“In “Le Mage du Kremlin”, there is a high risk of confusing magic and reality”

The Kremlin Magus, by Giuliano da Empoli (Gallimard, 2022), which won the Grand Prix du roman from the French Academy in October 2022, has won acclaim for its careful analysis of the psychology of the Kremlin eminences. The book presents itself as a fiction: the central character it portrays, Baranov, although inspired by a former adviser to Vladimir Putin, is almost entirely imaginary. Through him, the author takes us into the intimacy of the Russian President, the oligarch Boris Berezovski and other key figures of the Kremlin, such as the founder of the paramilitary organization Wagner, Yevgueni Prigojine – individuals as famous only inaccessible for the essayist, but which the novelist can invoke and make speak as he pleases. From there comes the “magic” of the book, which works wonderfully.

The problem with magic, however, is that it fascinates, and fascination does not mix well with the coolness of mind that “analysis” requires. However, the author, political scientist, does not cease to insist on this analytical vocation of his novel, supposed, according to him, to “close to reality” more effectively than an “essay”. Result: the sharpness of the analysis mixes with a stereotyped discourse which flatters our received image of Russia more than it enlightens it.

The figure who assumes the “analytical” function of the novel is the magician Baranov, who replaces the author-narrator from chapter 3. The transition is well orchestrated, the two men having a similar character and a common admiration for the Russian writer Evgueni Zamyatin and the French classics; the rapid disappearance of the quotation marks confirms their basic agreement, which is then obvious on almost every page.

Disengaged Observer

What is striking is first of all the detachment of this magician: even though he occupies a position of power, he is, from beginning to end, in a posture of disengaged observer. On several occasions, he marked his non-adherence to official policy; when Berezovski, in exile, definitively lost the favors of the Kremlin, he even showed his compassion for the fallen oligarch. His general posture of aesthetic participation in the great game of politics gives him an important capital of sympathy: he is presented as an analyst, full of a kind of romantic irony which allows him to comment, with a cool head, on reality without faith. nor law which he helps to build, and which he even sometimes contemplates bitterly.

Read the story of a book: Article reserved for our subscribers “Le Mage du Kremlin”, by Giuliano da Empoli: the Kremlin is worth a novel

This, it seems to us, is Giuliano da Empoli’s main magic wand: to mix his voice with that of a high representative of the Kremlin, to plunge the reader all the more willingly into the paranoid and criminal delusions of the Putinian clique, in order to understand them from the inside.

You have 71.01% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.

Source