a framed reproduction is available from The New Yorker’s online store. Or contact Julie Saul Gallery (I don’t work for them!) to ask about purchasing an egg of your own.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:24 am
See that New Yorker cover here:
http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/new-yorker/72#i3592
January 27th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Vogue: People Are Talking About… Wednesday January 27, 2010 12:01PM
Books: To Russia With Love: Vera Pavlova and Elif Batuman
—Megan O’Grady
http://www.vogue.com/voguedaily/2010/01/books-to-russia-with-love-vera-pavlova-and-elif-batuman/
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:58 am
Slavic Sensation
By Kristy Davis
O, The Oprah Magazine | January 28, 2010
You’ll Never Read a Russian Classic the Same Way Again
http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/The-Possessed-by-Elif-Batuman-Book-Review
February 8th, 2010 at 5:40 am
This essay is adapted from The Possessed:
Confessions of an Accidental Literary Scholar
The Chronicle Review
February 7, 2010
http://wiredcampus.chronicle.com/article/Chasing-the-Word-a-Writer-in/63882/
February 8th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Dear Dr. Batuman,
This is a superb article. Stunning, really. I’m writing to tell you this and also to ask if I may quote you in my own book, Felicity and Barbara Pym, (May 2010) which an epistolary work (fiction and non-fiction) about the very distinctions you make in your article. My conclusions differ slightly since I would not have given the raw conglomerate of scribblers huddled around the space heater in the trailer repute as “writers” and I take great exception to what generally passes as a university education in English Literature in 80% of universities today, but I make similar points. Having been simultaneously Writer in Residence and Lecturer (Associate Professor level in US terms) at two British universities, I experienced the dichotomies you describe so beautifully, with full force. My MFA and PhD studies were engaging. Both were unnecessary to me as a writer but they did not harm me. My five year honours BA in Literature was absolutely essential. And I am a great proponent of interdisciplinarity. If I may send you the portion of your article in context (about a page of my book in which one (long) sentence of yours would appear, properly acknowledged of course) I would appreciate it. I can be contacted at harrisonsolow@alumnae.mills.edu or via The Red Room as above.
Kind regards,
Harrison Solow (female, despite the name)
February 12th, 2010 at 5:39 am
BOOK REVIEW
‘The Possessed’ by Elif Batuman
A young scholar finds nourishment — and madness — in the academic circles devoted to studying Russia’s literary masters.
By Richard Rayner
February 14, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/newsletter/la-ca-elif-batuman14-2010feb14,0,5740851.story