Russia for Beginners: A Literary Course for Edward Snowden

So many of us say, “If only I had the time to read, I would read the classics.”

Anton Chekhov

Edward J. Snowden has the time, and now he has the classics. Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor facing legal repercussions for the release of classified information, has been ensconced in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport waiting to find out if he will be granted asylum.

His Russian lawyer earlier this week left him a shopping bag with books by Dostoyevsky, Chekhov and Nikolai Karamzin to help him learn about Russian reality.

According to news accounts, the lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, gave his client Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” the tale of law, order and redemption, telling him, “You should know who Raskolnikov was.” He added that the Chekhov was “for dessert,” and also provided him with the writings of Karamzin, a historian, for background on the nation’s development.

One has to ask: Is Dostoevsky really the best choice? Raskolnikov could hardly be expected to cheer up Mr. Snowden. Sonya, the girl whose love saves Raskolnikov’s soul, may remind him of Lindsay Mills, the pole-dancing, exhibitionist girlfriend he left behind.

As for Karamzin, the court historian to Tzar Alexander I who began his 12-volume “History of the Russian State” in 1816, one might ask how such a work would shed light on the Russia of Vladimir Putin. The Harvard professor emeritus Richard Pipes has written that Karamzin believed his country “thrived under autocracy” and suggested Mr. Putin might be an admirer.

Welcome to Russia, Mr. Snowden!

Are there better Russian books to help Mr. Snowden get to know the Russian soul? One could do worse than to read Gogol, whose absurdist short story “The Nose” could help Mr. Snowden understand that living in Russia might not make any more sense than living in the United States. And Tolstoy - well, no matter how much time Mr. Snowden has, he may not have enough time for Tolstoy.

Gary Shteyngart, the Russian-born author whose novels deftly blend comedy and heartbreak, suggested “Oblomov” by Ivan Goncharov. This 19th-century novel has a protagonist who would be familiar to many men in their 20s and 30s today: a young fellow who has enormous privilege but can barely stir himself to move from his bed to his chair, a proto-slacker imbued with Russian gravity.

“Snowden should find himself a tatty couch somewhere deep in the Moscow suburbs and furnish it with a plate of pickles and some vodka,” Mr. Shteyngart said. “A good source of wi-fi should complement the Oblomovian lifestyle nicely.”
The protagonist of Mr. Shteyngart’s novel “Absurdistan,” Misha Vainberg, has a touch of Oblomov and a Snowdenian twist: he finds himself trapped in a Hyatt hotel in that fictional country, unable to get back to the United States and surrounded by contractors for Halliburton who seem to have a part in the country’s slide toward civil war. It could all be too close for comfort â€" but then, literature is not necessarily about comfort.

Why should Mr. Snowden confine himself to the literature of Russia? After all, Edward Everett Hale wrote a book that must absolutely resonate with Mr. Snowden and his plight: “Man Without a Country,” whose main figure is tried for treason and cries out before the judge, “I wish I may never hear of the United States again!” Walter Kirn’s “Up in the Air” would continue the travel theme. John le Carré’s George Smiley offers glimpses into Russian life that ring with gloomy authenticity.

The French, who gave us the word ennui and sharpened the concept of existentialism, produced the works that may most help Mr. Snowden adjust to his new life, especially those of Jean-Paul Sartre. What novel better describes his situation than “No Exit”?