CANADIAN EMIGRES and the BILDUNGSROMAN

Book Review: The Mixed World of David Bezmozgis’s Natasha

By Ashley Cleek

In his collection of short stories entitled Natasha, David Bezmozgis describes the turbulent transitions from innocence to adolescence to adulthood with a poignancy that sometimes verges on conventionality, but his astute perception of the protagonist’s psychological ordeals saves this “short story compilation of a bildungsroman” from going down a beaten literary path.

The Bergman family emigrates to Canada from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and many of the basic facts, such as where they live, work, and go to school, are lifted straight from Bezmozgis’s own childhood. The parents remain in the background and serve as a reminder of the old ways, and it is through them that the reader views the real struggle of moving to a foreign country. Yet it is Mark, the only child of the two emigres, whom Bezmozgis establishes from the first story onward as the central, active member of the new Canadian family. Even though he is just entering the first grade when they move to Canada, he is, from the first moment on, the strongest tie that his family has to their new culture.

The stories center around Mark and his coming of age, and must be read in succession in order to perceive the full breadth of his transformation--from ages six to late thirties. Though Natasha is not a novel, and thus is not by definition a bildungsroman, the book may be the closest a compilation of short stories can get to achieving bildungsroman status. The reader is able to see the many changes that affect the family. As the head interpreter for his family, any change, development or shift in the family proceeds from Mark. In “Tapka,” the first story in the collection, young Mark creates relationships with the neighbors by walking their beloved dog, relationships that his father and mother only attempt to cultivate later on. “Tapka” is also the first stage in the bildungsroman; Mark, for the first time, shoulders responsibility and is held accountable for his transgressions. The personalities of Mark’s father and mother come out of their shells in “Roman Berman: Massage Therapist,” and it is through their forays into the new world that the reader glimpses a more realistic and disheartening Canada than the one shown through Mark.

Slowly, the rest of the Bergmans’ relatives emigrate as well, and Mark, being the first to have learned English and to have gone through the Canadian school system, takes his place at the head of the newly relocated family. The shift from an old, familiar style to a new and puzzling life develops, with regard to Mark, by way of the bildungsroman structure. As in many bildungsromans, the catalyst for the change is a passionate first love. In “Natasha,” the title story, Bezmozgis characterizes Natasha, Mark’s love interest, with an air of reticence and mystery that speaks to Russia, and to the old life. The story, however, caters to its goal of an adolescent transition almost too markedly. Bezmozgis endows “Natasha” with many simple Russian stereotypes, such as that of “the experienced girl from Moscow.”

Because the idea of a bildungsroman is such a well-established literary form, it becomes imperative for Bezmozgis to provide something new for the reader to interpret. Bezmozgis does this, albeit late in the game, in “Roman Berman: Message Therapist.” Although it does have a few unique moments, which center around the coming together of Jewish families and the mentioning of some Russian superstitions, on the whole, the collection is full of all the same struggles, setbacks, and clichÈs that characterize nearly every emigrant story. 

While the book is named after the middle story, “Natasha,” the parallel stories of two boxers (“The Second Strongest Man” and “Choynski”) seem the most captivating. In “The Second Strongest Man,” a famous boxer, who is the father’s old friend and client and Mark’s childhood role model, calls upon the Bergmans. As Mark shows the boxer around their new neighborhood, he points out every miniscule attraction, and says, “I could tell what I was showing and what he was seeing were not the same things.” “Choynski” is almost an adult mirror image of this first story, and the story stresses the need for heroes and legends even when belief in them is broken in childhood. This idea of hero worship and boyhood ideals is not new; however, in pairing it with Mark’s idealization of the past in “Choynski,” Bezmozgis calls to similar themes present in “The Second Strongest Man.” In this way, Bezmozgis forces the two stories to interact with and animate one another. In “The Second Strongest Man,” Bezmozgis does not pave a predictable route of heartbreak and disillusionment for Mark. Instead, he uses “Choynski” to reinforce the idea that sometimes boyhood fantasies are indeed not shattered, but are merely channeled into a more realistic interest.

Although the stories sometimes toe the line of a hackneyed bildungsroman, there is something fragile and hopeful about them that nonetheless offers a rare, raw glimpse into the passions of a little boy and of an older man. Overall, Bezmozgis’ Natasha presents an honest and moving portrait of a young man struggling to find himself in a complex world of mixed cultures, and the stories offer some touching and unique moments in spite of their sometimes pedestrian components.