A Modern Fairy Tale

THE BIG FELLOW

Anastasiia Marsiz
Translated from the Russian by Andrew Sheppard and Michael Pursglove
Glagoslav; 250 pp.; $24.99

Just as Shakespeare could set plays in Italy and Verdi could set operas in France and England, with their works remaining thoroughly English and Italian, the Ukrainian journalist Anastasiia Marsiz’s first novel, set in modern Italy, reads in the literary tradition of skazki, Eugene Onegin and Tolstoy’s folk tales.

Marsiz comfortably addresses her readers and characters in the mode of Pushkin: “Love is a great feeling that can empower a person, fill the heart with joy, and at the same time poison it with doubt, bitterness and pain. Do we know what the feeling will do to us?” She makes use of ghost-inspired conscience and she plays in the darkness and light of Russian fairy tales:

“She looked at him, smiled, and carelessly gathered her thick hair into a ponytail. Calisto, spellbound, stared, entranced by the strands of hair escaping from under the thin silk of the shawl; by her clear, brilliant eyes; the full lips that he wanted to kiss.” Look out, Mimi! “He was in love, as no one had ever been in love before. Or so he thought, because that’s what everyone who’s fallen head-over-heels in love always thinks. This feeling dissipated his arrogance: he no longer wanted to boast of his nobility, about houses, yachts and groves, or to play the hero.”

Marsiz’s title character Ernesto is the physically imposing, simple-minded but actually noble hero, though he is somewhere on the spectrum with Tolstoy’s model of Christian humility, Alyosha the Pot, and Dostoevsky’s “Idiot,” Prince Myshkin. The orphaned son of a Italian woman and her beloved Gambian immigrant partner, Ernesto has an unfailing Christian and philosophic understanding of life’s injustices: “He remembered that grandmother Ceci had taught him that people are only rude to others if they are unhappy and dissatisfied with themselves. So even from childhood he had felt sorry for all those who wronged and insulted him.” Marsiz’s depiction of his intelligence is somewhat inconsistent, as Ernesto can at times display Sherlock’s detective skills or conduct himself with the aplomb of a mental-health professional: “Life is given us to live! Sometimes we have to fight to move forward, while we are still awake, while we are still breathing, while we live. And you too must do that.”

The cast of characters include the big family of generous restaurant owners, a depraved rich developer and his entitled son, a boxing coach with Parkinson’s, and the gorgeous, insightful, mysterious Mimi. Amid the over-the-top romantic drama, featuring murder, rape, incest, revenge and forgiveness, there is also, a la Shakespeare, comedy, and in fact my favorite character is the ravenous clown Rino, who, while ever in quest of satisfying his own culinary desires, continually helps Ernesto in the Big Fellow’s quest to discover the perpetrators of his parents’ deaths.

Большой Человек won the Literary Ukraine Prize in 2021, and the plot’s many coincidences remind us that we’re in a particularly literary or mythic world, reminiscent, if you like, of the intertwined lives of the Greek gods and heroes. I find that it’s Marsiz’s earnestness that makes The Big Fellow an endearing and entertaining novel.

— Bob Blaisdell

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