Kharms is here because he is a wonder but also to refute those evil Amazon and marketing-department algorithms that assume I have a single-track mind and that if I like one kind of writer I cannot possibly like a completely different species of writer.
The carpenter Kushakov goes out to buy some glue and slips on the pavement and busts his head. Goes to a drugstore and buys a bandage and tapes up his head. Goes out again and slips and busts his nose. Buys a bandage and tapes up his nose. Goes out again and slips and busts his cheek. Buys a bandage and tapes up his cheek. Goes out again and slips and busts his chin. Buys a bandage and … Back home no one recognises him and they lock the door. “The carpenter Kushakov stood awhile on the landing, spat and went outside.”
Around the time I first read this story my near-neighbour slipped on an icy pavement and put out his hand to break his fall and broke his wrist. And the next day he slipped again and put out the arm that was not in plaster and broke his other wrist. Kushakov reminds me of the old lady who swallowed a fly – and then spider to catch fly, and then bird to catch spider, and then cat to catch bird … Eventually, horse to catch cow. “She’s dead, of course.” Kharms’s blend of absurd logic and structural repetition and violence surely appeals to children. I’m going to read Daniil Kharms to my grandchildren.
Published in Today I Wrote Nothing, The Overlook Press, 2009; online version here
A Personal Anthology 