Yama (The Pit) - Alexander Kuprin

Written between 1909 and 1915 in three parts by the enfant terrible of Russian literature, Alexander Kuprin's Yama is an extraordinarily frank and in-depth look at the nature of prostitution that must certainly have been revolutionary for its time as it is no less powerful and relevant today. The novel recounts the lives of the prostitutes of a run-down outlying district of a large southern Russian town of Odessa, the district known as Yamaskaya, or, more commonly, Yama - The Pit.

Inevitably, the depiction of the impoverished circumstances of the lifestyle of the girls at Anna Markovna's house of ill repute – a lower quality 2-rouble establishment on Little Yamaskaya (the more upmarket brothels operating in Greater Yamaskaya) – is grim, sordid and degrading, but the novel looks realistically at the outlook maintained by the women and the lives that they have escaped from that permits them to endure the hardships of their profession. Some of the clients are indeed foul and the women are at the mercy of murderous pimps, but each of the girls although inclined to gossip and compete with each other, are determined to please as women, wishing to be seen or treated as special – a perhaps surprising notion, but one that is clearly accurately related to basic human nature.

That kind of perceptive observation is related, by extension through the clients from all walks of life that the women receive, out into society in general, reflecting other less savoury aspects of Russian life, attitudes and behaviour. Divided into three parts, it's expansive in this respect, considering the social and moral implications of prostitution, examining the case of one woman Liubka who leaves the brothel under the tutelage of a "benefactor", and that of another, Jennka, who succumbs to the psychological pressures and medical hazards of the prostitute, taking in along the way journalists, students and a baroness, all of them trying to form a moral view on the subject that they can reconcile with their own natures, as well as a travelling salesman who traffics the women from one part of the country to another and in the process even extending his business into a multinational operation.

Yama is an extensive and expansive look then at all aspects of the commerce of prostitution, the need for the profession and the morality of it as it relates to different parts of society, but it's no mere academic exercise. There is a remarkable degree of detail accurately observed in the psychology and behaviour of many of the characters, the whole subject vividly and colourfully depicted with a remarkable degree of precision and authenticity.