At its richest and strangest, Laurus, a meditation on death, sainthood and Russia, summons up the aura of a Chagall painting. Vivid colours which defy gravity, lovers whose love beatifies them for a moment in time (as love beatifies all lovers), a sense of infinite space beyond the edges of the canvas or the page. Vodolazkin’s tale narrates the story of a boy who acquires the gift of healing from his grandfather, a gift that it also a burden. This is another story set in times of plague when the skills of Arseny, the novel’s protagonist whose name changes several times, (ending as the eponymous Laurus), can make all the difference between life and death. The author locates two facets of Arseny’s abilities: on the one hand there is the more technological skill of being able to identify which plants offer which cures; on the other a more mystical capacity to channel a healing energy through his touch. Laurus is very much a novel about Russia, and the forces at work in the construction of the Russian psyche. This duality in Aresny feels like a commentary on the equilibrium which Russia seeks between the poles of mysticism and modernity, between the worlds of East and West. All of which is implicit rather than explicit. Arseny himself evolves from medicine man to holy fool to ambassador. The book acquires a quixotic feel as we follow his life story towards death. The writer’s take on the relationship between life and the afterlife is one of the more powerful elements of the novel; there’s a reflection on what it means to be mortal that few Western writers are willing to engage with. The sense that our travails upon this earth are part of a wider journey, one humans are very far from understanding, one that defies time (which is illustrated by the novel’s willingness to engage with anachronism). Laurus is a novel which constantly seeks to go beyond materialism to provoke a contemplation of the transcendent, the words flying off the edge of the page towards an unknown corner of the galaxy.
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