Out collection ( )

After having fought for the Whites in the Russian Civil War, Gaito Gazdanov fled for Paris in 1920, and after a few years of miscellaneous factory work and hard labor, he took a job as a late night taxi driver, which he would do for about 25 years. About midway through, before WWII, he would write a non-fiction account of this life in ‘Night Roads’. It’s pretty bleak, as he came into contact with all sorts of derelicts, drunks, and prostitutes in the wee hours of the night, and over the years, in contrast to the romantic Victor Hugo, formed a very negative impression of “les misérables”. Highly intellectual, he was also bitter for having to drive a cab in the first place, and it shows in his writing.

Gazdanov is at times philosophical and at times lyrical, and I do enjoy the sophistication in his writing, but in this book he too often resorts to negative conclusions about humanity and his own state of mind, too often ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’. It’s not that there aren’t any characters or events; we meet an alcoholic and an aging prostitute who was once a society woman, among a few others. There is a pathos to their stories and their outlooks on life, but they are so banal that it’s very hard to connect with them. This may be a perfect snapshot of Gazdanov’s life in 1939-41, and it’s all the more remarkable that he would write such great fiction while a cabbie given what he was going through. If you’re a big Gazdanov fan I would recommend the book for the autobiography it provides, otherwise, I would suggest skipping it. ( )