A Godforsaken Hole

A Godforsaken Hole (1913- 14) is a biting satire on life in a remote military garrison in Siberia. The cast includes a lewd and lecherous general, the local society's petty dictator; a wife whose nine children have nine fathers; Lieutenant Polovets, a latter-day "superfluous" hero unable act on love or princi­ple; and Captain Schmidt and his wife Marusya, whose strange, passionate sadomasochistic relationship accounts for much of this work's power. Soon after A Godforsaken Hole was pub­lished, the journal in which it was printed was confiscated because of Zamyatin's "insult­ ing" portrait of the military and his "pornographic" expressions and details. Although A Godforsaken Hole is one of his early works, it contains the best of the mature Zamyatin: his wonderful expressionistic detail, love of erotic triangles, complex char­acterization and poetic structure.