The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. Eugene Yelchin. 2021. 208 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: The first time I saw real American tourists, they hopped out of a tourist bus in Red Square in Moscow and cut in front of us in line. "Nice manners!" my mother shouted. "We've been freezing our butts off for hours and they just breeze in like that?" We were in line to the mausoleum where the founder of our country, Vladimir I. Lenin, was laid out embalmed like an Egyptian mummy. To see him, you had to wait your turn.
Premise/plot: Yevgeny, our narrator, is growing up (seemingly) talent-less in a country that very much demands talent--if you want to succeed. Genius Under the Table is a memoir, of sorts, of growing up in Communist Russia during the Cold War.
His parents are pleased that their oldest son is so talented, a pairs figure skater. He will get the chance to travel the world, to one day have his own apartment, his own car perhaps. The possibilities are not without some limits, perhaps. But he's got the potential to have some wiggle room, some tokens of freedom. But Yevgeny, well, he seems to have no talent that offer him any hope of a good future, at least within their country. But what his parents don't realize--especially in the first half of the book--is that Yevgeny does have a talent...a talent that he himself doesn't know makes him special. Every night he draws with a (stolen from his father) pencil underneath the family's antique dining table. The table being even older than Grandma.
The family lives in a shared apartment. All the family living in one room and sharing some common spaces (the hall, a bathroom, a kitchen) with other families.
The book is a coming-of-age memoir.
My thoughts: It is both dark and funny. It definitely doesn't shy away from some tough subjects...including racism (he's Jewish), death (I won't spoil it), and politics. (Growing up in a Communist country, freedom of speech is unheard of...even in one's own apartment. You could be turned in by anyone for speaking out, criticizing, questioning.) It is 100% coming of age. It is all about finding one's own place, one's own voice, seeking this place of belonging and rightness with the world. Of course, this is complicated by where he is growing up.
I really found it an absorbing, compelling read. There were scenes that just touched me. The writing was great. It is an illustrated book.
However, if I could change one thing about this one, it would be the addition of specific dates--years, I mean. The narrator is young--ten? eleven? twelve? if I had to guess. If we assume (like the description states) that it is the author's memoir, then that would place it in the mid-to-late sixties. (Yelchin was born in 1956.) Yet, the one event that we can definitely attach an actual-actual date to is the defection of Mikhail Baryshnikov, June 1974. The author was definitely much older (a late teen) in 1974. So he has made himself younger perhaps to make a better fit for a children's book. Not a deal breaker by any means, but, as an adult I want dates so I can get a better context of how this story fits in with history. Kids, well, I'm going to guess that kids wouldn't be bothered at all by lack of dates. They won't be trying to fit in this story with what they already know about this time period in history.
Quote:
Life seemed like an enormous puzzle to me then, and drawing helped order the pieces: Mom, Dad, Victor, Grandma, Lenin, the Americans, even Baryshnikov. Each piece was a different shape. I was a puzzle piece, too, but I was made in such a wrong shape that I was convinced I would never fit in anywhere. The only place I fit in well was under Grandma’s table, drawing to the soft squeak of the stolen pencil.
© 2022 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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