‘The Narrow Cage’ by Vasily Eroshenko (Review)

It’s not often that I go into a book with virtually no preconceptions, but that was certainly the case with today’s choice.  It’s by a writer I’d never heard of, in a genre I know little about, so I didn’t have much idea what to expect.  One thing I do know, though, is that the good people at Columbia University Press rarely steer me wrong, and that was again the case this time, as the book they sent me turned out be another enjoyable gem.

*****
The Narrow Cage & Other Modern Fairy Tales (translated by Adam Kuplowsky) is a collection of writings from a certain Vasily Eroshenko, a man with a rather interesting life.  Born in Ukraine in 1890, he became blind from a childhood illness, and after an education at the Moscow School for the Blind, he travelled around, settling in Japan in 1914.  Because of his political views, he was deported from his new home in 1921, ending up in China, where he was supported by, among others, none other than the famous writer Lu Xun.  He eventually returned to Russia, somehow avoiding mortal peril by moving from region to region, and job to job, until his death in 1952 – quite a life.

Kuplowsky’s introduction sets the scene nicely for the main event, namely collected writings from the writer’s lengthy career.  Interestingly, even the language the pieces appeared in is a matter of note.  You see, Eroshenko was a noted Esperantist, and the translator has worked on bringing the stories into English from both Esperanto and Japanese, with doubt at times as to which language the text was originally written in.  The first two sections contain stories from the writer’s time in Japan and China respectively, allegorical modern fairy tales reflecting Eroshenko’s socialist beliefs, with many anthropomorphic representations of animals, trees and flowers.  This fiction is then supplemented by a section of personal prose writing, providing intriguing insights into the writer’s life.

*****
There’s a distinct charm to the stories, due in part to a juxtaposition between the light style and a darker mood.  A good example for this can be found in ‘The Sad Little Fish’, an idyllic tale of animals, fish and insects living in harmony, until one day their respect for humans is shattered by revelations of cruelty.  There’s a striking tone to the conclusion, where the narrator intrudes into the story:

As for myself, I have stopped going to church.  And I do not care to pray to a god who has decreed that all things should serve to nourish and entertain the human race, nor do I believe that such a god even exists.
‘The Sad Little Fish’, p.18 (Columbia University Press, 2023)

The writer leaves the reader in little doubt here whose side he’s on in the case of God versus the animals.

A more farcical, and overtly political, piece is ‘The Death of the Canary’, where a freedom-loving bird escapes from his gilded cage only to fall foul of devious socialist crows and a (literal) capitalist fat cat.  It seems the moral of the tale here is that you should be careful what you wish for (or that youthful exuberance is for the birds…).  Meanwhile, in ‘Two Little Boys’, the writer shows that rich or poor, Death comes for us all, so there’s no point trying to bargain for your life, especially at the expense of others – which doesn’t stop them from trying, of course.

The title piece, one of the longer inclusions, is the story of a tiger in a cage at a zoo who, when he suddenly, and unexpectedly, finds himself at large again, embarks on a mission to spread the message of freedom.  Alas, over a course of adventures, all he finds are different types of walls and cages to keep us from living a free life.

*****
There’s a slight change of pace and tone in the Chinese stories, with perhaps the stand-out being From ‘Tales of a Withered Leaf’, in which we’re introduced to the figure of a majestic, solemn tree:

Now it watches the people dispossessed by their own, dispossessed by another, be they yellow or white; but it speaks not a word; it has nothing to say – wherefore I know not at all.
From ‘Tales of a Withered Leaf’, p.150

The tree keeps its dignified silence, but the leaves are a different story, and in a series of short anecdotes, they do their best to comfort and advise a host of visitors to the tree, including a girl who is to be sold off to pay for her dying brother’s funeral and a woman with bound feet whose lover has gone off to chase a living in the big city.

Another enjoyable story from the China period is ‘The Red Flower’, a thinly veiled story of life under a dictatorship.  As you might expect, the titular red flower (representing freedom) proves to be ever elusive:

“This is a true story,” I began.  “It happened once upon a time.
“Long ago, in a certain kingdom, there lived a King and Queen whose names were Cold and Darkness.  And they had two sons, Tyranny and Violence.  The King’s Prime Minister was a man called Larceny, and his most-trusted adviser was a sorcerer called Poverty.
‘The Red Flower’, p.184

This is just one of a number of vignettes, with the two main characters, the writer and a young student, representing different generations, who must each take their own paths towards the future.

*****
While the stories are enough on their own, the last section proves to be a nice added extra.  There are two short reflective pieces on the writer’s childhood (one describing a family Easter, and the other collecting amusing anecdotes from his time at the blind school), but the pick here is ‘My Expulsion from Japan’.  This is an extended piece describing the writer’s experiences of deportation, from the moment he’s escorted onto the boat taking him away from Japan, through his brief stay in Vladivostok, and on until he reaches the border with ‘Red’ Russia.  It’s all fascinating stuff, and I would have been very happy to read more in that vein.

As you can tell, I really enjoyed The Narrow Cage, a lovely mix of modern fairy tales and non-fiction.  It provides a great introduction to a fascinating figure, one I hope more people get to encounter, and there’s excellent work here by Kuplowsky, too, both for his light touch with the stories, and for the engrossing introduction.  All in all, The Narrow Cage makes for a slightly different take on J-Lit, but it’s nonetheless well worth a look, whether you’re a fan of fairy tales or not 🙂