A review by steller0707
Odessa Stories by Isaac Babel

4.0

The Odessa Stories are a set of tales of life in Old Odessa, giving a glimpse of life in the early 1900s in Russia. The characters are Jews - old men and women, gangsters, and priests - and their neighborhood, Moldavanka. The same characters reappear across several stories. There are parties and jokes, along with trickery and malice, showing the strains changeover from a czarist state to a workers' government.