http://www.amazon.com/Judgment-Day-Archives-Novel/dp/0916515451/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411222455&sr=1-1&keywords=Andrei+Moscovit%2C+The+Judgment+Day+Archives
NY
Times Book Review, Sun., Nov. 20, 1988
A
Case for Resurrection
Review of The Judgment Day Archives, by Andrei Moscovit, translated by Robert
Bowie, 402pp. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1988.
by
Stephen Dobyns
How is a witch doctor able to stop the
flow of blood from a wound with the repetition of a few muttered words? How can
a hypnotist cause a burn with a ruler? How can a yogi reduce his pulse rate and
make himself invulnerable to pain?
Well,
imagine that within the blood are elements that carry information from one part
of the body to another—protecting, strengthening, educating—and that it is
possible, if you’re a witch doctor or a yogi, to speak to these elements.
Imagine that these elements—call them transcendents—contain the code for the
whole human creature, and if a way were found to freeze and preserve a drop of
blood, then someday the human creature could be resurrected, cloned from that
one drop of blood. Imagine that a way has been found. Wouldn’t this guarantee
immortality?
Such
ideas are at the center of The Judgment
Day Archives, a sprawling Russian novel of great energy and imagination.
The scientist who makes the necessary discoveries is an Estonian hematologist,
Leida Rigel, a woman whose complicated private life includes two former
husbands, several boyfriends, two adolescent children and a difficult mother.
Additionally, she is being pursued by agents of the K.G.B. Leida Rigel is
brought in contact with a somewhat sinister Italian organization called the
International Enterprise for Research Financing, which supports potentially
lucrative research—alternatives to gasoline and electricity as well as these
peculiar discoveries about the blood.
Rigel and the
Enterprise represent knowledge and power. Only vision is needed to set them in
motion, and this is found in the person of a defrocked Russian priest, Father
Averyan, who preaches to a small flock of heretics at his vegetable farm
outside Paris. His message is that Judgment Day will be in the hands of the
living carrying out the will of God, that the living will resurrect the dead.
Once he comes under the influence of the Enterprise, however, his message
slightly changes.
“Leave a drop of
thy blood,” he preaches, “to be preserved eternally, in expectation of the
advent of thy enlightened son, who will learn from the Lord our God how to
create that suitable location, so that there the drop of thy blood may build
the whole of thee, raise thee anew in the flesh.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Together the
scientist, the capitalist and the visionary form a sect called variously “Sons
in Salvation of the Fathers,” “Acolytes of the Resurrection,” “Proselytes to
the Judgment Day Truth” and, more simply, “The Clients.” In southern New Hampshire
they establish the Judgment Day Archives. Judgment is needed because it is not
possible for everyone to be resurrected. There wouldn’t be enough room on
earth. Consequently, only certain people will be chosen. Some day, far in the
future, a court will be convened and the deserving will be brought back to
life, while the failed, the flawed and the futile will be left to their
oblivion. For a mere $3000 the faithful can have placed in the vaults of the
Archives a specially frozen drop of their blood and a cassette, magnetic or
video, containing their testimony: their arguments to this future court as to
why they should be resurrected. Despite the price, thousands flock to the
Archives from all over the world.
But the Archives
are prey to certain dangers. First, there is the greed of the Enterprise.
Secondly, there is the frustration of those people who can’t afford $3000.
Thirdly, there are others who would like to acquire the Archives’ secrets. For
instance, many members of the Communist Central Committee are rather elderly
and take a keen interest in the possibility of resurrection. This leads the
K.G.B. to kidnap Leida Rigel’s son in order to make her their agent. Will she
become the Judas of the sect?
All this would
be rather ponderous if the novel weren’t written with great verve and
intelligence. Andrei Moscovit is like a juggler trying to keep 10 balls in the
air: some fall but the performance is impressive. The jacket copy compares the
novel to Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and
Margarita. This is hyperbolic; Mr. Moscovit lacks Bulgakov’s discipline,
wildness and vision. What he shares with Bulgakov is energy and scope.
The Judgment Day Archives is about many
things other than the K.G.B. versus a beautiful hematologist. It is about power
and our fear or our mortality. It is about how one preserves a sense of the
self in the face of great odds. Late in the book Leida Rigel’s son, now 19
years old, is in the army in northern Russia, where he repairs antiaircraft
equipment. He thinks, “The next war would be started not over a piece of
disputed land, not by the power brokers of the world, but simply because
somewhere or other the revulsion a person felt toward his own life would become
so unbearable that it would overcome even the instinct of self-preservation. An
intoxicating brew of loathing would begin foaming up in some little man’s
insides, and nothing but destruction would be able to damp it down. And if
someone considers his own life worthless, how can he be expected to take pity
on anyone else?”
Mr. Moscovit
uses the complicated machinery of his novel to investigate how we are able to
live in a difficult time. Although he never quite brings off this
investigation, neither does he fail. What he achieves is a marvelous piece of
verbal gymnastics, wonderfully written and gracefully translated by Robert
Bowie. The novel could be shorter and better controlled, yet while it often
threatens to break free of the author’s grip and escape into chaos, it never actually
does. Andre Moscovit is the pseudonym of Igor Efimov, a Russian émigré who
lives in New Jersey and is the founder of the Hermitage House Publishing
Company. He is the author of 15 books, including novels and works of political
philosophy; this is his first work to be translated into English.
INSET BOX:
What the Geezer Saw
He
had nearly finished his “marinated herring, sauce
de noix” and was pouring himself a dram glass of lukewarm vodka when she
appeared in the restaurant and walked slowly down the central passageway. . . .
Now,
if I didn’t know her and if there were nothing between us, he thought, would I
freeze the way I did just now, with my glass halfway to my mouth? Would I be
staring now, like that Air Force fellow and that gray-haired geezer, and like
the waiter, and that old babe with the wig slipping down?
So
her shoes weren’t made at the local Skorokhod factory, her dress doesn’t come
from Moscowseams, and the handbag obviously travelled across a border or two
before it ended up hanging from her shoulder. . . . But are there really so few
stylish women running around Moscow? . . . She played her role well, came up by
a circuitous route, asked if the seat were taken, sat down with an independent
air, and stuck her nose in the menu.
From
The Judgment Day Archives
Stephen Dobyns, a poet and novelist, is
the author most recently of Saratoga
Bestiary, a mystery novel to be published later this year.
