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BOOK: The Commissariat of Enlightenment

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About the Author

KEN KALFUS
was born in New York and has lived in Paris, Dublin, Belgrade, and Moscow. He is the author of the short story collections
Thirst
and
Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies
, both of which were
New York Times
Notable Books. A finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and a winner of the
Salon
Book Award and the Pushcart Prize, he has written for
Harper’s, Bomb, The North American Review
, and
The Voice Literary Supplement.
He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and daughter. His e-mail address is [email protected].

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Praise
for
THE COMMISSARIAT OF
ENLIGHTENMENT

“Glitteringly original…. An intricate, harrowing, and yes,
dangerous
first novel that sets out to capture the dawn of the 20th century in Bolshevik Russia.”

—Esquire

“What should surprise us, unless we already knew that Kalfus lived for a while in Russia…is how wonderfully steeped his novel is in the great literature that made it imaginable. Here some Bely, there some Bulgakov, and, in the attic or a cellar, Babel with his boots and whip.”

—Harper’s

“Unforgettable…. The narrative unfolds with Kalfus’s signature mix of carefully researched history, subtle social commentary, and leaping, imaginative storytelling…. Told in supple, witty and gritty prose, the story exhibits all the vigorous intelligence and vision readers have come to expect from Kalfus.”

—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Stunning…Astapov’s distortions are the perfect metaphor for Kalfus’s own special effects. Preoccupied with truth, media, history, and politics, this novel shows its mechanisms proudly.”

—The New Yorker

“Inventive, unusual, humorous…deeply intelligent,
The Commissariat of Enlightenment
beautifully illuminates the hazardous powers of image, icon, and relic.”

—Andrea Barrett

“An inventive first novel briskly reimagines 20th century Russian history…. A brilliant fusion of satire, science fiction, and political commentary. Gogol is probably tearing his hair out, wishing
he’d
dreamed this up.”

—Kirkus
(starred review)

“In Kalfus’s skillful hands, Tolstoy’s death is the perfect metaphor for the death of the written word in the twentieth century and the ascendance of the image…. While this is a novel of long ago, its themes have never been more pertinent and the story is first-rate.”

—Booklist

“Kalfus, a writer of chameleonic fluency, adopts a worldly, seasoned tone throughout. It’s a sometimes eerie mimicry of the voice of classic Russian novels, weary cultivation shot through with hectic flashes of doomy exuberance.”

—Salon

“Exciting…. Kalfus’ prose is sharp and sure-footed throughout, displaying the skill he honed in his short stories. The dawn of the motion picture makes a nice hook for an exploration of iconography, celebrity and propaganda, and the way each affects the others.”

—Toronto Star

“Mr. Kalfus understands well the relationships between religious iconography and mass culture, between totalitarian art and the manufacture of historical events, and between celebrity and political power…. [He is] that rare abstract writer whose narrative embodies, rather than adorns, his ideas.”

—New York Sun

“Kalfus’s book is absorbing, intelligent, witty and wry…. A fable that tells the story of the 20th century.”

—The Times
(London)

“Ken Kalfus is an ironist in the best late-modern Central European style: wry, humane, precise, and beautifully smitten with ideas.”

—Jonathan Franzen

“A boisterous fable about media, mythmaking and mortality—and iconography, propaganda and politics—in early 20th-century Russia…. Exhilarating…. A rich, resonant novel. It’s hilarious and horrifying, too.”

—Camden Courier-Post

“An ambitious, often sublime novel about the emergence of modernity and transformation of the modern imagination,
The Commissariat
of Enlightenment
is an enthralling exegesis on the corrupted promise of revolution, and a deft satire on the manufacture of images for ‘political power and commercial gain.’”

—Rain Taxi

“A clever and original debut…. This first-time novelist orchestrates his story with much brio: the set pieces are impressive, the comedy nicely judged, and the book pulls off some adventurous structural moves.”

—The Times Literary Supplement

“Fantastic…. It is a tale told with a subtle knowledge of Russian culture and history (to say nothing of crisp prose and a mastery of dialogue a la Mamet).”

—Russian Life

“Smart…. Daring…. Inventive…. Kalfus ingeniously reworks history to examine the role of media as the great mover of the twentieth century…. [A] remarkable book…. Kalfus is a cunning writer with masterful timing and an outrageous sense of humor.”

—BookForum

“A thrillingly intelligent first novel…. A witty meditation on how image supplanted language in the 20th century,
The Commissariat of Enlightenment
confirms the promise of Kalfus’ two story collections,
Thirst
and
Pu-239
, and neatly airbrushes him into any class picture of the writers who are keeping American literature interesting at the moment.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“Wry and inventive…. [T]his book is alive with the sense of mythmaking opportunity and aesthetic innovation that accompanied the Soviet revolution.”

—Seattle Times

ALSO BY KEN KALFUS

Thirst

Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies

Copyright

THE COMMISSARIAT OF ENLIGHTENMENT
. Copyright © 2003 by Ken Kalfus. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub © Edition JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780061855948

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