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.