“The Muddle”
by Sana Krasikov
from the August 15, 2022 issue of The New Yorker
We have had a few stories by Sana Krasikov in The New Yorker: the most recent was “Ways and Means,” back in 2018; the one prior pre-dates these posts on this blog (but not by much), coming in 2008. In 2017 she was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists, following up being named one the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” back in 2008. In 2009 she was a finalist for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for distinguished first book of fiction, and won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Fiction. All of that was for her debut collection of stories, One More Year, released in 2008. She published her debut novel, The Patriots, in 2017. Those are her only two published books, so hopefully she’s finding time to keep writing.
I’m glad we get another, particularly since I still have read only “Ways and Means.” Here is how “The Muddle” starts:
Shura was trying to reach Alyona and Oleg, first over Skype and WhatsApp, then Facebook, on which Alyona kept an account she barely used. It should not have been so hard to get hold of them. Alyona had not posted recently, but she’d checked her messages, Shura could see that. Maybe she thought Shura was being dramatic—hadn’t she always thought so? With her digital silence, Alyona was making a big show of her own calm, doubling down on her refusal to treat anything as a catastrophe. Well, goody for her, Shura thought, and shut her laptop. If Alyona wasn’t panicked, why should she be? It was day three and there were still no Russian boots in central Kyiv. There was the battle at the Hostomel airport, and a rocket had crashed into a building in Obolon, but that was not near where Alyona and Oleg lived, in the Shevchenkivskyi district. From the security of her own house in Croton-on-Hudson, Shura tried not to think about the last conversation she’d had with Alyona. It had been a rather unpleasant chat, but now there was a war on and it seemed unnecessary to be holding a grudge, one of the very few they’d had in their sixty-odd-year friendship.
On day five, a reply came over Skype. “We’re alive.” Two words in a pale-blue bubble. It should have taken the tension out of her lungs, but it only agitated Shura more. She’d expected a bit more emotiveness—did they have groceries? Were they spending nights in their building’s basement, or in the metro? We’re alive. The bare minimum.
I hope you’re all doing well, and I hope you’ll leave your thoughts below when you have read the story!
Sana Krasikov’s “The Muddle” takes a very clear eyed look at two women’s friendship against the backdrop of the Russian war in the Ukraine. Friends like Shura and Alyona may want the best for each other but cannot agree. But there is the space that one grants to the other allowing them their own different agency even if they can’t quite see the other’s logic or believe it is for the best.
Indeed “muddle” succinctly describes all manner of diverse big and small debacles experienced by many in many ways these days. One definition, “bring or brought about into a disordered or confusing state” describes much that has gone dysfunctionally amuck particularly in a usually unexpected way.
To be honest I didn’t want to read this story, set in an upscale part of New York and in Canada and in the Ukraine. It is so sad, all that has happened and continues happening. It’s like when the stars above the earth discuss its current condition as an all out struggle between those good and those guilty of ruthless unmitigated evil.
Yet the protagonist of this story, Shura, is quite affirmative in her indomitable strength. Krasikov opens the narrative with a seamless flow of Shara’s state of mind concerning Alyona, which is a clever way to bring the reader into the story. And her friend, Alyona, is just as indomitable, wanting to hold on to living life as it once was (to which it may never return). The immigrant experience is examined. Alyona’s son, Pavel, seems comfortable living his life in Canada. But Alyona feels unable to adapt to life outside the Ukraine.
One of the best parts of this story is the teacher’s assignment to Shura to paint Spring. Shura (seems a bit like Sure-a) looks out the window and paints the Spring she sees, which the abrasive teacher maintains actually was not the assignment.
The parallel between what one actually observes and what an authoritarian figure actually expects them to see (to pass and not fail or lose their job) couldn’t be much more strikingly presented. The age old conflict of taking your decision when some mindless authority figure wants to take it away from you.
That illumination made this story very worthwhile. Because everyone is different and should be allowed space to act on their own observations and independently be able to set and steer their own course. I’d like see other viewpoints concerning what this story is about.
I think, Larry, that I agree with you as to what the story is about, especially because the young Alyona was unable to share Shura’s distress about her teacher’s dismissal of her vision of the “real” spring. The story told me several things about the current war that I hadn’t known: the early nationalism of the militias, WWII Ukrainian welcome of the Nazis, the position in the Ukraine of a Russian like Oleg, or the understandable complexity for Jewish Ukrainian–Americans. A lot of information was packed into the background of a story focusing on the vagaries of friendship. I think it was fine.
After reading Larry’s comments, I’m more convinced that “muddle” is a good description of what this story ends up becoming. I felt overwhelmed by the long first paragraph of names and information and felt that this was throughout packing too much in–memories, biographies, current events etc. The dilemma here is interesting as if the situation and I was curious how it would resolve but I feel that there are far more artful ways to express ideas about immigration, religion, culture, ethnicity etc. I also felt this story seemed a bit opportunistically poised to get published, especially in a liberally oriented magazine, because of the subject matter.
I’d like a link to her story “Ways and Means” if possible. In August ‘19 issue of New Yorker, I think.