Book Review: "Rock, Paper, Scissors" by Maxim Osipov

As you can probably tell, I've found somewhere to buy New York Review of Books Classics for cheap and though they are, yes, used books, they are still readable so I don't care. Rock, Paper, Scissors to my understanding was written by a doctor and he is, to this day, considered a great writer in modern Russian literature. Drawing on his experiences regarding medicine and illness, he writes in the style described on the back of the book as being that of William Carlos Williams, or even Anton Chekhov. College stories, political landscapes and deep and philosophical character portraits are part of this anthology. It has been wonderous to read something so 'out there' that I wouldn't have picked up unless it was going cheaply on the internet.

One of the stories within the anthology that I very much enjoyed was titled Moscow-Petrozavodsk which deals with a doctor attending a conference, he has to travel by train to get there. He's not looking forward to the fourteen-hour train journey and has a loathing for anyone who wishes to disturb him on the way. He sits down in a carriage (there is no first class) and wants to be left alone for the whole journey when a couple - a man named Tolya and a woman sit down opposite him. He is immediately overcome with hatred for the both of them, especially given the fact that Tolya is drunk. Tolya starts experiencing alcoholic delirium and begins to shake and tremble. The next day, when the doctor is at his destination, he is shown a newspaper in which he sees Tolya's face as the face of one who has committed murder. He had been sitting opposite murderers and he didn't even know it. There is then a short side-story about how his Jewish father his amongst the Germans during the war and we are led to believe that there is something far stranger about not recognising the ordinary person for what they are. But then again, there is some safety in not doing it too. It is a brilliant story. Simply brilliant.

Another story that seems to perfectly encapsulate the themes of the whole anthology is called Polish Friend in which we see a woman's life through the violin. First, the story opens with her touching down in an airport and having to explain (though her English speaking is not very good) that she is here to see a friend of hers. Through various snapshots, we take a look at her life, including that she started playing the violin very young. We look at a photograph and the author seems to break the fourth wall, taking side notes to talk to us as the reader and then getting back to the story. As we move through the narrative, we see themes of passing on knowledge and where that knowledge will be in the future. Certain characters of the past are seen as not caring about computers if they were alive today, there is a question of whether there will be sheet music in the future or not, there's a question of what classical playing will be like if anything. This anxiety is one of the reasons we are so heavily involved with the way the learning of this instrument is picked up in the story, our main character commits to it and commits to teaching it. Even though we know minimal details about very much else in her life, we know about this. A violin that encapsulates the past, the present and the future all in one. Therefore, the joke at the beginning of the story finally makes sense.

Other stories including The Mill and of course, the title story Rock, Paper, Scissors are also part of this psychological drama, this almost black comedy atmosphere. Gypsy has to be another one of my favourites if I had to choose - about a Gypsy woman with an enlarged heart who gets checked over by a doctor. It's all very strange. The stories are often coated in subtle meanings about the way we treat others, the way we covet things, the way we form our personalities over the years. It is an incredible set of short stories if you can pick it up.