Review of Dina Rubina's "Sunny Side of the Street"

This ode, this declaration of love, this serenade to the town of her childhood, Tashkent, is masterfully written. Rubina weaves in different narrators, including her real self, to help her show off the city, which now exists only in memories, like so many Soviet cities that underwent a drastic "western" make-over and in the process lost their color, wonder and innocence. 

I completely understand the author refusing, after many years of absence, to visit the Alay Bazaar, which has been turned into a modern mall. She wants to remember the true Alay Bazaar - whole, native, filled with traditions, colors and darling hubbub. I often feel this way towards my childhood city, Yerevan (where I live once again many years later), which has been turned into a parody of some provincial, suburban western town and lost some of its warm, sunny identity.

Even though I have never been to Tashkent, I pictured it perfectly, thanks to Rubina's intelligent, delicious, juicy language, her metaphors and exciting descriptions. I can smell the city, hear its sounds and music, I know the neighbors, know the people she painted, I have lived there... (Although, I must admit there was a whole section in the middle, which bored me and, in my humble opinion, should have been edited out. It was a series of descriptions of places and people, not repetitious, per se, but somehow already unnecessary.)

I particularly liked how Rubina broke the fourth wall (if you are familiar with the movie industry, you will understand what I mean), the author was present throughout the entire book, she came out from behind the scenes, and that made the reader feel closer to her and her subjects. I even wondered whether the lovely, lonely heroine, Vera, is a real person and looked her up on the internet; I wanted to see her paintings. No, Vera is not a real person. (Sigh).

It's an engaging, graceful, positive, albeit nostalgic story. And, without a question, it deserves its 5 stars.

Review of Arkady & Boris Strugatskys' "Monday Begins on Saturday"

Reading Strugatsky brothers' books I finally understood the reason for people learning Russian to read Russian literature in its original form. Russian style is undeniably powerful and funny beyond explanation.

In order to understand Monday Begins on Saturday, the reader better be familiar with Russian folklore, fairy tales, most famous mages, vampires or myths of all time (and Russian language... just kidding).  Otherwise, some characters and their deeds will not be understood. 

The beginning of the book took me by a very-very pleasant surprise, I couldn't get enough of Pushkin references or the weirdness that ensues when the hero of the book encounters the couch. But... I wanted the book to continue in that vein, to show me more of that Russianness. Instead the narrative broke after Part 1 and took a different path, which would have been a great sequel.

Even so, the authors' language, their 'handwriting' is brainy, smart, clever, inventive, fresh (despite the fact that the book was written in 1965), bright and FUNNY (people in the subway took me for a kook, because all of the sudden I would break out laughing). The supernatural, magical world brothers created is truly awesome. It makes the reader want to live there, be a part of the cool gang and experience all the craziness that's happening there every minute of every day.

Despite the fact that I would have liked all parts of the book to be longer, explored deeper or be a book of their own - I still loved it. If you know a little bit of literature and movies - you will notice how many artists, movies and books Strugatsky brothers have inspired. They even have the idea for "Memento" explored here at length.

I am thankful for knowing Russian and for writers like Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
4 stars.

Review of George Mann's "Affinity Bridge"

(Some spoilers ahead). This book was a work of a dilettante. He tried to make it a beginning of a unique and "cool" series, but all he ended up with was "trying to hard" and "did you miss chapters? or maybe sentences?" It left me with an impression that the author reread the book too many times, in order to rewrite it and make it perfect, but as a result he got desensitized, thus leaving things out, thinking they were understood, when in fact - they weren't.

Zombies, in this case "revenants", are loose in the city and it's kind of neither news nor a known fact for the personages of the book. It seems that people kiiiind of know about the plague, or do they? But if they do, then why aren't they really scared? I mean, the writer tells us that the masses are scared of it, but then why aren't the main characters? The plague is simply there, it's a part of the story, without the story actually acknowledging the fact.

The two main characters became closest friends within a week, without any precedent. If Mann would have explained that there was a spark or some other chemistry happening between them, or maybe an event, through which they bonded... but he didn't. They were two strangers and, boom! they are the best of chums. 

And my question always is "Why in the world would anyone write about zombies at ALL?" Mindless, characterless, colorless, pointless force of nothings who aren't able to offer anything at all except mindless, characterless, colorless, pointless nothing. There is no aesthetic pleasure like with the faeries or at the least the philosophy of the already-becoming-boring vampires.

Besides, the book was too predictable. And not only the story, but the minor details as well were very unoriginal and used.

1 star.

Review of J. K. Rowling's "Casual Vacancy"

Masterpiece!

(At first, that's all I wanted to put down as my review of this book, but I can't resist raving about it.)

J. K. Rowling is a weaver. The world she created is intricate, complicated and yet so painfully familiar. Every single personage is complete and... "honest", raw, true, complicated, regular.  (How does she KNOW all these people? How does she KNOW all these experiences? You have to know something in order to depict it so well. She describes feelings with easy offhandedness and you know exactly what she means. You've felt THAT before.) The structure of the book allows you to see how people invariably misunderstand and misread each other. While the story is so true. It haunts you and haunts you. It's a tragedy, and it's life, and it haunts you. And the last four words of the book sum us up as a society with eery, uncanny preciseness.

Two months ago I reflected on the fact that I hadn't read a masterpiece (not to be confused with books I loved) for a long, long, long time. It was so long ago that I've forgotten which book it was, even. And now there is this. This work of art. J. K. Rowling was born to be a writer. I'm glad she sneaked into English Literature Department and I'm glad she stuck to her dreams.

Her metaphors are whole. Her vocabulary is vast and never intrusive. She's current. She's congruent. She's logical. And she knows that her reader is smart. How does she KNOW? (smile). She has grown drastically as a writer and Casual Vacancy is awe-inspiring.

5 stars.  Of course.

Afterthought: here are some quotes:

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1053164-the-mistake-ninety-nine-percent-of-humanity-made-as-far-as 

"[She was] almost entirely relieved."

"Savoring her own outrage."

"Gaia was there [town] too, absorbed in the mysterious rites of her gender."

"Shirley and Ruth found each other by the yogurts at half-past-twelve."

"... Little knots of pedestrians kept congregating [...] to check [...] the exactness of information."

"'Stone dead,' said Howard, as though there were degrees of deadness, and the kind that Barry Fairbrother had contracted was particularly sordid."

And there is a whole 505 pages of that.