What do you think?
Rate this book
Natasha and Other Stories
Last year The New Yorker, Harper's, and Zoetrope introduced America to the Bermans — Bella and Roman and their son, Mark — Russian Jews who have fled the Riga of Brezhnev for Toronto, the city of their dreams.
Already one of the season's most talked-about debuts, Natasha is the chronicle of the Bermans, told in stories full of heart, verve, and consequence. In "Tapka", six-year-old Mark's first experiments in English bring ruin and near tragedy to the neighbors upstairs. In "Roman Berman, Massage Therapist", Roman and Bella stake all their hopes for Roman's business on their first dinner with a North American family. In the title story, a stark, funny anatomy of first love, we witness Mark's sexual awakening at the hands of his fourteen-year-old cousin, a new immigrant from the New Russia. In "Minyan", Mark and his grandfather watch as the death of an Odessan cabdriver sets off a religious controversy among the residents of a Jewish old-people's home.
The stories in Natasha capture the immigrant experience with wit and deep sympathy. Their evocation of boyhood and youth, and the battle for selfhood in a passionately loving Jewish family, recalls the early work of Bernard Malamud, Leonard Michaels, and Philip Roth.
Contents:
- Tapka
- Roman Berman, Massage Therapist
- The Second Strongest Man
- An Animal To The Memory
- Natasha
- Choynski
- Minyan
Already one of the season's most talked-about debuts, Natasha is the chronicle of the Bermans, told in stories full of heart, verve, and consequence. In "Tapka", six-year-old Mark's first experiments in English bring ruin and near tragedy to the neighbors upstairs. In "Roman Berman, Massage Therapist", Roman and Bella stake all their hopes for Roman's business on their first dinner with a North American family. In the title story, a stark, funny anatomy of first love, we witness Mark's sexual awakening at the hands of his fourteen-year-old cousin, a new immigrant from the New Russia. In "Minyan", Mark and his grandfather watch as the death of an Odessan cabdriver sets off a religious controversy among the residents of a Jewish old-people's home.
The stories in Natasha capture the immigrant experience with wit and deep sympathy. Their evocation of boyhood and youth, and the battle for selfhood in a passionately loving Jewish family, recalls the early work of Bernard Malamud, Leonard Michaels, and Philip Roth.
Contents:
- Tapka
- Roman Berman, Massage Therapist
- The Second Strongest Man
- An Animal To The Memory
- Natasha
- Choynski
- Minyan
147 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
About the author
David Bezmozgis
26 books136 followersBorn in Riga, Latvia, Bezmozgis moved to Canada when he was six. He attended McGill University and then received his MFA from USC's School of Cinema-Television. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and Zoetrope. In 2010 he was chosen by The New Yorker as one of the best 20 writers under 40.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 184 reviews
June 5, 2020
Wow! What a way to end my 2017 reading challenge on a complete high.
“What was the point of talking about it? You lived as you lived while you lived. Today he was drinking tea and watching checkers, why ruin a nice afternoon worrying about tomorrow?”
I was on the search to find a collection full of interlinked short stories to read, when I came across this recommendation video talking about Natasha. Suffice to say, I'm beyond thankful.
Told through Mark's eyes, and spanning the last twenty-three years, Natasha brings the Bermans and the Russian-Jewish enclaves of Toronto to life in stories full of big, desperate, utterly believable consequence.
Natasha and Other Stories Everything is at once new and familiar, from the Russian-Jewish references to the nuances put on certain sayings and jokes. For example, Sergei being nicknamed 'Seryozha' is such a tiny detail but captures exactly the kind of things that have slipped my mind with time. I mean, if I ever feel the need to revisit my childhood, I can just open up this book to any story and feel the nostalgia surging in.
These two quotes get what I'm trying to convey: “He was energized by the proximity to his former life.” & “…I watched a scene I recognized as familiar only once I saw it.”
It's such an exhilarating experience to read the first page of a book and come to realize right off the bat that this one is something made especially for you. It’s a rare occurrence nowadays for me, so I’ve learned to cherish the reading experience as I go.
Frankly, I was really in my element with this read, and it was emphasized by combining my favorite aspects from coming-of-age tales to capturing the complexity of Jewish families to including subtle humor. I've never felt as heard and seen as when I read Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmozgis.
My favorite stories include:
• The Second Strongest Man which follows Mark's childhood adoration for Sergei Federenko.
“There wasn’t much I remembered from Riga—isolated episode, little more than vignettes, mental artifacts—but many of these recollections involved Sergei.”
“When Sergei visited I was spastic with a compulsion to please him. I shadowed him around the apartment, I swung from his biceps like a monkey, I did somersaults on the carpet. The only way I could be convinced to go to sleep was if Sergei followed my mother into my bedroom. We developed a routine. Once I was under the covers Sergei said good night by lifting me and my little bed off the floor. He lifted the bed as if it weighed no more than a newspaper or a sandwich. He raised me to his chest and wouldn’t put me back down until I named the world’s strongest man.
—Seryozha, Seryozha Federenko!”
• An Animal to the Memory set around Mark's Hebrew school with the focus being on his misbehaving on Holocaust Remembrance Day. It leads to a particularly fascinating scene between him and his Rabbi that I can't stop spinning around in my head.
“Now, Berman, he said, now maybe you understand what it is to be a Jew.”
• The collection hit a bit of a rough patch for me with the titular story and the following one but thankfully redeemed itself with this final story “Minyan,” set around Mark's grandfather and the familiar old Jewish folks surrounding him in his subsidized apartment complex.
“The change of locale hadn’t done much to improve his social situation. For every reason to leave his apartment he could always find ten to stay where he was.”
I came to cherish more so the tales that delved into backstories and family lineage, rather than the stories that focused on whatever Natasha & Choynski tried to be.
But I think it goes without saying that I'm interested to go look into any and every book the author has to offer.
Note: I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying Natasha and Other Stories, just click on the image below to go through my link. I'll make a small commission!
This review and more can be found on my blog.
“What was the point of talking about it? You lived as you lived while you lived. Today he was drinking tea and watching checkers, why ruin a nice afternoon worrying about tomorrow?”
I was on the search to find a collection full of interlinked short stories to read, when I came across this recommendation video talking about Natasha. Suffice to say, I'm beyond thankful.
Told through Mark's eyes, and spanning the last twenty-three years, Natasha brings the Bermans and the Russian-Jewish enclaves of Toronto to life in stories full of big, desperate, utterly believable consequence.
Natasha and Other Stories Everything is at once new and familiar, from the Russian-Jewish references to the nuances put on certain sayings and jokes. For example, Sergei being nicknamed 'Seryozha' is such a tiny detail but captures exactly the kind of things that have slipped my mind with time. I mean, if I ever feel the need to revisit my childhood, I can just open up this book to any story and feel the nostalgia surging in.
These two quotes get what I'm trying to convey: “He was energized by the proximity to his former life.” & “…I watched a scene I recognized as familiar only once I saw it.”
It's such an exhilarating experience to read the first page of a book and come to realize right off the bat that this one is something made especially for you. It’s a rare occurrence nowadays for me, so I’ve learned to cherish the reading experience as I go.
Frankly, I was really in my element with this read, and it was emphasized by combining my favorite aspects from coming-of-age tales to capturing the complexity of Jewish families to including subtle humor. I've never felt as heard and seen as when I read Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmozgis.
My favorite stories include:
• The Second Strongest Man which follows Mark's childhood adoration for Sergei Federenko.
“There wasn’t much I remembered from Riga—isolated episode, little more than vignettes, mental artifacts—but many of these recollections involved Sergei.”
“When Sergei visited I was spastic with a compulsion to please him. I shadowed him around the apartment, I swung from his biceps like a monkey, I did somersaults on the carpet. The only way I could be convinced to go to sleep was if Sergei followed my mother into my bedroom. We developed a routine. Once I was under the covers Sergei said good night by lifting me and my little bed off the floor. He lifted the bed as if it weighed no more than a newspaper or a sandwich. He raised me to his chest and wouldn’t put me back down until I named the world’s strongest man.
—Seryozha, Seryozha Federenko!”
• An Animal to the Memory set around Mark's Hebrew school with the focus being on his misbehaving on Holocaust Remembrance Day. It leads to a particularly fascinating scene between him and his Rabbi that I can't stop spinning around in my head.
“Now, Berman, he said, now maybe you understand what it is to be a Jew.”
• The collection hit a bit of a rough patch for me with the titular story and the following one but thankfully redeemed itself with this final story “Minyan,” set around Mark's grandfather and the familiar old Jewish folks surrounding him in his subsidized apartment complex.
“The change of locale hadn’t done much to improve his social situation. For every reason to leave his apartment he could always find ten to stay where he was.”
I came to cherish more so the tales that delved into backstories and family lineage, rather than the stories that focused on whatever Natasha & Choynski tried to be.
But I think it goes without saying that I'm interested to go look into any and every book the author has to offer.
Note: I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying Natasha and Other Stories, just click on the image below to go through my link. I'll make a small commission!
This review and more can be found on my blog.
March 10, 2009
I’m too close to David Bezmozgis, in age and geography, to assess his work objectively. We’re from the same town; we hung out in the same malls and got high in the same suburban basements (more or less). We share a particular kind of provincialism and aspire to a particular kind of cosmopolitanism. In his short stories, I glimpse a distorted reflection of myself, and I don’t always like what I see. Who does? So maybe you should chalk up my animus to self-loathing, though again it’s a very particular kind of self-loathing to which Bezmozgis, in his Canadian iteration, no doubt has access.
In any case, my beef isn’t with Bezmozgis so much as with the school of writing he represents. No, ‘school’ isn’t the right word – more like ‘firm’, an international literary firm specializing in genteel, New Yorker-friendly fiction, with branch plants in London, Toronto, Mumbai and elsewhere. It’s a respected manufacturer and puts out a quality product, no question. But I just wonder if the product is still relevant, if it didn’t perhaps fade into obsolescence with an audible squeak some time around 1914. After all, the basic design has hardly changed since it was first introduced over a century ago by the Messieurs de Maupassant and Chekhov. The gentle irony, the blurry realism, the ho-hum epiphany: it’s all the same. It’s the penny-farthing of the fiction trade. Why are our best writers still riding it around?
I’m not advocating relentless avant-gardism for its own sake. I don’t even know what I’m advocating. I’m not smart or presumptuous enough to tell writers what they should be doing or to do it myself. But I mean, Christ, look around: we live in a hugely complex, extremely dangerous world, full of technological wonders, political savagery, horrors of all kinds – and these guys are trying to capture it all in their careful little daguerreotypes.
Well, I haven’t even talked about Natasha directly and I guess I’m not going to now. Forgive the rant. It’s my thing and I just have to learn to deal with it.
In any case, my beef isn’t with Bezmozgis so much as with the school of writing he represents. No, ‘school’ isn’t the right word – more like ‘firm’, an international literary firm specializing in genteel, New Yorker-friendly fiction, with branch plants in London, Toronto, Mumbai and elsewhere. It’s a respected manufacturer and puts out a quality product, no question. But I just wonder if the product is still relevant, if it didn’t perhaps fade into obsolescence with an audible squeak some time around 1914. After all, the basic design has hardly changed since it was first introduced over a century ago by the Messieurs de Maupassant and Chekhov. The gentle irony, the blurry realism, the ho-hum epiphany: it’s all the same. It’s the penny-farthing of the fiction trade. Why are our best writers still riding it around?
I’m not advocating relentless avant-gardism for its own sake. I don’t even know what I’m advocating. I’m not smart or presumptuous enough to tell writers what they should be doing or to do it myself. But I mean, Christ, look around: we live in a hugely complex, extremely dangerous world, full of technological wonders, political savagery, horrors of all kinds – and these guys are trying to capture it all in their careful little daguerreotypes.
Well, I haven’t even talked about Natasha directly and I guess I’m not going to now. Forgive the rant. It’s my thing and I just have to learn to deal with it.
November 25, 2010
A collection of interlinked stories about the immigrant experience of Latvian Jews who come to Toronto in the 80s told from the point of view of the son who is six in the first story and an adult in his twenties in the last. The stories are told with wit and compassion, and are nicely unsentimental. Although they seem to be about the specific Russian Jewish Canadian immigrant experience, they are also universal in many ways in showing general immigrant experience, feelings about the past life in the former country, religious identity, coming of age. All characters are flawed and very human, and each story finishes with a little epiphany that contributes wisdom for the development of the narrator.
Highly recommended, especially if you enjoyed Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Lewycka. Bezmozgis has a flare for really telling details.
Highly recommended, especially if you enjoyed Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Lewycka. Bezmozgis has a flare for really telling details.
December 19, 2019
Earlier this year, I got blissfully lost in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories on the Indian-American experience. I don’t know where to start except by saying that Natasha by David Bezmozgis made me relive the same melancholic and relatable experience through the eyes of my own diasporic community. He covered all the prosaic parts of growing up in the Russophone part of Toronto. I smiled at his use of Soviet-era jokes in the dialogues, the parenting mentality and the million superstitions that our elders come equipped with for every occasion. Of all the stories, I actually found the main story about Natasha the least appealing. I liked the first few stories and the last two the most.
His nuanced depiction of his nuclear and extended family (there’s really no separation between the two in our culture) is familiar on a genetic level. I, too, remember what it’s like to wait by the phone as a whole family when a parent is waiting for an important, job-related call. It was refreshing to see that this family, like my own, didn’t have domestic matters that were concealed from the kids. All grievances were aired and shared at the family table, discussed ad nauseam, and solved collectively. The story about his dying babushka broke me. I actually had to put the book down during the part where he calls to his babushka in Russian, for there isn’t a person that’s revered more or thought of more fondly than one’s babushka.
His nuanced depiction of his nuclear and extended family (there’s really no separation between the two in our culture) is familiar on a genetic level. I, too, remember what it’s like to wait by the phone as a whole family when a parent is waiting for an important, job-related call. It was refreshing to see that this family, like my own, didn’t have domestic matters that were concealed from the kids. All grievances were aired and shared at the family table, discussed ad nauseam, and solved collectively. The story about his dying babushka broke me. I actually had to put the book down during the part where he calls to his babushka in Russian, for there isn’t a person that’s revered more or thought of more fondly than one’s babushka.
June 13, 2018
An easy to read collection of short stories that recounts the world of Jewish immigrants of the Slavic world moving to Canada in the second half of the 20th century. Making sense of their identity, traditions and trying to navigate the incredibly harsh conditions and their own enclosing poverty. All of this recounted through the eyes of a little boy that becomes a teenager as the stories progress (they are presented chronologically).
At a first glance, it may seem that the narrator is making light of things and presents them casually, almost carelessly. But after a while you begin noticing a deep tenderness towards all of the characters, like a distant form of empathy which works even better than the up close and personal kind.
I loved the story about attending a Jewish school and being the troublemaker there until the headmaster gives the boy a lesson on what it means to be Jewish. I loved Natasha, of course. I loved the story of the two men living together in one apartment and the gossip around them. And the dad's history as a trainer of martial arts athletes.
Even though the author is from Latvia and I am from Romania (and with no Jewish ties of my own), I could recognize a decisively Eastern European atmosphere throughout the stories. A freshly just-out-of-communism feel which my own country has gone trough for the past decades (especially in the nineties when I was growing up).
At a first glance, it may seem that the narrator is making light of things and presents them casually, almost carelessly. But after a while you begin noticing a deep tenderness towards all of the characters, like a distant form of empathy which works even better than the up close and personal kind.
I loved the story about attending a Jewish school and being the troublemaker there until the headmaster gives the boy a lesson on what it means to be Jewish. I loved Natasha, of course. I loved the story of the two men living together in one apartment and the gossip around them. And the dad's history as a trainer of martial arts athletes.
Even though the author is from Latvia and I am from Romania (and with no Jewish ties of my own), I could recognize a decisively Eastern European atmosphere throughout the stories. A freshly just-out-of-communism feel which my own country has gone trough for the past decades (especially in the nineties when I was growing up).
January 6, 2015
If you don't want to read the whole book, make sure you read the titular story, Natasha.
February 7, 2018
My friend Tamara handed me this book- and when I opened it I was excited. Russian Jewish immigrant, living in Toronto, going to Hebrew school. There was definitely enough for me to connect with. The book is written as a series of short stories, chronicling Mark's childhood and adolescence. There are some amazing passages that I loved, like when the family gets invited for Shabbat dinner and brings a honey cake- only to realize they are the token Russian Jewish immigrants and are there to tell their sob story. Holocaust memorial day at the Hebrew school took me back to my own days at Hebrew school- the blue toothpaste icing on the cupcakes in a shape of a Star of David-and of course the solemn solemn Holocaust memorial day.
But where I parted ways with the book was in the title story- Natasha. In the story Natasha comes to Canada as a 14 year old Russian immigrant, whose been neglected by her mom and was used for child porn. The portrayal of her, through the eyes of the horny narrator, lacked so much nuance that it was hard to read. I'm still trying to figure out what the author was trying to do. Was he trying to show that Mark was naive and couldn't see past his own desire for sex to the real story behind Natasha, or did he really believe that a young person could be part of a child porn scheme and it be a positive experience for them? Honestly all I know is that by picking a 15 year old basement dweller for the narrator, you need to think carefully about how stories will be framed. Natasha comes off as a flat stereotype but she survives because she is full of determination and resilience even in the face of her abuse by the people around her who held power.
So, I think the writing in the book is good and some of the stories are spot on, but I can't help but be annoyed that he built the story of Natasha off of this fantasy- or even worse reality- but can't be bothered to present it in another way.
But where I parted ways with the book was in the title story- Natasha. In the story Natasha comes to Canada as a 14 year old Russian immigrant, whose been neglected by her mom and was used for child porn. The portrayal of her, through the eyes of the horny narrator, lacked so much nuance that it was hard to read. I'm still trying to figure out what the author was trying to do. Was he trying to show that Mark was naive and couldn't see past his own desire for sex to the real story behind Natasha, or did he really believe that a young person could be part of a child porn scheme and it be a positive experience for them? Honestly all I know is that by picking a 15 year old basement dweller for the narrator, you need to think carefully about how stories will be framed. Natasha comes off as a flat stereotype but she survives because she is full of determination and resilience even in the face of her abuse by the people around her who held power.
So, I think the writing in the book is good and some of the stories are spot on, but I can't help but be annoyed that he built the story of Natasha off of this fantasy- or even worse reality- but can't be bothered to present it in another way.
January 29, 2013
Truly exceptional realist short stories. It's so easy to write bad short stories, even really good short stories that at times ring a bit false, but I felt almost no missteps while reading Natasha. Bezmozgis sympathizes with his characters but doesn't pity them, choosing instead to appreciate the irony of their lives as if he were their friend rather than their author.
September 19, 2020
Absolutely wonderful stories. Interesting and intriguing characters and story lines throughout. These stories certainly had a continual flow to them and it was easy to get to know the characters and follow along with their lives. Highly recommend if you've not read this book.
August 10, 2017
Perhaps I expected too much from this book, given the evocative title and some encouraging reviews.
It's the first I've read by DB and I'm inclined to think I would have appreciated these interlinked short stories much more if he had owned them as memoir. Maybe he didn't because some of these stories are not very believable, and there are a lot of moot points.
For him, the world had neither mission nor meaning, only the possibility of joy.
p140
This is from the last story in the book, and is the only sentence I'm still pondering. The title story was fun in a depressing way.
It's the first I've read by DB and I'm inclined to think I would have appreciated these interlinked short stories much more if he had owned them as memoir. Maybe he didn't because some of these stories are not very believable, and there are a lot of moot points.
For him, the world had neither mission nor meaning, only the possibility of joy.
p140
This is from the last story in the book, and is the only sentence I'm still pondering. The title story was fun in a depressing way.
June 26, 2018
Other than this book of short stories all being about people coming from Latvia to Canada and settling in as 1st and 2nd generation immigrants much of the stories felt very much in the style and way of what has come before. Well written, effective but nothing much really new. Happy to have read but I generally want something that either really grabs me or that has a bit more freshness to it. Wouldnt rule out reading something by the author in the future but wouldnt rush unless the story sounded compelling or the reviews were amazing.
June 17, 2007
Terrific compilation of short stories. Bezmozgis' Lithuanian-Jewish-Canadian immigrant childhood and adolescence rings brilliantly, hilariously true.
I got the opportunity to meet the author a few years ago; real nice guy. Kind of quiet, though. Met his agent, too -- dude had a mohawk, which was kind of weird. I thought that maybe he lost a bet. The agent, not Bezmozgis, whose hair was uninteresting.
I got the opportunity to meet the author a few years ago; real nice guy. Kind of quiet, though. Met his agent, too -- dude had a mohawk, which was kind of weird. I thought that maybe he lost a bet. The agent, not Bezmozgis, whose hair was uninteresting.
October 31, 2020
An enjoyable short collection of stories set in and around Toronto. The titular piece was outstanding. The rest was not so profound, but fine and effective story telling. My homesickness hasn’t quite been sated, but that means I’ll pick up some more work from the author.
August 11, 2022
I’ve tried writing this mf review like four times in a row and I keep swiping down and it gets lost every single goddamn time but I’m here to holler at the world that I love this short story collection with all my dumb heart because it’s close to me, to my childhood, to the boys I’ve known, to all of us unfortunate and fortunate Soviet-Canadian byproducts. Tender, without insulting me with any cheesiness. Savagely sad at times, but always managing to balance with hilarious understatements. Love ❤️ now pls can I be done with this review for the last time!
November 14, 2017
All was going well but honestly he lost me when he described a woman as having "conspicuously long nipples"
Just, why?
Just, why?
October 30, 2011
Roman Berman, his wife and their son emigrate from Latvia to Toronto in 1980 with "no English, no money, no job and only a murky conception of what the future held." In the course of the seven stories that comprise David Bezmozgis' debut collection, Natasha, we'll witness the Bermans slowly, painfully assimilate into North American culture, mainly through the eyes of the son, Mark.
He's six years old in the first story, "Tapka," in which he and a cousin are put in charge of dog-sitting a Russian neighbor's beloved Lhasa Apso. Things do not go well -- the dog runs into traffic -- and the story concludes with a hard, crunchy epiphany (which seems a bit deep for a six-year-old mind): "There is reality and then there is truth."
There's plenty of both in Bezmozgis' fiction, too. So much truth, in fact, that the collection reads like thinly-veiled autobiography. Like Mark, Bezmozgis was born in Latvia and moved to Toronto when he was six. He writes with authority about dislocation and assimilation.
In "The Second Strongest Man," we watch patriarch Roman, "a struggling massage therapist and schlepper of chocolate bars," get a temporary job as a judge for an international weightlifting championship. Two of the competitors are old friends, but when he goes to meet them at their hotel, he bumps into a KGB agent, also an old acquaintance, who is there to make sure the athletes get back on the plane to Russia. The scene is nicely balanced between tension and compassion:
The agent was surprised to see my father -- Roman Abramovich, you're here? I didn't see you on the plane.
My father explained that he hadn't taken the plane. He lived here now. A sweep of my father's arm defined "here" broadly. The sweep included me. My jacket, sneakers, and Levi's were evidence. Roman Abramovich and his kid lived here. The KGB agent took an appreciative glance at me. He nodded his head.
-- You're living well?
-- I can't complain.
-- It's a beautiful country. Clean cities. Big forests. Nice cars. I also hear you have good dentists.
Bezmozgis subtly captures the joy, frustration and fear of what it was like to be a Soviet refusenik in the 1980s.
The linked stories follow Mark into adulthood, but the best of the bunch is the titular story which finds the boy at the crossroads of his hormone-fueled teenage years. In "Natasha," 16-year-old Mark lives in the basement where he smokes hash, watches television, reads and masturbates. When his 14-year-old cousin Natasha arrives and he's given the job of keeping her occupied during the summer, he's surprised to find the tables turned on him when she casually removes her clothes and plops down in his beanbag chair.
She turned to me and said, very simply, as if it were as insignificant to her as it was significant to me: Do you want to? At sixteen, no expert but no virgin, I lived in a permanent state of want to.
With the experienced Natasha ("I've done it a hundred times") as his teacher, Mark soon learns that sex "could be as perfunctory as brushing your teeth." The story culminates with a string of sentences that tie the preceding 10,000 words together with something akin to a symphonic timpani-roll/cymbal-crash. After Natasha turns the tables on him yet again, a devastated but determined Mark returns to his house:
I saw my future clearly. I had it all planned out. And yet, standing in our backyard, drawn by a strange impulse, I crouched and peered through the window into my basement. I had never seen it from this perspective. I saw what Natasha must have seen every time she came to the house. In the full light of summer, I looked into darkness. It was the end of my subterranean life.
It's moments like this which lift Natasha and Other Stories beyond the ordinary and into the realm of heart-stopping art. Bezmozgis times his delivery with the precision of a watchmaker.
On the whole, there's nothing flashy about the stories; the sentences move forward with steady, unadorned purpose and the full effect of Bezmozgis' talent doesn't sink in until hours after you've stopped reading. Yet, there's something compelling and earnest that lies invisible at the heart of this family portrait. It's the faith that helps us overcome hardship and gives us hope that we can ascend from the dark basement of our lives.
He's six years old in the first story, "Tapka," in which he and a cousin are put in charge of dog-sitting a Russian neighbor's beloved Lhasa Apso. Things do not go well -- the dog runs into traffic -- and the story concludes with a hard, crunchy epiphany (which seems a bit deep for a six-year-old mind): "There is reality and then there is truth."
There's plenty of both in Bezmozgis' fiction, too. So much truth, in fact, that the collection reads like thinly-veiled autobiography. Like Mark, Bezmozgis was born in Latvia and moved to Toronto when he was six. He writes with authority about dislocation and assimilation.
In "The Second Strongest Man," we watch patriarch Roman, "a struggling massage therapist and schlepper of chocolate bars," get a temporary job as a judge for an international weightlifting championship. Two of the competitors are old friends, but when he goes to meet them at their hotel, he bumps into a KGB agent, also an old acquaintance, who is there to make sure the athletes get back on the plane to Russia. The scene is nicely balanced between tension and compassion:
The agent was surprised to see my father -- Roman Abramovich, you're here? I didn't see you on the plane.
My father explained that he hadn't taken the plane. He lived here now. A sweep of my father's arm defined "here" broadly. The sweep included me. My jacket, sneakers, and Levi's were evidence. Roman Abramovich and his kid lived here. The KGB agent took an appreciative glance at me. He nodded his head.
-- You're living well?
-- I can't complain.
-- It's a beautiful country. Clean cities. Big forests. Nice cars. I also hear you have good dentists.
Bezmozgis subtly captures the joy, frustration and fear of what it was like to be a Soviet refusenik in the 1980s.
The linked stories follow Mark into adulthood, but the best of the bunch is the titular story which finds the boy at the crossroads of his hormone-fueled teenage years. In "Natasha," 16-year-old Mark lives in the basement where he smokes hash, watches television, reads and masturbates. When his 14-year-old cousin Natasha arrives and he's given the job of keeping her occupied during the summer, he's surprised to find the tables turned on him when she casually removes her clothes and plops down in his beanbag chair.
She turned to me and said, very simply, as if it were as insignificant to her as it was significant to me: Do you want to? At sixteen, no expert but no virgin, I lived in a permanent state of want to.
With the experienced Natasha ("I've done it a hundred times") as his teacher, Mark soon learns that sex "could be as perfunctory as brushing your teeth." The story culminates with a string of sentences that tie the preceding 10,000 words together with something akin to a symphonic timpani-roll/cymbal-crash. After Natasha turns the tables on him yet again, a devastated but determined Mark returns to his house:
I saw my future clearly. I had it all planned out. And yet, standing in our backyard, drawn by a strange impulse, I crouched and peered through the window into my basement. I had never seen it from this perspective. I saw what Natasha must have seen every time she came to the house. In the full light of summer, I looked into darkness. It was the end of my subterranean life.
It's moments like this which lift Natasha and Other Stories beyond the ordinary and into the realm of heart-stopping art. Bezmozgis times his delivery with the precision of a watchmaker.
On the whole, there's nothing flashy about the stories; the sentences move forward with steady, unadorned purpose and the full effect of Bezmozgis' talent doesn't sink in until hours after you've stopped reading. Yet, there's something compelling and earnest that lies invisible at the heart of this family portrait. It's the faith that helps us overcome hardship and gives us hope that we can ascend from the dark basement of our lives.
April 7, 2015
במשך שנים היוו ארה"ב וקנדה יעד לגיטימי להגירת יהודים מברית המועצות. חלק מהיהודים שברחו מתנאי החיים הלא נוחים, הגיעו לישראל ומיד עלו על המטוס הבא לקנדה.
המהגרים/ עולים (תלוי בזווית הראיה) יצרו בדמיונם את החיים העתידיים שלהם: הם דמיינו כיצד במדינה החדשה הם הופכים לאזרחים מהשורה, ממשים את החופש מהמשטר ומעינו של האח הגדול, מרוויחים כסף וחיים בנוחות.
אבל המציאות טפחה על פניהם. קשיי הקליטה מתחילים בדברים אלמנטריים כמו השפה. העדר יכולת לתקשר עם הסביבה והמאמץ המתמיד והמתסכל ללמוד ולהדביק את הפער. אני משערת שהם מרגישים כמו תינוק, בשלבי למידת השפה. הוא יודע מה הוא רוצה להגיד אבל לא מסוגל.
הקשיים מחמירים כאשר החופש מתגלה כחרב פיפיות שננעצת בהם לעומק בדמות עוני ותנאי חיים עלובים. המאמץ להצליח בארץ שבה כללי המשחק שונים ולא מוכרים שוחק אותם וגובה מהם מחיר כבד.
או כמו שהמספר אומר ברוסיה לפחות ידענו את מי לשחד.
ההכרה באי יכולתם להיות חלק אורגני של החברה שקלטה אותם מוביל אותם לנסות למצוא פתרונות בתוכם. הסממן הכי בולט לכך הוא העובדה שבמקום שהדוד יתחתן עם אישה ילידת המקום הוא מייבא לעצמו אישה גרושה מרוסיה המלווה בבתה נטשה.
הם משתבללים בעצמם והסביבה שבה הם גרים עוזרת להם להישאר חלק נפרד מהחברה. הם כולם גרים באותו איזור, וגם אם הם עלו במסגרת של המשפחה הגרעינית ללא חברים, הם מהר מאוד מוצאים חברים שעלו גם הם וחיים בקרבתם.
מחקר שנערך בארה"ב בשנת 2002 מצביע על אותן התופעות שהספר מתאר ומייחס למעשה לשנות ה- 90 המוקדמות.
הספר מתאר בסיפורים קצרים את קורותיה של משפחת מהגרים יהודית שבחרה להגר לקנדה. התיאורים נמסרים מפי הילד אותו אנו מלווים מגיל 6 ועד בערך גיל 20. הזרות והניכור, הקשיים להיטמע בחברה, נמסרים בצורה אגבית. ממש לא יללנית.
הקושי הכפול, להיטמע נובע מהיותם גם יהודיים ולא רק רוסיים.
הפער שבין החלומות למציאות הקשה שמנסה לשבור אותם ומכה בהם פעם אחר פעם. הכל בתיאורים מינוריים, לא לגמרי מטלטלים, אך יחד עם זאת מציירים תמונת מציאות קשה.
אני ממליצה בחום. הספר משום מה לא זכה לחשיפה ההולמת והגעתי אליו במקרה כאשר ביקרתי בחנות ספרי יד שניה. הסיפורים כתובים טוב והם יכולים בקלות ללמד גם אותנו משהו כחברה קולטת.
המהגרים/ עולים (תלוי בזווית הראיה) יצרו בדמיונם את החיים העתידיים שלהם: הם דמיינו כיצד במדינה החדשה הם הופכים לאזרחים מהשורה, ממשים את החופש מהמשטר ומעינו של האח הגדול, מרוויחים כסף וחיים בנוחות.
אבל המציאות טפחה על פניהם. קשיי הקליטה מתחילים בדברים אלמנטריים כמו השפה. העדר יכולת לתקשר עם הסביבה והמאמץ המתמיד והמתסכל ללמוד ולהדביק את הפער. אני משערת שהם מרגישים כמו תינוק, בשלבי למידת השפה. הוא יודע מה הוא רוצה להגיד אבל לא מסוגל.
הקשיים מחמירים כאשר החופש מתגלה כחרב פיפיות שננעצת בהם לעומק בדמות עוני ותנאי חיים עלובים. המאמץ להצליח בארץ שבה כללי המשחק שונים ולא מוכרים שוחק אותם וגובה מהם מחיר כבד.
או כמו שהמספר אומר ברוסיה לפחות ידענו את מי לשחד.
ההכרה באי יכולתם להיות חלק אורגני של החברה שקלטה אותם מוביל אותם לנסות למצוא פתרונות בתוכם. הסממן הכי בולט לכך הוא העובדה שבמקום שהדוד יתחתן עם אישה ילידת המקום הוא מייבא לעצמו אישה גרושה מרוסיה המלווה בבתה נטשה.
הם משתבללים בעצמם והסביבה שבה הם גרים עוזרת להם להישאר חלק נפרד מהחברה. הם כולם גרים באותו איזור, וגם אם הם עלו במסגרת של המשפחה הגרעינית ללא חברים, הם מהר מאוד מוצאים חברים שעלו גם הם וחיים בקרבתם.
מחקר שנערך בארה"ב בשנת 2002 מצביע על אותן התופעות שהספר מתאר ומייחס למעשה לשנות ה- 90 המוקדמות.
הספר מתאר בסיפורים קצרים את קורותיה של משפחת מהגרים יהודית שבחרה להגר לקנדה. התיאורים נמסרים מפי הילד אותו אנו מלווים מגיל 6 ועד בערך גיל 20. הזרות והניכור, הקשיים להיטמע בחברה, נמסרים בצורה אגבית. ממש לא יללנית.
הקושי הכפול, להיטמע נובע מהיותם גם יהודיים ולא רק רוסיים.
הפער שבין החלומות למציאות הקשה שמנסה לשבור אותם ומכה בהם פעם אחר פעם. הכל בתיאורים מינוריים, לא לגמרי מטלטלים, אך יחד עם זאת מציירים תמונת מציאות קשה.
אני ממליצה בחום. הספר משום מה לא זכה לחשיפה ההולמת והגעתי אליו במקרה כאשר ביקרתי בחנות ספרי יד שניה. הסיפורים כתובים טוב והם יכולים בקלות ללמד גם אותנו משהו כחברה קולטת.
April 27, 2007
Three stars for the collection overall, but four or even five for a few of the stories within it. I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for his work in the future. (There's a story of his online that's not in the collection here: [http://www.all-story.com/issues.cgi?a...]. Recommended.)
January 29, 2008
I feel like I shouldn't have to write a review about the books that I'm required to read for work. So I won't. But basically its a bunch of short stories that are told by the character Mark, and his family's assimilation from Latvia (however u spell it) to Toronto. There were actually some pretty good stories.
February 23, 2008
It has been a while since reading a collection of short stories - and this was a wonderful reintroduction. I was left feeling upset in the first story and almost stopped me from continuing. My decision to persist (clearly I am closer to my dumb Bichon then I think) was rewarded with some beautiful stories.
January 1, 2009
It doesn't get any better than this. Everything about this book is great - subject matter, plotlines, execution, language. It's only a very slim volume, but each story is a gem, to be slowly savored. i completely agree with this London Review of Books critic: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n24/wood02_....
October 20, 2014
A delightful look at the Eastern Euro/immigrants experience to Canada in the 1980s...which takes a surprisingly darker turn in the final two stories of this collection. At first, this turn feels like whiplash...but the after-taste is quite powerful, and says much about who we are versus who we might have been. This is best summed up as "much more than the sum of its parts".
Read
July 10, 2021Dobre su priče, ali nekako prezasićene, autor sve lepo i dočara i prokomentariše, ali nema nejasnih, začudnih, dvosmislenih mesta ni prostora za dijalog s pričom, već je saznajemo iz perspektive pripovedača i to je to.
July 19, 2015
Definitely a thin volume but the stories are so rich - thick with a specific atmosphere. I read a novel by Bezmozgis and liked it but these - I loved.
February 13, 2023
3.5 rounded up.
November 12, 2018
For me, this collection of stories is basically perfect. A Jewish family flees the old Soviet Union in 1979 and comes to Toronto Canada. All the stories are told through the young son's eyes, and he is funny, intelligent, empathetic, and tough (that comes later). You need to be tough in a new country and new society.
I could feel the world these stories live in, the tales by adults of their known history in Russia, under communism, the atrocities of WWII, the suffering of Russians, Russian Jews and how to adapt in a new country.
Natasha was listed for many prizes when it was published and won the Best First Book commonwealth prize. The New York Times Book Review says, "A generous, witty account of boyhood...rich with reverberating pathos and a sensualists delight in language...impressive."
Here is a sample:
"Five years before we left Latvia my father operated a very successful side venture out of the gym at Riga Dynamo. At that time he was one of the head administrators at Dynamo and was responsible for paper shuffling and budget manipulation. Before that he had been a very good varsity athlete and an accomplished coach of the VEF radio factory's soccer team. For a Jew, he was well liked by his superiors, and so they turned a blind eye when he and Gregory Ziskin - a fellow administrator and Jew - started their bodybuilding program in the evenings. At best, the directors hoped that the class would lead to the discovery of a new lifter; at worst, it meant they would get a piece of the action."
I could feel the world these stories live in, the tales by adults of their known history in Russia, under communism, the atrocities of WWII, the suffering of Russians, Russian Jews and how to adapt in a new country.
Natasha was listed for many prizes when it was published and won the Best First Book commonwealth prize. The New York Times Book Review says, "A generous, witty account of boyhood...rich with reverberating pathos and a sensualists delight in language...impressive."
Here is a sample:
"Five years before we left Latvia my father operated a very successful side venture out of the gym at Riga Dynamo. At that time he was one of the head administrators at Dynamo and was responsible for paper shuffling and budget manipulation. Before that he had been a very good varsity athlete and an accomplished coach of the VEF radio factory's soccer team. For a Jew, he was well liked by his superiors, and so they turned a blind eye when he and Gregory Ziskin - a fellow administrator and Jew - started their bodybuilding program in the evenings. At best, the directors hoped that the class would lead to the discovery of a new lifter; at worst, it meant they would get a piece of the action."
July 9, 2021
Natasha and Other Stories is an anthology of seven short stories written by David Bezmozgis. These interconnected short stories chronologically trace the experiences of a family of Russian Jews living in Toronto.
For the most part, this collection of short stories was written rather well. Natasha and Other Stories is a collection of linked stories about the Bermans – a Jewish family from Latvia adapting to their new life as immigrants to Canada. The central character is Mark Berman, who is a young child when the family first arrives in Canada.
Bezmozgis writes with subtlety and control, moving from Mark's boyhood arrival in Canada to his adult reckoning with his grandparents' decline, rendering the immigrant experience with powerful specificity of character, place and history.
Like most anthologies there are weaker contributions and Natasha and Other Stories is not an exception. Comparatively speaking, there were a couple of entries are weaker than others or which did not connect to me well. The collection's strength lies in how Bezmozgis layers the specifics of Russian-Jewish experience with universal childhood and adolescent dilemmas, which ends up creating complex and evocative stories.
All in all, Natasha and Other Stories is a wonderful collection that explores the immigrant experience from one Jewish family.
For the most part, this collection of short stories was written rather well. Natasha and Other Stories is a collection of linked stories about the Bermans – a Jewish family from Latvia adapting to their new life as immigrants to Canada. The central character is Mark Berman, who is a young child when the family first arrives in Canada.
Bezmozgis writes with subtlety and control, moving from Mark's boyhood arrival in Canada to his adult reckoning with his grandparents' decline, rendering the immigrant experience with powerful specificity of character, place and history.
Like most anthologies there are weaker contributions and Natasha and Other Stories is not an exception. Comparatively speaking, there were a couple of entries are weaker than others or which did not connect to me well. The collection's strength lies in how Bezmozgis layers the specifics of Russian-Jewish experience with universal childhood and adolescent dilemmas, which ends up creating complex and evocative stories.
All in all, Natasha and Other Stories is a wonderful collection that explores the immigrant experience from one Jewish family.
February 15, 2019
Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmozgis is a collection of linked stories about the Bermans, an immigrant Jewish Latvian family adapting to life in Canada in the 1980s. The title story was adapted for the 2015 film Natasha. I can see why that story would have found a ready American market, but I think the other stories really get to the substance of modern life, as it is affected by history – a nation’s and a family’s. Of course the holocaust is there, how could it not be, just forty years on. While I never thought I would find a writer to equal the range of Shalom Auslander in writing about a trauma, who, in his novel Hope, wrote with composure and humour about an American family who finds an old Anne Frank living in their attic, Bezmozgis is right there at Auslander’s side. He comes at the ghost of the holocaust from within, from relationships so sensitively wrought you’ll want to hold the characters so tenderly to you, and honour them by never forgetting their stories. Worthy of particular mention are the opening short story, Tapka, and the closing story, Minyan. It's a short book, it's a read you'll want followed by a bowl of chicken soup.
October 12, 2024
I first encountered and read this book in 2008 or so, but it's one I've held on to because the world of the stories--Russian immigrants living in a fairly bare / barren area of Toronto--has remained with me so vividly.
The stories are plain-spoken, patient, and their power accrues quietly and without the feeling that the author is laboring to induce an emotional response in a reader. The mood of these stories and the world he writes about is very memorable. Here's a passage that I like, and is maybe sort of representative:
"It was April when we began to care for Tapka. Snow melted in the ravine; sometimes it rained. April became May. Grass absorbed the thaw, turned green; dandelions and wildflowers sprouted yellow and blue; birds and insects flew, crawled, and made their characteristic noises. Faithfully and reliably, Jana and I attended to Tapka. We walked her across the parking lot and down into the ravine. We threw Clonchik and said 'Tapka get Clonchik.' Tapka always got Clonchik. Everyone was proud of us."
The stories are plain-spoken, patient, and their power accrues quietly and without the feeling that the author is laboring to induce an emotional response in a reader. The mood of these stories and the world he writes about is very memorable. Here's a passage that I like, and is maybe sort of representative:
"It was April when we began to care for Tapka. Snow melted in the ravine; sometimes it rained. April became May. Grass absorbed the thaw, turned green; dandelions and wildflowers sprouted yellow and blue; birds and insects flew, crawled, and made their characteristic noises. Faithfully and reliably, Jana and I attended to Tapka. We walked her across the parking lot and down into the ravine. We threw Clonchik and said 'Tapka get Clonchik.' Tapka always got Clonchik. Everyone was proud of us."
September 20, 2019
Natasha
Possibly semi-autobiographical stories about a Latvian Jewish family that moves to Toronto in 1980, told by Mark, six years old at the beginning of the series of stories and in his twenties at the end. Each story tells a small, bitter, detailed slice of these Eastern European immigrants’ experiences.
My favourites are
Roman Berman, Massage Therapist
An Animal To The Memory
and
Minyan.
I wondered about the ending of Choynsky, when Mark discovers that his grandmother has been buried without her dentures and decided to bury them in the snow in her grave. He went to a Jewish day school, and grew up in the Jewish community, so wouldn’t he have known that nothing artificial could be buried with her? Maybe this was the first funeral he’d attended, but it seemd strange.
Possibly semi-autobiographical stories about a Latvian Jewish family that moves to Toronto in 1980, told by Mark, six years old at the beginning of the series of stories and in his twenties at the end. Each story tells a small, bitter, detailed slice of these Eastern European immigrants’ experiences.
My favourites are
Roman Berman, Massage Therapist
An Animal To The Memory
and
Minyan.
I wondered about the ending of Choynsky, when Mark discovers that his grandmother has been buried without her dentures and decided to bury them in the snow in her grave. He went to a Jewish day school, and grew up in the Jewish community, so wouldn’t he have known that nothing artificial could be buried with her? Maybe this was the first funeral he’d attended, but it seemd strange.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 184 reviews