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A review by minniepauline
Brisbane by Eugene Vodolazkin
4.0
Thank you, Plough, for sending me a copy of this remarkable book. There is a lot to unpack here, and I'll be thinking about Gleb and his story for quite a while.
Gleb Yanovsky is a world-renown musician. Raised in Ukraine by a Russian mother and grandmother and a mostly absentee Ukranian father, he leaves for college in Soviet Russia where he meets his wife, Katya - an East German citizen. The novel follows Gleb from the time he is a small boy to the end of his music career at age 50, when he is diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease. It is told mostly in Gleb's voice, but we are reading his biography, which is being written during the course of the novel, by a Russian writer he meets on a plane.
The weaving of political and ideological history with personal story is interesting in itself. But what fascinated me most about Gleb is the way he sees the world. Which is, and always has been, through music. Even when he thinks he's given it up, it's hardwired in him. Through rhythm, through melody, through the layering of voices and the movement of water. He hears it all and it speaks to him, and through him to us as readers.
This is not a book to rush through. It is to be savored, as I imagine Gleb's music, if it existed, would be.
Gleb Yanovsky is a world-renown musician. Raised in Ukraine by a Russian mother and grandmother and a mostly absentee Ukranian father, he leaves for college in Soviet Russia where he meets his wife, Katya - an East German citizen. The novel follows Gleb from the time he is a small boy to the end of his music career at age 50, when he is diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease. It is told mostly in Gleb's voice, but we are reading his biography, which is being written during the course of the novel, by a Russian writer he meets on a plane.
The weaving of political and ideological history with personal story is interesting in itself. But what fascinated me most about Gleb is the way he sees the world. Which is, and always has been, through music. Even when he thinks he's given it up, it's hardwired in him. Through rhythm, through melody, through the layering of voices and the movement of water. He hears it all and it speaks to him, and through him to us as readers.
This is not a book to rush through. It is to be savored, as I imagine Gleb's music, if it existed, would be.