‘The Widow’ by Isaac Babel

The Widow by Isaac Babel, 1926

The magic trick:

Direct indirectness

A stray today from Babel’s Red Cavalry cycle. “The Widow” illustrates well his great gift for direct indirectness. The story moves quickly and covers much ground. There is death and sex and war.

So it’s easy for the reader to get the impression that we are receiving the story in a very direct manner – action begets action.

At the conclusion, though, as you’re catching your breath, trying to sort out what everything that just happened over the last five pages actually means, you realize that, though direct with its action, the story never once made plain what any of that action added up to.

The story is fast but requires slow analysis.

And that’s quite a trick on Babel’s part.

The selection:

They sat down in the tall grass. The wavering moon crept from behind the clouds and stopped over Sashka’s bare knee.

“You’re warming each other,” Shevelyov mumbled, “but it looks like the Fourteenth Division has been routed.”

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