The Compromise by Sergei Dovlatov

First published:Kompromis, 1981 (English translation, 1983)

Type of work: Satirical realism

Time of work: November, 1973, to October, 1976

Locale: Tallinn, the capital of the Estonian Socialist Republic

Principal Characters:

• The Narrator, a journalist for a major Russian-language newspaper in the Estonian capital
• Marina, the narrator’s mistress, a member of the secretarial staff at the newspaper
• Misha (Mikhail Borisovich) Shablinsky, a reporter for the “industry desk” at the newspaper and Marina’s former lover
• Henry Franzovich Turonok, the Estonian editor in chief of the newspaper
• Zhbankov, an alcoholic photographer for the newspaper

The Novel

The Compromise only barely qualifies as a novel. It is highly autobiographical; the narrator retains the name and personality of the author and follows the exact path of the latter as a human interest reporter for the Tallinn newspaper Soviet Estonia from 1973 through 1976. The newspaper, however, is not named in the book; the name of the author’s mistress (whom he in fact later married) is changed from Elena to Marina; and the tone of the narrative signals “fiction” rather than “nonfiction” to the reader.

Other reasons that the work barely qualifies as a novel are its brevity (it is less than 150 pages long) and its division into eleven untitled sections (identified only as “The First Compromise,” “The Second Compromise,” and so on), which are more like separate short stories than chapters in a novel. Three or four chapters were published as stories in magazines before the book appeared. The “chapters” are presented according to a standard format: A brief, dated journalistic sketch is reprinted, one written by Sergei Dovlatov for the Estonian newspaper, followed by the “story behind the story,” ranging in length from three to thirty-seven pages. These report the real personalities behind the bland facts and faces of the original text; or they tell how the reporter got into trouble with his boss, Turonok, for political “insensitivity”; or they describe incredible drinking bouts en route to, during, and after interviews of blue-ribbon milkmaids, crooked jockeys, and garrulous old war veterans. (One of the most humorous “compromises” concerns the discovery that the corpse of a Party official being eulogized at the grave site is the wrong body—but the burial proceeds as scheduled.)

The picaresque nature of Dovlatov’s adventures, with their introduction of several dozen minor characters into the narrative, inhibits the classification of The Compromise as a novel. The narrator does remain a consistent personality throughout the book, however, and there is a certain development in his moral outlook, as he comes to realize the impossibility of continuing to work as a journalist who is never quite allowed to tell the truth. His first cousin, who had once been convicted of manslaughter, keeps telling him to take up some useful line of work. “Aren’t you ashamed of what you do?... All I did was kill a man,...and try to burn his body. But you!”

If one adds to the above the frequent appearances of several of Dovlatov’s colleagues, to provide a further sense of continuity, and of his mistress,Marina, who facilitates the portrayal of the private life of the narrator, one may be satisfied that this work is as much a novel as many another work so classified. The narrator’s relationship with Marina never becomes a true element of the plot, but one senses a growing pressure toward marriage and character reform, as the young reporter drinks heavily in an effort to hold back the onset of middle-aged stability. He is behind in his alimony payments, wears nondescript clothes, is always hungover. Will he never change?

Dovlatov’s journalistic work is the real subject of this book. Journalism, he says, resembles a peacefully flowing river—but one should not fail to notice the tin cans on the muddy bottom. He observes: “Journalism has its perpetually open markets, commissioned stores, and even flea markets. Which is to say, the selling-out is always going on, full blast.” Because there is so much political stupidity in Dovlatov’s anecdotes, it is tempting to assume that the main purpose of the novel is to attack the Soviet Union and its governmental system. A continually evident Gogolian humor, however, indicates that the real target of Dovlatov’s criticism is himself—and humanity. Despite what ought to be bitterness toward his motherland, from which he was eventually forced to emigrate (in 1978), Dovlatov is surprisingly forgiving of it, and of humanity. It is journalism, newspaper reporting, that provides a window into the world of the modern Soviet Union, where, the author insists, “there are no angels or villains... no sinners or saints.”

The Characters

The narrator is identified once by the first name of the author and twice by the author’s surname. Like the author, he is very tall. A pretty young Estonian girl named Evi, who falls in love with the journalist for a night, tells him that he looks like Omar Sharif. “Who?” he says. Yet the real Dovlatov, who is half Armenian and half Jewish, does indeed resemble Sharif. The narrator immodestly allows the reader to understand that he is an excellent journalist, except that the boss cannot trust him because of his perpetual drinking and his political irreverence—called “cynicism” by Turonok. A character emerges who is talented, intelligent, witty and handsome. Almost all the female characters in the novel either love him or have once loved him. He has a reputation for infidelity. Yet Dovlatov prefers to show the reader that his brief dalliance with the Estonian girl soon makes him feel guilty; he purposely drinks so much that he can no longer perform sexually with her. He thus does not quite appear to be a male chauvinist, as do almost all the other Soviet males in the book, but he is a type that women like, and he takes advantage of that. This causes him trouble and is a source for wry humor. Apropos of his relations with women, he declares that he is a “good man,” adding that he can say that “without the slightest embarrassment, because it is nothing to be proud of.” That is, “Women only love scoundrels, as everyone knows.”

In short, Dovlatov has great potential as a human being, yet he is an alcoholic, a divorced person with a child, poor, morally weak in that he finally always writes what he is told to write, and a liar. He could almost qualify as a tragic figure if he did not behave so comically. He remains lovable because of his sins, not in spite of them. Through this major character the author shows how one may love a sinner who is not evil, but simply a person like oneself—and extend this tolerance to all humanity. What American readers especially must learn from this novel—and what the author intends for them to learn—is that nothing happening in the Soviet Union is worse than what happens every day in the United States (although that is bad enough and causes suffering).

About Dovlatov’s mistress little is revealed beyond her age and occupation, and her despair of Dovlatov ever changing. The narrator notes that “something had been going on between us on the order of an intellectual intimacy. With shades of animosity and sex.” Marina weeps despondently over her lover’s unfaithfulness, irresponsibility, and lack of ambition. She is more a symbol for the universal suffering of women than a genuine character. Several minor female characters echo this role, so that it becomes a substantial motif in the novel.

Turonok, the editor, is a stereotyped “boss” and has one major task: to dictate the Party line as it applies to newspaper stories. Dovlatov carries this line to comic exaggeration, inducing one to see Communist inflexibility as perhaps more absurd than evil. This allows the novel to be viewed as satirical, though it may in fact be simply realistic.

The reporter Misha Shablinsky, who is exceedingly intelligent and ambitious, has a small role that depends on his having once been Marina’s lover. When Dovlatov borrows a black suit from Shablinsky to cover the funeral of a Communist Party official, Marina, seeing Dovlatov in the suit, calls him “Misha” by mistake; the reader is obliged to consider what it might take to make this amiable drunk ambitious, and if that would be a good idea after all.

Most of the characters, whatever other roles they might play, lugubriously demonstrate the archetypal incompetence in everyday Soviet life.

Critical Context

Between 1979 and 1986, Dovlatov published ten books, most of them quite short and all of them written in the first person. None of his books appeared in the Soviet Union, nor could have. His laconic, witty, and humorous style appeals to both Russian and American readers. Certain Russian influences may be discerned in Dovlatov’s writing, but more evident are the compressed style of Ernest Hemingway, the social alienation of J.D. Salinger, and the combined vulgarity and sensitivity of Kurt Vonnegut—writers all widely available in translation in the Soviet Union since the 1960’s.

Dovlatov’s works in English have received excellent reviews. His work has yet to receive more substantial critical attention (except in the Russian emigre press), but his success as a writer in the West was more than assured by the publication of seven stories in The New Yorker between 1980 and 1987—an unprecedented achievement for a Russian emigre writer. It is ironic that the perpetual “bad boy” has received so much attention from an essentially conservative literary magazine. Dovlatov’s true role as a writer is thereby confirmed: to bridge the gap between the Russian and American cultures.

Bibliography

Bayley, John. “Kitsch and the Novel,” in The New York Review of Books. XXXI (November 22, 1984), pp. 28-32.

Fiene, Donald M. “Sergei Dovlatov: The Compromise,” in Slavic and East European Journal. XXVIII (Winter, 1984), pp. 552-553.

Karriker, Alexandra H. “Sergei Dovlatov: The Compromise,” in World Literature Today. LVIII (Autumn, 1984), p. 622.

Rosenberg, Karen. “Of Compromise and Corruption,” in The Nation. CCXXXVII (November 5, 1983), p. 437.

Serman, Ilia. “Teatr Sergeia Dovlatova,” in Grani. L, no. 136 (1985), pp. 138-162.

Williams, Frank. “Bottle-Blight,” in The Times Literary Supplement. December 16, 1983, p. 1413.