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A review by desertjarhead505
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen
5.0
Outstanding. Masha Gessen does a superlative job of researching and then explaining, methodically and in depth but in a way that is hard to put down nonetheless, the intertwined histories of the nation and culture of Russia and of Vladimir Putin, from his childhood to the time she finished the book in 2012.
The effect is ultimately deeply sad, grieving over not only the individual casualties of Putin's ruthlessly sociopathic climb to absolute power and the enshrinement of the anti-LGBTQ hate movement as a core of Russian society, but also over the loss of the Russia that could have been. For a brief time after the end of the USSR, there was a real possibility Russia could flower into a free society. Putin and his allies utterly crushed that possibility to create a mafia state that is more oppressive than anything that country has endured since Stalin.
Unlike its glamorous portrayals in fictional characters like Milton's Satan, Hannibal Lecter, and Dexter, real evil is not clever and tragically self-aware. It's shallow, oblivious, petty, pointlessly vicious, devoid of introspection, and empty. Gessen shows that Putin is such a person.
President Biden reportedly told Putin recently (as of this writing in March 2021) that he, Biden, didn't believe Putin had a soul.
I have not met Putin, nor gazed into his eyes a la Bush 43 and thought I was gauging his true nature. But working in mental health with adult prison inmates and adolescent gang members, I got to know a number of people who were just that type - shallow, oblivious, petty, pointlessly vicious, devoid of introspection, and empty. I'm not qualified to diagnose possession of a soul, but I surely didn't see evidence of any in a lot of those people. Putin belongs in prison rather than in the position of controlling a nation of millions.
The effect is ultimately deeply sad, grieving over not only the individual casualties of Putin's ruthlessly sociopathic climb to absolute power and the enshrinement of the anti-LGBTQ hate movement as a core of Russian society, but also over the loss of the Russia that could have been. For a brief time after the end of the USSR, there was a real possibility Russia could flower into a free society. Putin and his allies utterly crushed that possibility to create a mafia state that is more oppressive than anything that country has endured since Stalin.
Unlike its glamorous portrayals in fictional characters like Milton's Satan, Hannibal Lecter, and Dexter, real evil is not clever and tragically self-aware. It's shallow, oblivious, petty, pointlessly vicious, devoid of introspection, and empty. Gessen shows that Putin is such a person.
President Biden reportedly told Putin recently (as of this writing in March 2021) that he, Biden, didn't believe Putin had a soul.
I have not met Putin, nor gazed into his eyes a la Bush 43 and thought I was gauging his true nature. But working in mental health with adult prison inmates and adolescent gang members, I got to know a number of people who were just that type - shallow, oblivious, petty, pointlessly vicious, devoid of introspection, and empty. I'm not qualified to diagnose possession of a soul, but I surely didn't see evidence of any in a lot of those people. Putin belongs in prison rather than in the position of controlling a nation of millions.