In this book, the French writer Sylvain Tesson spends six months, mostly alone, in a log cabin in Siberia. ‘Cold, silence and solitude are conditions that tomorrow will be more valuable than gold,’ he tells us. So, Tesson grabs these things while they are still relatively cheap. He is, you might say, a modern-day Whitman with the soul of a speculator. He escapes into discomfort, and finds it bracing and thought-provoking. In the end he’s quite sad to leave. But you never get the impression he wants to stay for ever.
He packs vodka, cigars and ten boxes of painkillers to deal with his hangovers. He also takes along a mini-library — Tournier, Lawrence, Camus, Sade, Casanova, Mishima. Uh-oh. Required reading for the young man in crisis, you think. He takes Tournier ‘for daydreaming’, Lawrence ‘for sensuality’ and Mishima ‘for steely coldness’. And ‘Sade and Casanova to stir up my blood’. He’s in his late thirties. There’s a woman in his life, a smudge of pain on his inner horizon; at one point she finishes with him. He goes for a long walk, in the ice and snow. He’s always going for long walks in the ice and snow.
I thought I’d rip through this book. But it’s not something you want to read fast. Tesson, who I came to like more and more, is trying to rearrange his relationship with time. Being alone, miles from anywhere, encourages him to sit still and watch things. ‘I spend two hours in the position of Dr Gachet as painted by Van Gogh,’ he tells us. He looks at birds. He’s constantly aware of animals. Bears, wolves. He ponders the Russian, and also the Slavic, soul. Compared to us cheese-paring, bean-counting Westerners, Russians are, in some ways, awesome.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in