Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

First published in Russian in 1996; first published in English in 2001; publsihed by Melville House on June 7, 2011

Viktor lives in Kiev with a depressed penguin named Misha. Viktor is also depressed despite recently acquiring a job writing obituaries for VIPs in anticipation of their deaths. He fills the obituaries with philosophical musings about life and loss. Since his subjects are still living, Misha's obituaries (like his short stories and unfinished novels) remain unpublished. A greater cause of Viktor's unhappiness, however, is his isolation -- he feels much like his penguin, who stands in the corner for long stretches, staring at the wall. Viktor feels "remote from events and even from life itself." Eventually a government official whose obituary Viktor has written falls from a window and Viktor learns of a connection between his writing, the man's death, and the rioting the death precipitates. Viktor later learns that his editor has a hidden purpose for publishing the obits -- a purpose that causes Viktor to ponder the role of death in a planned economy.

Viktor finds his solitude eased by the presence of Sonya, the four-year-old daughter of a militia officer who drops her off with Viktor before disappearing. Yet Viktor's feeling of seclusion is supplanted by an uneasy sense that the new situation created by his temporary visitor is precarious, that in the absence of any real attachments his respite from loneliness is vulnerable to fate. The addition of a nanny allows Viktor to imagine he is part of a family, but he knows the family -- like much of the life that surrounds him -- is only an illusion.

Death and the Penguin is set in Ukraine, a country troubled by hardship and violence. A sense of menace pervades the novel; people live with the expectation that death --or worse -- is lurking nearby. Yet most of Kurkov's characters are generous and kind-hearted. They have adjusted to their circumstances: "The once terrible was now commonplace, meaning that people accepted it as the norm and went on living, instead of getting needlessly agitated. For them, as for Viktor, the main thing, after all, was still to live, come what might." Perseverance in the face of darkness is a theme that runs through Death and the Penguin. Still, while Viktor has always believed that "a hard life is better than an easy death," he understands why others disagree.

There is a surrealistic quality to some of the novel's events: letters and packages mysteriously appear in Viktor's apartment despite his locked door; Misha is much in demand at increasingly common funerals for members of criminal organizations. Viktor decides it is better not to think about things he doesn't understand. In his world, too much knowledge can be dangerous. The novel takes an even stranger turn toward darkness when Misha requires an extreme remedy for a medical condition. At that point Viktor mourns for the loss of the simple, comprehensible life of his childhood.

There are probably many ways to understand Death and the Penguin, but I see it as an allegorical story about the loss of innocence -- a loss that afflicts individuals as they experience life and societies as they confront oppression. But Death and the Penguin can also be read more simply, as a dark comedy, an engaging story about a man, a girl, and a penguin doing their best to deal with the daily mysteries of life. The reader gets the sense that Misha, staring quizzically at his human roommates, is just as puzzled about complex human behavior as are the adult human characters. I think it would be difficult to read this novel and not derive something worthwhile from it, even if it's only a smile.

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