Nobel Laureate in Literature, Tartarus Press,
2021
The pioneering writings of celebrated Russian novelist Ezra Slef have made him a titan of contemporary Postmodernism, with a worldwide following keen to know more about the man behind the books. Enter Humbert Botekin, a disgraced former professor of literature, and Slef's biggest admirer. He writes the definitive biography of Slef, with compendious notes, an introduction, a list of plates, and a glossary.
But Botekin's narrative soon spirals dangerously out of control. A supreme egotist, Botekin cannot resist assuming the foreground, so that his ostensible biography of Slef gradually changes into a personal memoir in which we learn far more about the biographer than about his subject. The narrative is both sinister and darkly comic.
Botekin's secrets include making a Faustian pact with a well-travelled gentleman who bears an uncanny resemblance to the Devil--a likeness the self-absorbed Botekin fails to notice, even as his world collapses around him.
Ezra Slef is a contemporary Russian writer, “a titan of contemporary Postmodernism”, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Will Self. The text we’re reading is apparently a biography of Slef, written by one Humbert Botekin, an academic and self-styled literary genius. The problem is that Slef wants nothing to do with him, so Botekin ends up writing mostly about himself instead.
Oh, but this book is such a joy to read! Botekin is a splendidly pompous narrator, and his life goes through so many ups and downs. He accepts the help of a certain individual calling himself Rensip De Narsckof (I could tell this was an anagram, but I have to thank a Washington Post article for the solution: ‘Prince of Darkness’) to deal with a Twitter troll, and things are never quite the same again…
Komarnyckyj includes little riffs on writers such as Borges and B.S. Johnson, and plenty more that I didn’t spot (there’s a list at the back). It’s just great fun. If Ezra Slef sounds like your kind of book, I’d say go for it.
What is better than a biography about one of the greatest fictitious writers of all time? An autobiography, of sorts, about the author of the biography in the guise of writing the biography. It’s not as confusing as I make it sound. Because how does Humbert Botekin write a biography about Ezra Slef when he won’t consent to the interview? Botekin must then rely on public records, interviews, and the like. When that’s not enough, he must comically rely on his own history, which is surely comparable to the great Ezra Slef, to tell the complete story.
While I am versed in some of the influences for this book, some are unknown to me, and it didn’t dampen my enjoyment in the slightest. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Humbert Botekin delve more into Slef, and his obsessive switch from fan to stalker, and worse, which I’m going to term “Slefsessive”™, because it’s fun, and I can.
Botekin has fashioned the footnotes after Slef’s book, which makes the footnotes even more essential, and a bit of magical fairy dust on an already spectacular read. I’ve read Komarnyckyj before and am a fan of his work. His writing is clever, witty, and absolutely enthralling. The more I got into ESTNNLIL, the harder it was to put it down (in much the same vein as Humbert reading Slef’s great work). The irony, jabs, nods, and humor leaped off the page and tickled me delighted. An outstanding read.
https://energyrae.com/2021/01/27/ezra-slef-the-next-nobel-laureate-in-literature-andrew-komarnyckyj/
I started this novel in January thinking it was serendipitous that I had hoovered up Roger Lewis’s biography of Anthony Burgess over Christmastime. I found the Roger Lewis biography in the organic food co-op (Chorlton of course) on the book swap. I opened and finished it in a few days. It’ll be going back there at some point.
The idea of the biographer going a bit mad, or rogue, or both, and talking more about himself, is the basic premise of this novel. What pulled me through Roger Lewis’s biography was the sheer rush of egotism. The asides about a prediliction for nipples as big as tractor buttons. Yet another scything remark about liver failure. One could conclude that Lewis’s biography of Burgess is simply scandalous. But it is, in its unreliability, in its scaffolding with nothing more than amplified hearsay and plain untruth, in its rudeness, quite ‘of Burgess’.
Komarnyckyj, then, has a fictional biographer break into a fictional writer’s home to be thrown out and told ‘you can write about anything as long as I am not involved.’ The biographer takes this as a massive green light and Komarnyckyj presents it all to us deadpan like a new Confederacy of Dunces for a contemporary neo-Grub Street.
The other subject of the book is postmodernism. Ezra Slef, the fictional writer, is a postmodern author. Him being called Ezra is always already a nod to Pound. In a mediated world – on a planet of representations – meaning’s endgame has always already been played out.
Komarnyckyj claims a love-hate relation with postmodernism. I agree. But then I read Pynchon and realise that the problem is often not with postmodern literary landmarks. It lies in the absolutely thumb-sucking languagescape I try to stay out of. But it’s everywhere, ironic take-downs of next-to-nothing, pouty-faced styles that entertain in order to disguise there is little or no content beneath the tonal posturing.
This novel gets at that uncomfortable truth by presenting the fictional biographer’s material during its in-progress state. It’s often dreadful crap, the disturbing dimension being that it will only take a little buffing for the material to be publishable.
So what marks Komarnyckyj’s take on literary postmodernism out – because that’s what I think this book is – is an understanding that on this litscape where meaning’s endgame is already lost, all that’s left to do is make a satire out of its fundamental literary-philosophical stuffs. And that’s why I think this is a great novel, not a lightweight one.
For example ‘Ezra’ and ‘Senor Humbert’ appear as themselves, but frosted with a little of the literary sugar of Pound and Humbert Humbert. Komarnyckyj then puts them in positions where that light dusting of connotation will do a lot of work. But you need to know your literature for that to happen, and so this is literary fiction, for all its cheeky re-arrangement of museum furniture. There’s a lot of this in the book and to over-discuss it here would ruin the reader’s fun.
When I got to the end of this book I realised its author had actually listed Lewis’s biography of Anthony Burgess as one of his source documents. Burgess’s Enderby is in there too: Perhaps I was more than accidentally on the right track with my coincidental reading.
Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson is also listed at the end. As the novel gets crazier and Ezra Slef becomes more a target than a subject, the influence becomes clear. Johnson’s Albert Angelo must be an influence too, as the author of the book, Andrew Komarnyckyj, is clearly in the text to a greater or lesser degree (how could he not be? Andrew Komarnyckyj invented the whole thing).
Stern’s Tristam Shandy is also listed, and I wonder if we might add Voltaire’s Candide as well. There’s a kind of nutcase, duo of journeymen quality to the book, which is very entertaining and a little bit brutal in places. The biographer blags his way into Oxford and then bribes his way into a job with an early folio of Joyce (as a professor of postmodernism, of course). In this there’s Hogarth too, I think, and so of course Smollett and Fielding. This is the very British – actually English – aspect of the book, for all its Pynchonism.
There’s been a lot of talk about exiting postmodernism. But I haven’t seen any convincing examples of form that can claim to be ‘out the other side’. All I see is drably worthy reheated humanism and modernism. A lot of it. I’m so fucking bored of it I can’t tell you. It reflects the last few years of batshit crazy times in no ways whatsoever. It’s just the dour underside of the contemporary cultural coinage. The bright upside is the chattering, giddy childscape of listicles about celebrity pets.
If you’re sick of that, and I am, then this is a damn fine novel to take in while we’re waiting for either The End or Something New. - Steve Hanson
https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2021/01/18/a-paean-to-pomo/
Ezra Slef: The Next Nobel Laureate in Literature (Ezra Slef from here on in) is a wonderful, quirky read. I bought it on something of a whim – I’m a sucker for a Faustian pact! – and found it to be a thoroughly engaging read and something quite different to much of what I’ve read this year.
In Ezra Slef, we meet Humbert Botekin, Regius Professor of Postmodern Literature at Balliol College, Oxford. His title is one that he is extremely proud of, so much so that he often introduces himself by name and title given the slightest opportunity to do so, even when chatting up an attractive lady in the pub. Humbert isn’t an especially likeable character, largely due to the tremendous ego he exhibits throughout. His is a fascinating journey, however, with several high points, but some absolutely spectacular lows as well. Even from his university days, we see an individual who is intelligent – they don’t just let anyone into Oxford now, do they? – and yet not above seeking an advantage via other means where necessary. He quickly cottons on to the influence that one particular professor holds, and begins sending gifts in his direction, his masters and post-graduate courses no doubt rendered a little easier as a result. This same strategy also helps him to secure a position on the teaching staff upon finishing his studies, and later sees him promoted ahead of colleagues with more experience. He’s not afraid of hard work, and yet clearly doesn’t mind greasing a few palms if it makes his life easier. It sets up the narrative well for what is to follow.
Humbert sets out to write a biography of Ezra Slef – a Russian Postmodernist author that Humbert seems to be more than a little infatuated with. This sounds great in theory, except that Humbert is not provided with access to any papers etc. nor does Slef grant him any interviews. Rather, Humbert must use his own knowledge alongside the material that is already available in the public domain. And to fill in the remaining gaps? Well, Humbert assumes that his hero’s life is much as his own, and so he uses his own experiences to fill in the blanks, and we learn much more about Humbert than we do about Slef as the biographical work becomes more autobiographical in nature.
Ezra Slef himself remains a relatively distant character throughout, although we are treated to examples of his work and passages that Humbert is particularly impressed with. It comes across – deliberately, I think – as being quite niche in terms of its appeal, and yet Humbert will hear no word against him and his work. I did wonder if the author was perhaps having a little dig at the way in which some novels are raved about and yet hold very little appeal for the average reader – Slef’s work and Humbert’s admiration for it comes across as being a bit “emperor’s new clothes” to me.
Ezra Slef is about one man’s hubris – Humbert believes himself untouchable, particularly after taking advice from the rather mixed up (hoping you’re all cryptic crossword fans 😉) Rensip De Narsckof. Written in retrospect, Humbert makes several references to his eventual downfall and while we don’t know what will cause his demise, we do know it’s coming, and there are several elements along the way that could contribute to this. This makes Ezra Slef an extremely engaging read – I was fascinated with Humbert’s life which does seem charmed at times, and I wanted to know how and why it would start to fall apart. What is clear is that Humbert is the engineer of his own downfall, and I don’t mind admitting that there’s an element of schadenfreude in seeing him brought low.
Ezra Slef is an absolutely brilliant novel – I found it to be original and gripping throughout. And what a pleasure the book itself is. This is my first from Tartarus Press, but I love the quality of it. I feel a new collection coming on!
At first, the protagonist of Andrew Komarnyckyj’s “Ezra Slef: The Next Nobel Laureate in Literature” (Tartarus Press) might seem to be an actual madman. In fact, Humbert Botekin, Regius professor of postmodern literature at Balliol College at Oxford, is simply a ruthlessly ambitious, self-centered academic operator who bribes one senior professor with Joyce rarities, callously destroys the literary career of a former student, steals an unpublished manuscript from the great Russian writer Ezra Slef and swindles a former classmate out of nearly a million pounds. Botekin, we learn, regularly takes advice about his career and love life from a rather louche “man of the world” who calls himself Rensip De Narsckof. Squint a little at that peculiar name and, lo, the Prince of Darkness rises from the shadows.
Besides being a deliciously sardonic tale of reversals and comeuppance, “Ezra Slef” pays deft homage to Nabokov, Borges, Flann O’Brien and numerous other tricksy writers. It’s a joyful book, packed with surprises. - Michael Dirda
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