Unapologetic Absurdity

Lithuanian born writer and theoretical physicist Ričardas Gavelis is perhaps most known to western audiences for his book Vilnius Poker (1989), a scathing indictment of post-soviet Lithuania that finds Gavelis characterizing his country as a headless and ignorant nation. First published in 1989, this politically charged mix of fantasy, eroticism, and philosophy rocked Eastern Europe in the middle of the USSR’s slow descent toward disintegration. Although Sun-Tzu’s Life in the Holy City of Vilnius was initially published more than a decade later, the themes within this work remain similar to the challenging and incendiary content of Vilnius Poker, its sister novel.

Sun-Tzu’s Life in the Holy City of Vilnius, translated by Elizabeth Novickas and published in the United States by Pica Pica Press, follows the life of a narrator who calls himself the Sun-Tzu of Vilnius, a typically direct Gavelis style persona that allows the author to characterize his narrator through external means. As we all learned in history class, Sun-Tzu was the Chinese general and strategist most famous for his book The Art of War, a collection of strategic, instructional, and often even philosophical writings on the ways in which war should be waged. Gavelis’s narrator takes on this persona in the context of post-Soviet Lithuania. However, unlike the original Sun-Tzu, Gavelis’s character is far from the refined voice of reason that permeates the narrative structure in The Art of War. Instead, Gavelis frames his Sun-Tzu as an anti-hero, a criminal and sex addict who is the product of his time and of his upbringing in the Soviet era.

Stylistically, Sun-Tzu’s Life in the Holy City of Vilnius is an aggressive book. The information comes at the reader at an incredible pace, and the lyricism and detail that is required in translation is a testament to Novickas’s talent, not just as a translator of Gavelis’s words but also as the steward of the fraught and extremely detailed universe that Gavelis has painstakingly crafted. Throughout the text, the descriptions of sexuality and violence are sometimes startlingly direct. However, Gavelis avoids crossing over any lines that might alienate a reader by stylizing his disturbing descriptions in a way that resembles the magical realism of authors like Gabriel García Márquez or Miguel Ángel Asturias, and because of these stylistic choices, Gavelis finds ways to make his often-overwrought descriptions feel necessary. Gavelis wields his penchant for the absurd and fantastic as a chisel to sculpt images that are reflective of the ways in which he sees that Lithuania and its people have been exploited and, in turn, forced to work within a system of corruption. This critical perspective is a lot for readers to take in, especially those readers who might not be familiar with the historical and socio-political context of Gevalis’s evaluation. However, the stylistic choices that fortify his post-modern adaptation of magical realism disarms readers and allow them to receive his harsh social commentary. For example, Sun Tzu’s formative years provide Gavelis an opportunity to use the strengths of stylistic literalism to his advantage as he describes Sun-Tzu’s “first father” as an “interim coffin designer,” and a “deconstructionist” who “didn’t deconstruct someone’s despicable written texts, but rather all the Lord’s creation.” This unique metaphorical persona sucks readers into the character of the first father. However, all of this description ultimately still culminates in poignant tragedy when the KGB catches on to the first father’s work and has him arrested and killed for supposedly organizing a nationalist group.

These moments of spectacular metaphor and absurdity challenge and confront the reader throughout the novel. However, some of these moments bare the historical weight and narrative direction of the novel better than others. Sometimes there is a feeling that the reader is being forced to confront absurdity simply for the...