All Russia's honest men drank like fish

So, where did all this start? Well, it all started when Tikhonov nailed his fourteen propositions to the door of the Yeliseiko village soviet. Or rather, he didn't nail them to the door, he chalked them up on the fence, and they were words, really, not propositions, very clear and succinct, and there weren't fourteen of them, just two. Well, anyway, that's where it all started.

You can see how we might be dealing with an unreliable narrator here. But sincere. He exaggerates, to be sure, but it doesn't matter much in the end, does it? The spirit is true.

I was tempted to dismiss Moscow Stations, by Venedikt Yerofeev, as drunken, if poetic, ramblings, lovely ramblings — one man's journey by train to a Moscow suburb. But amid searching for a drink, tales of past drunken escapades, and cocktail recipes (including the likes of White Lilac toilet water and brake fluid), there's a very sober grappling with Kant, free will vs predetermination, the meaning of life, and the angelic orders. And love and death.

And it's quite funny. (In a Bulgakov kind of way.)

Also, it includes graphs, detailing the productivity of his coworkers as plotted against their alcohol consumption.

"What's that got to do with the Social Democrats and Khovanshchina?"

"Plenty! That's where the whole thing started, when they switched from Veuve Cliquot to rotgut. Middle-class intellectuals, rowdyism, Khovanshchina! All these Uspenskys, all these Pomyalovskys — they couldn't write a line without a drink. I've read them, I know! All Russia's honest men drank like fish, yes. And why did they drink? They drank out of sheer desperation. They drank because they were honest! Because they weren't able to relieve the people's suffering. The people were suffocating in poverty and ignorance, you just read Pisarev! This is what Pisarev says: 'The people can't afford beef, but vodka's cheaper than beef, so the Russian peasant drinks, he drinks out of poverty! And he can't buy books, because there's no Gogol or Belinsky in the market, only vodka — yes, there's plenty of vodka, any sort you like, draught or bottled. And that's why he drinks, he drinks out of ignorance!'

"You see? No wonder they were miserable, no wonder they wrote about the peasants, and tried to save them, and no wonder they started drinking out of sheer desperation. The Social Democrats wrote and drank, they drank while they wrote. But the peasants couldn't read and drink both, they just drank! So Uspensky ups and hangs himself, Pomyalovsky lies down under a bar counter and snuffs it, and Garshin flings himself off a bridge, pig-drunk!"

So it's a book about drinking, but it's also about drinking, in all its political, religious, metaphysical glory.

Clearly this book describes much more than a trip to the suburbs. It's a Dante-esque exploration. The ending devastated me. I'm still reeling.

Truly this is a lost classic.

Yerofeev, or Erofeev or Yerofeyev, wrote this prose poem — variously titled Moscow Stations, Moscow-Petushki, Moscow to the End of the Line, and Moscow Circles — in 1969, but it was not published in the USSR till 20 years later. Yerofeev cut a tragic figure, and little of his work was ever published.

See also: Venedikt Erofeev: The Lost Genius of Soviet Literature

Hiccups are above any kind of law

Of course, to commence our investigation of hiccups, we must first call them forth: either an sich, in the terminology of Immanuel Kant, which means from ourselves, or else from some other person, but for our own purposes, which is für sich, as Kant terms it. Of course, the best of the lot is both an sich and für sich, and here's what you do: drink some sort of strong spirit, say Starka, or Trapper's or Hunter's vodka, for two hours non-stop. Drink it in tumblerfuls, one every half-hour, if possible without any snacks. If you find that difficult, you can allow yourself a bite to eat, but something really unpretentious: bread that's seen better days, sprats, spiced or plain, or sprats in tomato sauce.

Then break off for an hour, don't eat or drink anything, just let your muscles go limp, and don't strain. And before that hour's up, you'll see for yourself: with the very first hiccup, you'll be amazed at the suddenness of the onslaught; then you'll be amazed at the uniqueness of the second hiccup, and the third hiccup, likewise. But if you're not a complete idiot, you'd better stop being amazed and get down to business: write down at what intervals your hiccup deigns to visit you — in seconds, of course:

8 - 13 - 7 - 3 - 18 ...

Naturally you'll try to establish some sort of periodicity here, even very roughly; idiot or not, you'll have a stab at working out some ridiculous formula or other, to predict the length of the next interval. Try, by all means. Feel free. But life will topple all your half-arsed constructions.

17 - 3 - 4 - 17 - 1 - 20 - 3 - 4 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 18 ...

You know, the leaders of the world proletariat, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, are supposed to have made an in-depth study of changes in social structures, and on that basis they were able to predict a whole heap of stuff. But they'd have been completely foxed by this one. Yes, you have entered, in pursuit of a personal whim, the realm of Fate — so bow the knee and be patient. Life will put all your mathematics to shame, both elementary and higher:

13 - 15 - 4 - 12 - 4 - 5 - 28 ...

Now, isn't this the way in which rise and fall, ecstasy and agony, alternate in each individual life — without the merest hint of regularity? Isn't this how catastrophes line up for the human race — in random order? Yes, the law is above us all, and hiccups are above any kind of law. And just as their commencement takes you by surprise, so also will their ending, and ending which, like death, we can neither foretell nor prevent:

22 - 14 stop. And silence.

And in that silence your heart will say to you: they are unfathomable, and we are powerless. We are bereft of free will, at the disposal of a fate which is nameless, and from which there is no salvation.

We are trembling wretches, and they are omnipotent. They are the right hand of God, which is poised above us all, and before which only cretins and scoundrels will not bow their heads. He is inscrutable, and in consequence — He is.

Therefore be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect.

— "Kilometre 33 to Elektrougli," in Moscow Stations, by Venedikt Yerofeev.

(With a nod to Danny Yee, whose post saved me from retyping this entire excerpt.)

This novel, which often reads more like a series of prose poems, is very meditative, and in describing each leg of our intrepid hero's journey, it is highly conducive to reading during one's daily commute.

I'm not quite halfway. I lingered over this chapter, realizing how beautifully it encapsulates the feel of this novel to this point: the drinking and Kant and the crazy. The narrator is just within reach of the sublime, and just misses, both inspired and hindered by drink.

Also, wtf? Hiccups are the embodiment of free will?

In the evenings I'm truly unfathomable

Of course, everybody thinks I'm no good. Actually, when I'm hung over in the mornings I'm of the same opinion. But really, how can you trust the opinion of a person who hasn't yet had a hair of the dog? Now in the evenings — oh, God, what depths I can reveal! — always assuming, of course, I've had a good skinful during the day — in the evenings I'm truly unfathomable.

Well, okay, so I'm no good, so what? In general terms, I'd say a person who feels lousy in the morning, and who's buzzing with ideas in the evening, full of dreams and schemes, is just no good at all. Rotten mornings, and great evenings, are a sure sign of a bad person. But if it's the other way round — if somebody's bright and cheerful first thing, full of hope, and then totally knackered by evening, they're nothing but garbage, narrow-minded mediocrities. Complete shits, in my view. I don't know about you, but I reckon they're shits.

Of course, there are people to whom morning and evening are all the same, sunrise and sunset equally pleasing — people like that are straightforward bastards, it disgusts me even to talk about them. Then again, if somebody feels lousy morning and evening alike, well, I just don't know what to say, that's the last word in scum, a complete dickhead. I mean, the off-licenses stay open till nine at night, and the Yeliseev's open till eleven, for God's sake, and if you're not a scumbag, you can always manage lift-off to somewhere by evening, you can surely reach some sort of shallow depths...

— from Moscow Stations, by Venedikt Yerofeev.

So are you a morning person or an evening person?