Outdoor games

A new book by Pavel Krusanov, author of “The Angel’s Bite,” “The American Hole,” “The Dead Language,” and other equally unexpected and widely discussed works, this time about hunting. Yes, hunting in the classic, Turgenevian sense. But Krusanov wouldn’t be Krusanov if he were content with a banal collection of hunting stories about pursuing waterfowl and wild boar. And while the new book does contain such stories, they are told with such vividness, brilliance, and expertise that you feel as though you are stepping into the hero’s swamp boots yourself, squelching through the mire in anticipation of a lucky shot. In fact, the book is broader, deeper, and more astonishing than a mere account of shooting from a gun. Its geography extends beyond the Pskov region near Novorazhev. It also includes the Peruvian jungle with its secrets and nighttime fears. And many other paths lead us there, as the author immerses us in the complex, sometimes unpredictable world of the human inner “self.” And, of course, there is magic in the book, because, as the author said in one interview: “Literature is not just a game of words and meanings; it is the heir to verbal magic, the magic of incantation. Only in literature is the miracle it conjures up of a special kind. After reading a masterful book, the transformation does not happen from the outside, but within you. As a result, if only temporarily, you become different, and through you, the surrounding reality is transformed just a little.”