A Moscow Literary Memoir: Among the Great Artists of Russia from 1946 to 1980.

Terras, Victor

Robert A. D. Ford is a Canadian career diplomat who first went to Moscow in 1946 and served as ambassador there from 1964 to 1980. He is also a poet. A Moscow Literary Memoir, edited by the Canadian journalist Carole Jerome, features many of his translations of Russian poems and some of his own verse. The book addresses itself to the general reader, expecting no familiarity with Russian culture or literature. As a result, some comments, such as a catalogue of Russia's leading twentieth-century poets, seem a bit awkward to the connoisseur. However, even the informed reader will find some intriguing and appealing pages, as Ford vividly and with warmth describes the world of Russian arts and letters and the often precarious life of the literary and artistic community during the thaws and freezes of the Soviet regime. The fact that most of what we hear is firsthand experience shows in the author's frankly subjective reaction to the people he met, as when he finds the Voznesenskys "a bit of an odd couple," him "slight and neat, a lively character who fairly sparked with intelligence," she "a heavy-set blonde, not very pretty and rather reserved."

Ford takes a fond interest in all the arts: painting and sculpture, music and ballet, theater, and of course literature. His sympathy with those Russian artists whose creativity was stifled by the regime is heartfelt and his admiration for those who were able to sustain it sincere; yet he is never self-righteous or maudlin. In fact, he tends to be forgiving with regard to those who accommodated themselves to the regime but retained their humanity, like Konstantin Simonov.

Ford's judgment of literary and artistic talent is hardly original or penetrating, but it is generally well informed. He prudently refuses to speculate on what he has gathered from conversations over more than a few glasses of vodka and identifies rumors and anecdotes as such. The characters who emerge most vividly are Andrei Voznesensky and Yevgeny Yevtushenko, but Lili Brik, Bella Akhmadulina, and Maya Plisetskaya are Ford's heroines. Unfortunately, A Moscow Literary Memoir is marred by many misprints involving dates and names.

Victor Terras Brown University