The Tool & the Butterflies

by Dmitry Lipskerov, Reilly Costigan-Humes (Translator), Isaac Wheeler (Translator)

Overview

Dmitry Lipskerov, an award-winning Russian writer compared throughout his career to Mikhail Bulgakov and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, focuses his unbridled imagination on the story of wealthy, satisfied Mr. Iratov, whose virile world is flipped upside-down. Taking a page from Gogol’s satirical story “The Nose,” wherein the protagonist loses his aforementioned facial feature, Lipskerov's novel transposes such a loss onto a more delicate organ. The protagonist awakens one morning bereft of his tool; and the tool, which re-appears, sentient and in a small village far away, without his man. Thus begins a novel both funny and absurd, in which characters come together across disparate social strata and with differing goals to weave the fate of a universe familiar yet fantastical, a perfect satire of the madness of Russian society today. The Tool and the Butterflies, Lipskerov's eagerly anticipated English language debut, is not just a darkly comedic exploration of post-Soviet attitudes towards gender and sexuality, but also a historically and socially grounded narrative rich in naturalistic dialogue and everyday detail, and an engaging story of family and what matters most in life, in the grandest tradition of Russian literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646050406
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	01/12/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	969 KB

About the Author

Compared to Kafka, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, and more, Lipskerov is nonetheless a writer whose works defy format and genre. His novels have been met with immense success due to their vivid, intense portrayal of Russia through both fabulism and realism. He was the winner of the Moscow Komsomol Prize and shortlisted for the Russian Booker Award, and a cofounder of the Debut prize for works of fiction by young Russian writers as well as the Neformat prize. In addition to his literary success, Lipskerov is owner of a renowned sushi restaurant in Moscow.

Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler are a team of literary translators who met as undergraduates at Haverford College, where they studied Russian language and literature. They are the co-translators of Voroshilovrad by Serhiy Zhadan (Deep Vellum, 2016). Their translations from Russian and Ukrainian have been published in Coldnoon, The Missing Slate, Trafika Europe, and Two Lines. They are also the recipients of the translated book of the year prize from the American Association for Ukrainian Studies.

Editorial Reviews

"Lipskerov paints a portrait of a country in disarray but does it in humorous way. It is this continuous view of a country that seems to be falling apart, only exacerbated by the genitalia loss, as well as the very clever and complex plot, that make this such an enjoyable read." ––The Modern Novel

"Magic, humor, suspense, these are the ingredients of this demonic bouillabaisse that Dmitri Lipskerov has concocted according to the best recipes of magical realism." – Le Courrier de Russie

"An enthralling mix of post-Soviet reality, magical realism and surrealism makes reading this novel an experience like meandering through the Minotaur’s labyrinth, but instead of one monster, there are many, lurking around every corner. The elusive characters in this novel find themselves in totally absurd situations that never quite fall perfectly into context but also contribute to the development of the broader storyline." ––sub-cult.ru

"Dmitry Lipskerov’s novel is rich with literary allusions, furnished with a bold plot, topical and philosophical in equal measure – in a word, the novel has everything necessary to become a smart bestseller. Lipskerov is a writer with a rampant imagination. His protagonist gets into a sticky and totally Gogolesque, or rather, Kafkaesque situation." ––delfi.lv

"The author succeeds in drawing readers into a whirlpool of modernized mishaps straight out of Hoffmann and Gogol. Doppelgangers are a recurring theme. There is an angelic maiden. There is a good portion of moralité. And last but not least there are the cutlets in an elite gourmet deli that have sat out just a little too long, an homage to Bulgakov." ––Kultura

"Lipskerov is one of those writers who are artists rather than thinkers. His novels are often cited and retold but they cannot be fully comprehended. Just like one cannot explain the abstract expressionism of Pollok or Petrov-Vodkin’s still lives. A pure joy for readers." ––readrate.com

"The author’s snappy language lets the reader’s imagination run wild. Not for nothing was this novel called the most shocking of the year." ––neva-events.ru

"A soap opera with a Gogolesque beginning and a Biblical finale." ––gorky.media

“Sex, vodka, misogyny, Russia of the past and present gives us a cheeky, absurd novel… This is creative satire at its best, while looking for a missing “tool”, which defines a man, is the star of his tale, he may instead set some butterflies free…” - Lolly K. Dandeneau

From the Publisher

2020-11-18
A wealthy Russian man loses his “tool.”

One day in 21st-century Moscow, Arseny Iratov, a wealthy and archmasculine architect, wakes up to find that his tool, aka his “member,” aka “the primary organ of the male body,” “was nowhere to be found.” Alarming as it would be on its own, this development is complicated by two facts: First, that Vera, Iratov’s beloved, has suddenly begun to yearn for motherhood; and second that, in Gogol’s grand tradition, Iratov’s member (now named Eugene) is at large in the world in the form of a beautiful young man set on seducing Vera. Had Lipskerov moved no wider with his story, the result might have been a cutting satire of the state of wealth and masculinity in post-Soviet Russia. But, alas, Lipskerov has grander plans. Rather than focusing on the Iratov-Vera-Eugene love triangle and/or the often fascinating depictions of Iratov’s Soviet-era dealings in the Russian black market, Lipskerov widens the phenomenon. Iratov’s doctor, too, loses his member, as do millions (then billions) of men the world over. (Though, strangely, only Eugene appears as an autonomous entity, which reduces his existence to a quasi-pointless Gogol reference.) Much of the story is related, meanwhile, by a nameless nonhuman narrator (he’s hundreds of years old and can regenerate wounds in his sleep) who is quite interested in the lives of Iratov’s illegitimate descendants (sired during his raucous Soviet-era youth), on whom the future of humanity may rest. Lipskerov’s novel—his first to be translated into English—suffers for its cosmic ambitions, sacrificing human characters and plots in favor of slapstick humor and a pan-historical narrative scope. Fans of Bulgakov and Gogol will find some chuckles while American readers may grimace at the racial insensitivities demonstrated by some characters and the degradingly sexualized caste of women. But in his descriptions of “firing-squad offense[s]” and communal apartments, Lipskerov does give us some powerful glimpses of a world that, though contemporaneous to our own, was forged from a different metal.

A scattered satire of contemporary Russia.

Kirkus Reviews