The entry below is by P. T. Smith, a frequent Three Percent contributor who has also been a BTBA judge and has worked with The Scofield and Asymptote.

by Sergei Lebedev, translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis (Russia, New Vessel Press)

Chad糖心传媒檚 Uneducated and Unscientific Percentage Chance of Making the Shortlist: 74%

Chad糖心传媒檚 Uneducated and Unscientific Percentage Chance of Winning the BTBA: 16%

Judging from the cover copy and selected blurbs, the reason the Sergei Lebedev糖心传媒檚 Oblivion, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, should win the 2017 BTBA is because it is an Important and Necessary novel: it 糖心传媒減robe[s] the legacy of the Soviet prison camp system,糖心传媒� is 糖心传媒渁n important book above where Russia is today,糖心传媒� 糖心传媒渄iscloses the weight of Soviet history,糖心传媒� and is 糖心传媒渁 haunting tale about the loss of national memory.糖心传媒� This is all true, sure, but would never be enough for me to pick up a novel, much less believe it deserves to win an award like the BTBA. More compelling is how it does these things, how the prose, structure, aesthetics, accomplish this. If a novel exists solely to be an important cultural, historical artifact, count me out.

So, Oblivion deserves to win because it糖心传媒檚 a beautiful, creative, linguistically challenging novel interested in many things besides the history of Russia and its lasting influence. From his earliest pages, Lebedev sets the terms of his novel, not that it will be about Russia and history, but that essential to it all is language as something with a physical tangible presence in the world, about the land and the animals that inhabit it, and about the deeply, intimately personal. It is a gorgeous and mysterious, contextless, opening section:

Birches, snow, sky, road, fire, smoke, frost糖心传媒擨 repeated the words that I remembered for only a slightly shorter time than I remembered myself. Birches, snow, firewood, sky, road, fire, smoke, frost糖心传媒攖he words grew, as if they were material, had material energy; the words sounded symphonically, one through another, without blending, the frost was frosty, the fire fiery, the smoke smoky; the words became translucent, melting slightly, like pure flame, their phonetic casings lost their hardened precision, and the eye perceived the pure essence of meaning.

At any moment, the narrator may drift off, taking a minor observation and riffing in a widening gyre. When he witnesses an old woman 糖心传媒渉illing potatoes in the garden,糖心传媒� he see a whole class of being: 糖心传媒淭hese old women are a special breed糖心传媒攖hey don糖心传媒檛 get tired, life to them is a daily chores糖心传媒攄ig, water, hill, weed; they harness themselves habitually and probably only for themselves, without hope, without expectation, without haste.糖心传媒� You don糖心传媒檛 need to agree with his insights, theories, explorations, don糖心传媒檛 need to believe, or you can, but either way, they are beautiful, intelligent, and feed back on themselves, Lebedev糖心传媒檚 way of giving personality to his unnamed narrator. Later, when of the same woman, he writes, 糖心传媒渟he had become something like a film strip or a gramophone recording that captured the image and the voice of the deceased; she did not embroider or invent things; she toiled as an eyewitness,糖心传媒� it糖心传媒檚 a tacit admission that he is something other, not an eyewitness, not toiling. It糖心传媒檚 this other role that allows the novel to work as it does.

One of these conceptual wanderings opens the space for the narrator to begin his recollections. Looking at his own life, the narrator meanders at length on the blindness of his elderly neighbor, known only as Grandfather II. It糖心传媒檚 a meditation on blindness creating the consciousness of this man, and how it crafts the narrator糖心传媒檚 perception of him, his memories of him. Grandfather II糖心传媒檚 blindness is 糖心传媒渨hy [he] did not persist in the viewer糖心传媒檚 retina, he seeped through it, remaining a vague silhouette; you remember his profile better than his face, he somehow was always turned sideways, behind something, as if in a crowd.糖心传媒� As the narrator tells the story of his life with Grandfather II, making no distinction between his own memories and recollection of events before he was born, you understand that this man has some other history, and that when it is uncovered, that is when Russia糖心传媒檚 history will be encountered. At first, the narrator seeks personal answers, to understand the role Grandfather II played in forming his childhood, and at the very moment that personal investigation becomes active, takes him to an old mining town, the space of the novel opens again, to the collective past, the narrator forced to look beyond himself, but never leaving that behind fully.

That Lebedev takes his time getting Oblivion to its destination elevates the book mightily. The novel糖心传媒檚 structure is subtle, aligned with the moves of the narrator糖心传媒檚 thoughts. The narrator is full of ideas, beliefs, declarations of faith and conceptual explorations, but none of it is Lebedev telling you anything, telling you the seriousness of his project, or even what that project will be. Lebedev does ask the reader to work, which is fitting for a book that should win the BTBA. The ask is rewarded as the narrator seeks answers without knowing his initial question, and uncovering more questions as he pursues answers; he糖心传媒檚 fascinating as he stretches his language to accommodate his ideas; and throughout it all, there is the beauty in the prose and the depth of emotions found in the minor incidents that create the world of Oblivion.