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Rating: So sooner or later in a writer's life there comes a moment when one must choose between an early suicide or enforced isolation.
Wisely, Bakin Dmitri opted for the latter.
Born in 1964, Bakin Dmitri emerged from literary anonymity in 1996 with the publication of this book, only to retreat back into it and from there mock us.
It was enough for him to use a pseudonym (Bakin Dmitri, indeed), send his wife to receive the Anti-Booker Prize on his behalf directly from Mikhail Gorbachev, to continue his quiet life.
Now he apparently has a mustache, is a conservative, but upon reflection, all conservatives have mustaches, and he works as a truck driver.
The reasons for this retreat are unknown to us, but they are easy to imagine if we consider what media exposure can be like for those who achieve "fame".
On the other hand, this is not what we should be discussing.
The eight stories that make up "Terra D'Origine" were published in 2002 by minimum fax and appear distant both geographically and stylistically from the center of contemporary literature.
They lack the linear stylistic essentiality and even less the post-modern irony that Minimum Fax publishers have accustomed us to and that characterize the commercial and reference hub we are used to.
In the third person, with few terse dialogues and very simple plots.
They are imbued with dark symbolism and never offer a single interpretation.
The only common denominator seems to be a constant sense of estrangement and emptiness. Characters go from remembering nothing of their previous life to being at war with everyone.
With the will to recover something of their own, they fight against unknown entities.
This happens in "Terra D'Origine" where the protagonist remembers nothing of himself, and after marrying a stranger, he tries to rebuild his life with a shooting gallery stall. Personally, I particularly liked "Il Colmo Dei Colmi" and "Lagoftalmo", the second-to-last and last stories respectively.
Everything is more in touch with reality and therefore more understandable.
"Il Colmo Dei Colmi" talks about a train convoy, three men, and their destinies: how their future will go and where their dealings will lead them.
But the truly fascinating aspect is never in the individual plots.
The enviable talent of Dmitri lies in his ability to evoke and bring to life a sense of chaos and archaic confusion in his stories.
A kind of Russian Faulkner.
In the end, one has the feeling that Bakin Dmitri's stories (Dmitri Ghennadievich, his real name) have the same melancholic cadence as Skip James’ voice.
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