The Funeral Party

Ludmila Ulitskaya's The Funeral Party. Set in a sweltering New York, the story unfolds in the hospital room of Alik, a painter nearing the end of his life. As his wife, former lovers, and friends come and go, Alik prepares to face his death.
I found myself wanting to read a weighty, comprehensive novel, so I headed to the Russian literature shelf. That is where I picked this up.

As the title suggests, The Funeral Party portrays death not as a tragedy, but as a celebration of life. Yet, for some reason, I couldn't quite immerse myself in this celebration. (After all, he had too many women he loved.)

Perhaps it was because the lingering impression of Daniel Stein, Interpreter, which I read previously, was still with me. In that book, one person's life connected to the grand history of the twentieth century—the Holocaust, religion, ethnicity, nationhood, and exile. As I read through the letters, diaries, and records, I was overwhelmed by the vastness of the world that stretched out behind a single life.

Maybe that's why. In The Funeral Party, many people gather, and each carries so much with them. And yet, it felt small to me.

Of course, the gaze characteristic of Ulitskaya was present here as well. People who have left Russia do not let go of their homeland's food or music, and they gather around Alik while still carrying their different religions, nationalities, and pasts. Even in the face of death, people eat, drink, fall in love, and argue. That resilience, refusing to let life end in sorrow alone, is truly dazzling. Perhaps the 'coexistence' Ulitskaya depicts lies in being able to be together without fully understanding one another, rather than in mutual understanding.

But I think understanding something and being moved by it are two different things. I suppose what I was looking for was different. I had picked it up wanting to read a novel that held a larger world. (I should have guessed from the title!)

Even so, when I finished reading it, one thing left a strange impression on me. While depicting death so boisterously, Ulitskaya does not erase the sorrow itself. In the gaps between the laughter, the meals, and the music, the loneliness of facing a dying person remains, settled like sediment.

The brushwork that depicts the massive swells of history and the brushwork that depicts the bustle of a small room on the verge of death. I felt once again that the ability to distinguish between these two extremes is the unfathomable depth of Ulitskaya as a writer.