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lexcellent's review
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
maryannelise's review
5.0
Lebedev's artistic invention unites Russia's impending collapse with silence, with predetermination, with signs, with sacrifice, with intergenerational burdens, with each of our smallness and search for purpose, through a child's lens.
Lebedev: A genius of writing and reflection; A genius of showcasing torment, fear, and isolation. He perfectly asks 'Who are we?' in relation to 'Who should we be?'
"The pendulum swayed continually, and I swung one way and then the other, living in two registers of perception, two planes of existence. In one, reality around me was a cardboard shell hiding the entrance to the real past... In the second, the secret of the past was not horrible, but entertaining... You could climb into a pit, descending deeper and deeper without realizing that the entire construction was artificial; that was why you didn't know where to put the spaces of silence... The temptation was always to admit that those spaces were nonexistent, that they were the fruit of my imagination; to seek myself only within the Soviet historical myths, to consider them as having a real existence. In choosing myth, you acquired the richest milieu for self-definition, self-construction, for fantasy; in admitting the veracity of the spaces of silence, you found yourself alone, in a bare, viewless place. The choice was a constant motif throughout your life: constantly balancing on the edge, leaning one way then the other, flickering, living in completeness, rechecking your feelings: Who are you, a lonely, impotent spy or a rightful heir to the past...? The former demanded patience and the ability to live without hope, the latter, bravery and desperate belief; and so I took both paths, thinking I was taking one, unable to distinguish the obstacles along the different roads." (84-85)
Lebedev: A genius of writing and reflection; A genius of showcasing torment, fear, and isolation. He perfectly asks 'Who are we?' in relation to 'Who should we be?'
"The pendulum swayed continually, and I swung one way and then the other, living in two registers of perception, two planes of existence. In one, reality around me was a cardboard shell hiding the entrance to the real past... In the second, the secret of the past was not horrible, but entertaining... You could climb into a pit, descending deeper and deeper without realizing that the entire construction was artificial; that was why you didn't know where to put the spaces of silence... The temptation was always to admit that those spaces were nonexistent, that they were the fruit of my imagination; to seek myself only within the Soviet historical myths, to consider them as having a real existence. In choosing myth, you acquired the richest milieu for self-definition, self-construction, for fantasy; in admitting the veracity of the spaces of silence, you found yourself alone, in a bare, viewless place. The choice was a constant motif throughout your life: constantly balancing on the edge, leaning one way then the other, flickering, living in completeness, rechecking your feelings: Who are you, a lonely, impotent spy or a rightful heir to the past...? The former demanded patience and the ability to live without hope, the latter, bravery and desperate belief; and so I took both paths, thinking I was taking one, unable to distinguish the obstacles along the different roads." (84-85)
sjfurger's review
4.0
Lebedev's prose is lyrical and truly lovely. The story of a boy's coming of age as the Soviet Union teeters on the brink of collapse. Some passages made me sick, some made my heart sing. Truly a lovely novel.
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