Book Review: Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass, by Dmitri Aleksandrovich Yemets
The Russian "cultural response" to Harry Potter.
Litres, 2002, 252 pages
The black sorceress Plague-del-Cake, whose name they dread even to utter aloud, climbing to power, destroys the brilliant magicians one by one. Among her victims is the remarkable white magician Leopold Grotter. His daughter Tanya, by some unknown means, manages to avoid death, but on the tip of her nose, a mysterious birthmark remains for life... Plague-del-Cake mysteriously disappears, and Tanya Grotter turns out to be abandoned to the family of businessman Durnev, her distant relative... She lives with this extremely unpleasant family until the age of ten, and then finds herself in the unique world of the Tibidox School of Magic...
I've been intrigued by the Tanya Grotter series since I first heard of it. An obvious parody of the Harry Potter series, the first book was written in 2002, and since then, Russian author Dmitri Aleksandrovich Yemets has written eleven Tanya Grotter books. They're bestsellers in Russia, where copyright doesn't exist (just kidding but not really), but an initial attempt to publish them in translation was blocked by J.K. Rowling and Time Warner.
So I was rather surprised to find English translations available for sale. That said, I suspect this is very much not an official translation. The writing is klunky and unfluent, and some of the translations are downright bizarre. For example, I'm told by Wikipedia that the Voldemort-like villainess in the books is named Chuma-del-Tort, but in the English edition I read, she's called "Plague-del-Cake." Muggles are supposedly called "Lopukhoids", but this version translates it as "Moronoid."
I have a Russian-speaking friend who has read the originals and told me that while it's not Tolstoy, the Russian prose is fine.
As for the story itself, it doesn't even pretend not to be copying Harry Potter. When the great white wizard Leopold Grotter and his wife (who's never even named) are killed by the black sorceress Plague-del-Cake, "She-Who-Is-No-More," their infant daughter Tanya miraculously survives, with a strange birthmark on her nose. She is sent to live with her horrible Aunt and Uncle Durnev and their awful daughter Pipa, who bully and abuse Tanya for eleven years, until a boy named Bab-Yagun flies to her room one day and informs her that she's a witch and will soon escape the world of the Moronoids to come to the Tibidox School of Magic.
The plot from there proceeds in very similar fashion to Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. Tanya is a feisty, spirited girl, much less passive than Harry, but generally good-natured, not even harboring any hatred for the Durnevs, just a mild antipathy. She makes friends at Tibidox, including a pair of best buddies, Bab-Yagun and Vanka Valyalkin, establishes a rivalry with her roommate, a black magician named Coffinia Cryptova, turns out to be a prodigy flying on her magic double bass and becomes a champion in the school's dragonball tournament, and eventually has to face the risen-from-the-dead Plague-del-Cake and her secret minion. The Dumbledore-figure is Sardanapal Chernomorov; the friendly female mentor is Medusa Gorgonova (yes, she has snakes for hair). There's also a Snape, and ghosts, and instead of wands they all carry magic rings that throw sparks when they cast spells.
The author said that Tanya Grotter was not a satire but a "cultural response" to Harry Potter, and while the imitation is very obvious, Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass isn't just Harry Potter with Russian names. Yemets created a very Russian setting full of classical references to Russian fairy tales and literature. (The first book even has an appendix explaining many of the references.) Tibidox doesn't have "Houses"; it's divided into black and white magicians. Its guardians include Titans and kikimora and domovoy. There are Pushkin jokes, and while I couldn't get all the puns, it was obvious that in Russian it must be full of them.
Yemets has also said that he considers Tanya Grotter to be too Russian to "live a full life" elsewhere, and indeed, outside of Russia, Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass will probably only appeal to curious Harry Potter fans. That said, I understand that in later books, Yemets stops imitating Rowling's plot and Tanya goes wildly off into her own storyline, so I may read the next few books to see what happens.
My complete list of book reviews.
Litres, 2002, 252 pages
The black sorceress Plague-del-Cake, whose name they dread even to utter aloud, climbing to power, destroys the brilliant magicians one by one. Among her victims is the remarkable white magician Leopold Grotter. His daughter Tanya, by some unknown means, manages to avoid death, but on the tip of her nose, a mysterious birthmark remains for life... Plague-del-Cake mysteriously disappears, and Tanya Grotter turns out to be abandoned to the family of businessman Durnev, her distant relative... She lives with this extremely unpleasant family until the age of ten, and then finds herself in the unique world of the Tibidox School of Magic...
I've been intrigued by the Tanya Grotter series since I first heard of it. An obvious parody of the Harry Potter series, the first book was written in 2002, and since then, Russian author Dmitri Aleksandrovich Yemets has written eleven Tanya Grotter books. They're bestsellers in Russia, where copyright doesn't exist (just kidding but not really), but an initial attempt to publish them in translation was blocked by J.K. Rowling and Time Warner.
So I was rather surprised to find English translations available for sale. That said, I suspect this is very much not an official translation. The writing is klunky and unfluent, and some of the translations are downright bizarre. For example, I'm told by Wikipedia that the Voldemort-like villainess in the books is named Chuma-del-Tort, but in the English edition I read, she's called "Plague-del-Cake." Muggles are supposedly called "Lopukhoids", but this version translates it as "Moronoid."
I have a Russian-speaking friend who has read the originals and told me that while it's not Tolstoy, the Russian prose is fine.
As for the story itself, it doesn't even pretend not to be copying Harry Potter. When the great white wizard Leopold Grotter and his wife (who's never even named) are killed by the black sorceress Plague-del-Cake, "She-Who-Is-No-More," their infant daughter Tanya miraculously survives, with a strange birthmark on her nose. She is sent to live with her horrible Aunt and Uncle Durnev and their awful daughter Pipa, who bully and abuse Tanya for eleven years, until a boy named Bab-Yagun flies to her room one day and informs her that she's a witch and will soon escape the world of the Moronoids to come to the Tibidox School of Magic.
The plot from there proceeds in very similar fashion to Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. Tanya is a feisty, spirited girl, much less passive than Harry, but generally good-natured, not even harboring any hatred for the Durnevs, just a mild antipathy. She makes friends at Tibidox, including a pair of best buddies, Bab-Yagun and Vanka Valyalkin, establishes a rivalry with her roommate, a black magician named Coffinia Cryptova, turns out to be a prodigy flying on her magic double bass and becomes a champion in the school's dragonball tournament, and eventually has to face the risen-from-the-dead Plague-del-Cake and her secret minion. The Dumbledore-figure is Sardanapal Chernomorov; the friendly female mentor is Medusa Gorgonova (yes, she has snakes for hair). There's also a Snape, and ghosts, and instead of wands they all carry magic rings that throw sparks when they cast spells.
The author said that Tanya Grotter was not a satire but a "cultural response" to Harry Potter, and while the imitation is very obvious, Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass isn't just Harry Potter with Russian names. Yemets created a very Russian setting full of classical references to Russian fairy tales and literature. (The first book even has an appendix explaining many of the references.) Tibidox doesn't have "Houses"; it's divided into black and white magicians. Its guardians include Titans and kikimora and domovoy. There are Pushkin jokes, and while I couldn't get all the puns, it was obvious that in Russian it must be full of them.
Yemets has also said that he considers Tanya Grotter to be too Russian to "live a full life" elsewhere, and indeed, outside of Russia, Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass will probably only appeal to curious Harry Potter fans. That said, I understand that in later books, Yemets stops imitating Rowling's plot and Tanya goes wildly off into her own storyline, so I may read the next few books to see what happens.
My complete list of book reviews.