''Stet'' is a novel by the American author James Chapman, published by

Fugue State Press Fugue State Press (established 1992) is a small New York City fiction publisher, specializing in the experimental novel. Novelist James Chapman is the founder and publisher. It has published 28 titles to date, including work by Chapman, Josh ...

in 2006.

Plot summary

''Stet'' tells the life story of a visionary

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

filmmaker named Stet who lives through Stalin's repressions, manages to direct his first feature film, but ends up in a prison camp for various offenses against the bureaucracy. The novel is narrated in a "Russian" voice, by an ostensible third-person narrator who is nevertheless full of opinions and bitter aphorisms. Despite his third-person status, the narrator seems to be a major character in the book. The tone of the book is

black humor Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

, and often entirely pessimistic, as it delineates the difficulties of living as an artist who does not accept or worry about the judgments of his surrounding world. Yet the character of the filmmaker Stet, to whom aesthetic ecstasy remains available throughout his trials, seems to give the reader an alternative to the pessimism of the narrator.

Themes

*Stet is a proofreader's mark which means "let it stand," i.e. "ignore this correction." In the context of the novel, the character's name seems to be a plea that the world cease to "correct" him, and allow him his way along his incorrect path. *The filmmaker depicted here sometimes bears a strong resemblance to

Sergei Parajanov Sergei Iosifovich Parajanov (January 9, 1924 – July 20, 1990) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter. He is regarded by film critics, film historians and filmmakers to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Parajanov was born to ...

, a Soviet-era filmmaker who was repeatedly imprisoned for his work.

References

External links

Publisher's page for ''Stet''
by

Travis Jeppesen Travis Jeppesen is an American novelist, playwright, poet, artist, and art critic. He is known, among other works, for his novels ''Settlers Landing'' and '' The Suiciders''; a non-fiction novel about North Korea, ''See You Again in Pyongyang''; a ...

2006 American novels Postmodern novels Novels set in the Soviet Union {{postmodern-novel-stub