I. Синій листопад
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Expressionist stories of the 1920s for C1
Blue November and Other Stories Синій листопад та інші новели
Mykola Khvylovy, 1927
Nine complete stories by Mykola Khvylovy in the original Ukrainian, not an adaptation, in the text of volume I of his Works (Kharkiv, 1927); the selection is the catalogue’s own. For advanced learners (C1) who want the 1920s in the voice that shaped its literature: communists after the civil war, a dying commissar in the Caucasus, a newspaper editor with a pistol on his desk, a village council against forest bandits, a factory in the Donbas. About 30,600 words in nine chapters, one per story, about 5 to 9 hours of reading.
- C1
- 30 637 words
- 5-9 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the plain story of «Кімната ч. 2» and the factory scenes of «Юрко» are within reach, but the lyrical chains of «Арабески», the Russified speech of soldiers and orderlies and the 1927 spelling (инший, сучасности, одчинити) will stop you on many pages.
B2C1
This text
At C1 it reads over one or two weeks, a story per sitting or two; the stories are independent. Start with «Кімната ч. 2» or «Юрко», which tell a straightforward story, and leave «Арабески» for last.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the language sets no obstacles; what remains is Khvylovy’s method: a narrator who argues with his reader, refrains such as “… Попутчик… так…”, echoes of Tychyna and Shevchenko, and the gap between the dream of the commune and the everyday town of the 1920s.
Start readingAbout one word in ten has 9 letters or more (10.2%), the share at which the catalogue moves an original to C1: close to Khvylovy’s own «Я (Романтика)» (11.1%) and well above Kotsiubynsky’s Laughter and Other Stories (7.3%, B2). Sentences average only 8 words, but that is the expressionist style, not simplicity: one-word paragraphs (“Пізно.” “Ніч.”), broken lines and dashes, and 786 of the 2,757 paragraphs are dialogue lines. The weight sits in what fills those short lines. «Арабески» runs to 11.4 words per sentence and 11.2% long words, a chain of associations, names and quotations; «Редактор Карк» has 11.1% and «Солонський Яр» 12.5%. Soldiers, orderlies and villagers speak a Russified Ukrainian (канкретно абсудим, ніззя, конешно), a party note is written in Russian with Ukrainian letters, and «Редактор Карк» opens with an epigraph in Russian. The 1927 edition keeps the spelling of its time: и- at the start of words (инший, инакше: 35 times; иноді), -ости in the genitive (сучасности, творчости: 24), ночи (19), од- for від- (одійшов, одкинув, одчинити), кватира (9), єсть (7), ґ in loanwords (фуґа) and -ія- in foreign words (пролетаріят, матеріялізм). Hence C1. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 30 637
- words
- 8
- words in an average sentence
- 5-9
- hours of reading
- 1927
- Державне видавництво України
Державне видавництво України, 1927. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Nine stories from the civil war and the first years of the New Economic Policy. In «Синій листопад» (“Blue November”), in a Cossack village of the North Caucasus three days before the 7 November holiday, brigade commissar Vadym, whom the regimental doctor gives only days to live, and Maria, a political worker in a soldier’s greatcoat, talk by a dying fire about the commune and about love. In «Кіт у чоботях» (“Puss in Boots”) the narrator writes a “little song” for comrade Zhuchok, a shaven-headed girl in khaki who went through the whole revolution, and meets her again as secretary of a party cell. In «Редактор Карк» a provincial newspaper editor in 1922 looks at the Browning on his desk and walks through a city that seems to have forgotten the revolution. «Арабески» has no plot at all: a poet whom Maria calls Nicolas loves the city, faraway Spain and the stories of Martínez Sierra, and runs a publishing house with comic colleagues. In «Свиня» (“The Pig”) a narrator who promises to talk about the pig “later” describes the tenants of one city house: Khaia and her meek Karl Ivanovych, the thesis-writing Raiskyi, frightened Zoia. In «Кімната ч. 2» (“Room No. 2”) Max, a Jewish clerk who reads Kant behind blue glasses, shares a hostel room with Vivdia, a party member who mocks him and will not marry him, until commissar Volskyi starts to call. In «Бараки, що за містом» (“The Barracks Outside Town”), under the German occupation of 1918, two orderlies at the barracks for the sick and dying read a poster of the underground revolutionary committee and decide to act. In «Солонський Яр» Savko Hordiienko, the new head of a village council, rides into the forest against the bandits of a ravine that serves them as a fortress. In «Юрко» a young communist back from the front works at a Donbas factory and lodges with the steelworker Ostap and his wife Natalka. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Синій листопад та інші новели
III. Редактор Карк
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Choose an underlined word.
Short lines are the style
One-word paragraphs such as “Пізно.” and “Ніч.” work like stage directions: late, night. A paragraph that opens with “…” jumps to another place or thought (“… Північний Кавказ.”). An ellipsis inside a line (“Але… ти мене розумієш…”) marks a pause or hesitation, not a cut. Огнище is the old form of вогнище; the same edition writes иноді and инший for today’s іноді and інший.
Verbs without a subject
“Жевріло блакиттю” has no subject: an impersonal verb in the neuter past with the instrumental case, “it glowed with blue”, that is, the sky glowed blue. Khvylovy uses the pattern often: пахло сливами (“it smelled of plums”), пахтить дубовим молодняком. The colon after “Так:” opens a list of what the editor sees, so read each clause as a separate shot.
Chapters
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
Khvylovy often packs a whole idea into one short line that is hard to read word by word, and that is where whole-sentence translation in Reader helps, for example Natalka’s remark in «Юрко»: “Мабуть, довго вчитися нам: революція наша, а слова не наші” (“We will have to learn for a long time, it seems: the revolution is ours, but the words are not”).
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s version: nine complete stories by Mykola Khvylovy, «Синій листопад», «Кіт у чоботях», «Редактор Карк», «Арабески», «Свиня», «Кімната ч. 2», «Бараки, що за містом», «Солонський Яр» and «Юрко». The selection and the order are the catalogue’s own: all nine are in volume I of his Works, but together with other pieces and in a different order. They were written and first published between 1923 and 1927; the latest, «Арабески», is dated 1927. The text follows volume I of Khvylovy’s Works (Державне видавництво України, Kharkiv, 1927) as transcribed on Wikisource, so the spelling is that edition’s: инший for today’s інший, сучасности for сучасності, одчинити for відчинити, кватира for квартира, пролетаріят for пролетаріат. Where the book marks a change of scene with a row of dots, the text has a paragraph «…». The epigraphs by Tychyna and by the Russian poet Aleksandrovsky that open «Редактор Карк» are the author’s and stay. Some characters use crude curses, and in «Кімната ч. 2» and «Бараки, що за містом» they mock Jews with offensive words of the period; the text is left as the author wrote it.
Is there an audiobook?
Blue November and Other Stories has no audiobook on MovaReader: the stories are read on screen. Tap a word to see its translation; you will need it from the first page for words such as журно (“sad, heavy at heart”, a word Vadym and Maria use for their mood) or приштокати (soldier slang in «Бараки, що за містом» for “to bump off”).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps where a short line carries a whole confession, for example Vadym’s words in «Синій листопад»: “Я теж романтик. Але романтика така: я закоханий у комуну” (“I am a romantic too. But my romance is this: I am in love with the commune”). Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole book takes about 5 to 9 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The stories differ in size: «Арабески» has about 5,800 words in two parts, «Редактор Карк» about 5,000 in eighteen short numbered parts, «Кімната ч. 2» about 3,300, «Синій листопад» about 3,200 in five parts, «Кіт у чоботях» about 3,100, «Свиня» about 3,000, «Бараки, що за містом» about 2,800, «Юрко» about 2,300 and «Солонський Яр» about 2,100. A story makes one or two sittings.
Where does the text get easier?
It is uneven. «Арабески» is the hardest (about 11 words per sentence, 11.2% long words), followed by «Редактор Карк» (8 words, 11.1%) and «Солонський Яр» (7 words, but 12.5% long words). «Кімната ч. 2», «Юрко» and «Кіт у чоботях» are lighter, with 8.5% to 9.7% long words and about 7 words per sentence; «Кімната ч. 2» tells the most straightforward story. The stories are independent, so you can start with chapter VI.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened. Any story also opens from the contents on this page, for example «Солонський Яр» (VIII. Солонський Яр).