Half the Story

...Partly at the request of Lili Brik herself, whom they met in 1972, the authors set out to redress the imbalance In the "Acknowledgments' Ann Charters says that they originally intended to write a "short, lyrical description of a love affair" (the book grew because of the complexity of the era) Yet the first question that needs to be dealt with is, whose love affair'' That Mayakovsky loved Lili is beyond doubt The quality of his love for her is made as explicit in some of his poems ("The Backbone Flute," "About That,' "Good") as it is implicit in the physical arrangements of his life He also loved Osip Brik, depending on him as a publisher, an arbiter of literary quarrels, a constant supporter, and a friend...

...Lili Brik, who committed suicide in 1978 at the age of 86 after breaking a hip and facing the possibility that she might not walk again, was the great love of Mayakovsky's life Between 1915-23, he dedicated most of his poetry to her, he lived with her and her husband, Osip Brik, off and on from 1915 till his death in 1930, in his suicide note he mentions Lili first in his list of family members, and addresses one line just to her "Lib, love me " He was a bigger-than-life man, and his love for Lili Brik was, like most of his emotions, outsized and hyperbolic Mayakovsky has been canonized by the Soviets, while Lili's role in his life has been, at least since 1968, almost totally excised from the official Mayakovskiana-the Mayakovsky museum, and the body of Soviet biographical and hagiographical literature...

...The Charters do not go very far beyond this well-known information Although, as they point out, he fiercely resented the condemnation of his work by large parts of the literary establishment in the late '20s, he had a chauffeur-driven car and trips abroad, perquisites denied to many of his friends Did he contrast his situation with theirs...

...Did he "set his heel" on worrisome, disloyal thoughts as well as on his lyricism'' What did he think of the secret police, the Cheka, with which the Briks were connected'' The Charters say that in their interviews with her, Lili Brik often "paraphrased and repeated" material she had published earlier By not probing in some of these areas, they let slip rare opportunities to illuminate intriguing aspects of the poet...

...But whether Lili reciprocated Mayakovsky's passion is a different matter altogether She was his mistress for several years, and she recognized his need for her Apart from this recognition, however, and an understandable pride that she should be the choice and inspiration of such an outstanding poet, her feelings are unclear She forced a two-month separation between them in 1923, she had other lovers, she lived with Brik only until Mayakovsky's death and soon thereafter moved in with a civil war hero (From 1937 until the '70s she lived with a Mayakovsky scholar named Katanyan...

...Another unasked question has to do with Mayakovsky's attitude toward his times, especially the gradual constriction of the Soviet cultural scene The poet found Communism satisfying for both political and emotional reasons, and he fully supported the Revolution He composed many poems celebrating it, produced captions for posters and assorted campaigns, and wrote an encomium to Lenin Yet shortly before his death he used the famous image of "setting my heel/on the throat/of my own song," suggesting his full awareness of the price he had paid by sacrificing his lyric poetry to the exigencies of the era...

...Edward Brown, in his excellent study Mayakovsky A Poet in the Revolution, says flatly that Lili didn't love Vladimir The Charters-almost as if she were still alive, and in need of some sort of protection-evade exploring this central issue They do not come to grips either with her psyche or, equally pertinent, that of her husband, who after all was one corner of the triangle that lasted so long We are merely informed, rather vaguely, that Lili found no sexual satisfaction with any man until after Mayakovsky's death, and that she was hurt by her husband's sexual rejection of her after only a year of marriage Indeed, one has the unworthy thought that Lib Brik was not a particularly interesting or attractive person, that her luster stems only from the love she evoked in Mayakovsky, and that the Charters know this but won't admit it...

...Mayakovsky Square, in Moscow, is dominated by an immense statue of the poet The legs alone tower over passers-by A translator and long-time friend of Mayakovsky and the Briks (who, incidentally, gave the Charters a lot of help) mentioned to me last summer that people who knew Mayakovsky contemptuously dismiss the statue as "Monument to Trousers " It conveys nothing of the man as he really was, she said I Love manages to convey an inkling of Mayakovsky and Lili Brik as, for better or worse, they were, but it doesn't do much more...

...Still, if the Charters don't satisfy one's appetite for insights (although here popular biography has, perhaps, more potential than scholarly works), they do present an orderly, readable account of the facts of both Mayakovsky and Lili Brik's lives Moreover, for those unacquainted with Mayakovsky's work, there are generous samples of many of his poems in good translations, and for those who tend to dismiss him because of his official halo, the excerpts are a good reminder that he did, in fact, have great talent...

...Half the Story I Love: The Story of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lili Brik By Ann and Samuel Charters Farrar Straus & Giroux 398 pp $17 50 Reviewed by Josephine Woll Assistant Professor of Russian Literature, Howard University Popular biography has its problems If an author ignores or misuses scholarly sources, he provokes sniping by the specialists If he uses those sources to the extent of footnoting every reference, he discourages the very audience he is aiming at, the nonspecialists Ann and Samuel Charters, in their biography of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lili Brik, thread their way through the minefields with some success Unfortunately, they also miss the large, albeit risky, satisfactions of the genre by not even asking, let alone answering, the large, admittedly difficult, questions...