My oh my. I suspect that Mr. Voinovich was not popular with the authorities. A funny, funny book about a writer whose only goal is to get a better hat. The Writer’s Union is having hats made for its members and of course the more distinguished the writer, the more distinguished the fur to be used. Suffice to say, our hero finds that he is in line for a hat made of “fluffy tomcat.” The more he discovers what others are getting, the more incensed he becomes and the book is the story of his crusade to get something better. To say more would be telling. If you need a good laugh, read this. ( )

兔子，啊不，乖貓貓急了也咬人⋯⋯帽子的最終獲得手段倒是打了我個措手不及 ( )

I read Vladimir Voinovich's short comic masterpiece back in 1989 when first published in English and read it three more times over the years, including this past week. One thing has remained consistent – I laughed out loud on nearly each page. This is a very funny book.

Hardly a whopping surprise since the author is famous for his satire and wit in the dozens of works he’s written - essays, short stories, novels, the most famous The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin and Moscow 2042. Born in 1932, Mr. Voinovich knew political dissent from an early age as his father spent five years in prison for anti-Soviet agitation. A human rights activist himself, the author and his family were forced to emigrate in 1980 where he settled in Munich, West Germany. Mikhail Gorbachev restored his Soviet citizenship in 1990 and since that date Vladimir Voinovich has spent most of his time in Russia. Even at the advanced age of eighty-five, his writing, as acerbic as ever, continued to flow.

In The Fur Hat we follow one Yefim Semyonovich Rakhlin through the eyes of a friend and fellow Writers’ Union member. Rakhlin is a staunch, longtime member of the Union and author of eleven adventure novels featuring fearless, decent people – geologists, explorers, polar researchers, et al. – courageously fighting an uphill battle against harsh conditions in remote terrain. Although other writers see Rahkllin’s books for what they are – inflated, mawkish drivel (think of a poorly written Reader’s Digest article expanded to novel length), Rakhlin himself judges his writing on the level of Anton Chekhov; well, if truth be told, his own is a little better.

Why not? After all, before turning to fiction, Yefim was a dedicated staff writer for the journal Geology and Mineralogy and his five room apartment is stuffed with foreign imports, things like a Czech Piano, Japanese television, Finnish refrigerator, mostly from monies when his novels were taken up by media people and turned into plays, films and television shows. Chekhov never came close to that! Besides, the reviews have always been glowing. True, geologists and the like, not literary critics, have done the reviewing, but when has true genius ever been recognized by the so called experts? However the narrator is quick to point out: “The reviews – I suspect Yefim wrote them himself – were all similar and had titles like “A Needed Book,” “”Useful Reading,” or “A Fact Everyone Should Know.””

Then the fateful day arrives: Yefim is in his den diligently at work on his next novel, Operation!, when the phone rings. It is Writers’ Union writer Kostya, his closest friend, informing Yefim the Literary Fund’s board of directors decided to distribute hats for writers based on their importance: reindeer fawn for the foremost writers, muskrat for leading writers, marmot for outstanding writers. Kostya goes on to say members of the Writers’ Union, such as “you and me” will be given something like rabbit.

Rabbit! They dare even think of such a low-grade fur! Don’t they know Yefim Semyonovich Rakhlin is the author of eleven novels? Yefim sets out to discover exactly what kind of fur hat he has been given. At the office of a leading official he receives the news: tomcat. Tomcat! Even worse than rabbit - what a blow to Yefim’s self-esteem. Will meek, passive, milquetoast Rakhlin tolerate such injustice? He will not. For readers, the fun has just begun - from this point forward its little man versus big bureaucracy in the tradition of clerk Akaky Akakievich from Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat.

On one level The Fur Hat can be taken as offering a moral lesson: the dire consequences when a person equates self-worth with reputation and status, that is, when one places oneself entirely in the hands of others’ opinions. But as we all know, much easier to give rather than take such advice. Let's look at a hypothetical example: the Goodreads people announce mugs will be sent to those reviewers who have written many reviews over the years. The mug will display the photo of an animal that, in the opinion of the judges, accurately represents the quality of the reviewer’s writing - a snow leopard for the best reviewers, a tiger for very fine reviewers, a wolf for good solid reviewers and so forth. They even include a list with a number of the best reviewers, many names I recognize: Manny, Fionnuala, Dolors, Jeffrey, Michael, Lyn, Lisa, Cheri, Robert, Paul, Brian, Seemita, Cheryl, Lynne, Steven, Kal, Zoey, David, Tony, among others.

A week later I receive my Goodreads mug in the mail. By the little black eyes, sharp ears, whiskers, grey hair and long slimy tail, there’s no mistake – I was given a rat. Not exactly what I was expecting. I immediately send an email off with a link to a couple of my favorite reviews and ask if I may have a clarification or if there was perhaps a mistake or mix-up. Shortly thereafter I receive a reply: “No mistake, Glen, the judges don’t have to read any more of those reviews to know you rate rat.”

Very well. At least I have my answer. I’ll let it go. I wouldn’t want to be taken for the Yefim Semyonovich Rakhlin of the twenty-first century. But I’d be fibbing if I didn’t picture a face-to-face with said judges - for starters I’d note how they misspelled my name. All of a sudden I have renewed appreciation for The Fur Hat.


"The writing, as always, was abominable. But I saw in Yefim's eyes such a desperate desire to hear praise that my heart quailed."
Vladimir Voinovich, The Fur Hat ( )

In Soviet Russia there may not be a car in every garage but there can be a hat for every head, as long as you fill out the request in triplicate and accept that each hat represents your status in society. Vladimir's satire of the absurdity of the Soviet system tells the story of Yefim Rakhlin, who has worked tirelessly for eight-teen years in the Writers Union, written 11 books about fearless honest people that make no problems for the literary censors. By soviet standards he is successful and is able to fill his house with luxuries from other soviet block country's. Never mind that his books are terrible and tedious. However one day he finds out that the union is giving out fur hats to the writers according to their rank, with the best getting rain deer, the next best getting marmot, the third best getting muskrat and so on. Hoping to get a hat worthy of an 18 year veteran with 11 books to his name Yefim is horrified to find out that his hat will be fluffy tomcat. Feeling that he has been wronged Yefim navigates the bureaucracy to try and get the hat he feels he deserves and ends up through a series of events becoming recognized as a dissident hero by the foreign press.

Although I'm sure I missed some of the humor that only someone who lived in Soviet Russia would understand this short story was still a laugh. At its heart you see that even though the Soviet system aspired to equality, through corruption, nepotism, and pandering it was no better than the old aristocracy with the people in power rewarding their friends and milking the system; while people who followed the rules like Yefim were overlooked. Even the idea that a reward would be doled out according to importance smacks of hypocrisy and reinforces the elitist mentality that the soviets where so abhorred by. At the same time the book also pokes fun at the intelligentsia who come off as foppish with a fetish for all things foreign, filling their state owned apartments with anything they can that is made outside of Russia.

Overall another quick fun read and makes a good introduction to Voinovich's style of satire ( )

"The Fur Hat" is a fine blend of Russian humour, exposé and tragedy. Written by a Russian, presumably for Russians, it gives an insight into the daily life of the individual with a non-perfect, from the establishment's point of view, background, living under the Soviet system. It also highlights the social inequalities present in Russia of the time, and how snobbery survived within the Soviet system, and how it used the language of the system to promote elitism and favouritism despite the inherent hatred of such practices in communist theory.

Not being a Russian I am sure I missed much of the humour and satire, but I understood enough of it to ensure I will continue reading the works of Vladimir Voinovich. ( )