A review by nini23
Unwitting Street by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

4.25

Whimsical, satirical and melancholic. . Reading about the author's life, it's not difficult to see how the last two qualities came to be; most of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky's work was never published in his lifetime, it did not conform to approved material. Much gratitude to translator Joanne Turnbull for not only making them accessible to us English readers but also for the numerous citations and footnotes providing context. Without those, these short stories would be less comprehensible and rich, particularly in the titular story. My favourite short story was 'Death of an Elf', about an elf trapped in a cello although I did enjoy 'Paper Loses Patience' (refuses to have propaganda printed on it anymore), 'Journey of a Cage' (a parrot screeches inconvenient phrases in wartime) and 'Unwitting Street'. The blend of bitter absurdist humor so prevalent to Russian literature is in full force here.