Her writing is like nothing else "without boarders of fences," the inocences of childhood and the sorrow, boringness of life comes a live like the sun at dawn through her words which blow like the wind across her pages.

Magical!!

This is a book that expands the mind of what to expect from literature.

The book was given to me by my writing teacher who I respected greatly. She rarely makes gifts of books; yet I soon understood why she selected it. It is a quiet book with no pretense of art or gallery; for this reason it contains great art and a wonderful gallery of images. To be sure my even reviewing it stikes one with a terrible mistrust--as even now I mistrust what I say. It is the lyrical authority of T.T. which makes me happy to praise it, and I do. Its tastes in subject and angle are supurb. (Thank-you to Lucia Berlin for the present of T.T.)

Intellectuals have problems fitting in with the big buddies in the world. This might be more true in Russia during the last few centuries than elsewhere, but PUSHKIN'S CHILDREN by Tatyana Tolstaya does not have an index, in which to look up Lenin, for his opinion on the intelligentsia, to illustrate the point. The intellectual freedoms which literary people in Russia had been seeking since the time of Herzen were finally granted by Gorbachev. But then the Partocracy, "accustomed to doing nothing concrete, to producing a lot of empty talk, they were shaken from their usual rut by the very mystery of what was happening. They were so baffled that it was easy to sweep them from their posts. When someone has fainted, you can quickly throw them out the door." (p. 44). People who live in democracies should recognize the ability of voters to do this to rulers on a regular basis, if the voters have enough reason and are given the opportunity.

In the case of Gorbachev, the larger question of how he managed to preside over the collapse of an empire and an economic system is of unusual interest for people in democracies whose outlooks for wealth are not stable. Tolstaya pictures the intelligentsia as being too moral to grasp the downside of what would happen when "Gorbachev made his first, and perhaps his most serious, mistake. He forbade the people to drink.
"The intelligentsia forgave him for this (they were `moved by their own perdition'). The Partocracy was happy. Here was a concrete task, and a familiar one: to fight, to root out, to fire people from their jobs. They set to tearing out grape vines, paving over rare vinyards in the Crimea, uprooting muscat so fine and expensive that `the people' couldn't get near it. They only counted the monstrous losses when the campaign was over. During the campaign, however, people cursed Gorbachev, bought up all the sugar, perfected their knowledge of moonshine manufacture, and most important of all, grasped that they could do everything their own way and not get caught or punished. An epidemic of hoarding began. Sugar, soap, matches, and lightbulbs disappeared, and then sheets and pillows, and then clothes, shoes, eggs, and finally bread." (p. 45).

Most of the people in the world live in countries where they do not need to depend on their government to supply them with such items, and even the United States, rich as it is in so many ways, might expect to be able to conquer anyplace it chooses without having to furnish such items to everybody. Even the current road map might appear to create a state for the Palestinians in an area in which Jewish settlements are the hoarders of anything they might really want. Long before, this book, PUSHKIN'S CHILDREN, starts with a book review of SOVIET WOMEN: WALKING THE TIGHTROPE, by Francine du Plessix Gray, in which reality conforms to the old maxim, "Women can do everything, and men do all the rest." (p. 3). War and prison camps kept men away from homes and jobs in the first half of the twentieth century. "An honest person tried his or her best not to participate in this `official' life. Those who did get involved in the hellish machine were broken: either it destroyed all traces of individuality and compromised them morally and ethically, or--if a person rebelled--it threw him out of society, sometimes sending him as far as Siberia." (p. 11).

Things change as the essays in this book were written. "In January 1994, no one talks about politics and no one explains anything, no matter how much I ask. No one understands anything. No one believes in anyone or anything." (pp. 127-128). With incredibly high prices, "But there are happy surprises, too: a medicine that I bought in America for $50 turned out to be so cheap in Russia that I bought fifteen jars and paid only five cents for it. (I should have bought thirty jars.)" (p. 128).

Another explanation for the collapse of the Soviet Union was in the personality conflict between its primary leaders. "In February 1991, Yeltsin was dying to speak on television and Gorbachev wouldn't let him. . . . Many people understood that the conflict between these two strong personalities did in fact threaten the country with collapse--and with unforeseen consequences." (p. 147). Then, "Having rushed to `seize' Russia, he didn't know what to do with it." (p. 151). Yeltsin is pictured as dreaming that things would be better for him if he were in America. "(I wonder whether, somewhere in the depths of Yeltsin's subconscious, he is remembering the last house of the last Russian tsar, given to Nikolai II by the Bolsheviks, which Yeltsin himself had blown up on orders from Moscow.) In any event, I rather think that if an American president willfully decided to get rid of California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, the two Virginias, both Carolinas, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the grateful American people wouldn't build him anything more than a hut in Alaska, at best, and wouldn't give him any sled dogs either." (pp. 151-152).

This book is really too good. Even if you know a lot of what this book covers, the point of view is unusual and witty enough to make it entertaining. But in our times, even PUSHKIN'S CHILDREN has to admit, "Recently Americans have not shown much interest in what is going on in Russia." (pp. 185-186). The final paragraph, dated 2000, includes the kind of things that feed current fears. "Russians began to remove everything they possibly could from institutes and factories, and to sell everything they stole, including state secrets--actual, not imagined ones. They stole poisons, mercury, uranium, cesium, and vaccines. Even, in one instance, smallpox virus." (p. 242). Take it from an author who "used to buy meat patties at some tank factory. No one ever stopped me." (p. 242).

This is a wonderful collection of essays. Tolstaya is sharp, opinionated, and savvy. Full of insight into contemporary Russia -- its leaders and its people.

I lived in Moscow for some of the time Anthony photographed there. I saw his exhibit in New York. And I, too, am a photographer. His images capture the time and place beautifully. He makes the ordinary into something special. The prints he made were stunning. I saw the book that day and knew I would get home to Puerto Rico and order it from Amazon

Russian literature has always been about ethics. I really can't find any other universal feature that makes Russian prose, both classical and modern, so singular a phenomenon. Command of language? Incredible as it is in the works of Russian classics, it's not unique among the world literatures, and anyway is mostly lost in translations. Universal comprehensibility? Not at all; unlike Shakespearean plays that are set in some vague pan-European context, Russian novels are always tightly bound to Russia's very own religion, mentality, and history that are scarcely known in the West. What remains, and what really sets Russian literature apart, is its moral imperative---the impossibility for a Russian writer to show any disdain or ridicule towards those dispossessed, fragile, or helpless. Deep thrilling compassion and frantic pursuit of justice are characteristic of both the Russian classic novels of XIX century and the modern short stories by Tatyana Tolstaya.

"Breathing" is perhaps the best one-word description of Tolstaya's prose. It's not the suffocated gasping of Dostoyevsky, not the gentle crystalline air of Chekhov, not even the powerful storm of consciousness of Leo Tolstoy (whose great-grandniece is Tolstaya). Winds, airs, puffs are transfusing the fabric of these delicate pieces of prose; words and images are streaming, curling, twisting in long yet weightless sentences. Tolstaya's winds smell like sea, like childhood, like love; she makes us remember that the word "spirit" is derived from the Latin stem meaning "air." Reading this book is like breathing freely outdoors after endless hours in a stuffy room...

Having thoroughly enjoyed much of this novel, I wish I could give it a higher rating. It's the ending that deflates what could've ended with a bang: not literally but dramatically. Tolstaya loves her creation, and the grim blend of satire and realism in the post-apocalyptic shadows she presents often proves moving in its narrator's attempts to make linguistic and philosophical sense out of the beauties and the harshness he (at first uncomprehendingly) witnesses.

Parts of this book, especially in its first half, offer scenes of memorable poverty and ingenious social commentary. Maybe for Western readers the poetic remnants from past Russian voices resonate less, and there's details (as in the layout of the hamlet) that those of us unfamiliar with Moscow don't really "matter" the way they might to a Russian reader. Still, the fall and rise of the narrator keeps you page-turning. Especially relevant are passages keyed towards booklovers and the pages we hoard and guard against the unlettered mobs: these musings are among the best in the novel and well worth attention.
Though I doubt any of us could match the appetite of the narrator's bookishness THAT much; but, read it for yourself.

The novel's pace in its latter third (cf. Riddley Walker's plot) seems too predictable given the variety Tolstaya's invented so far. I cannot figure out why she could not sustain a more satisfying climax and denouement. Again, distance from the original text and context may be partly to blame; I may not recognize all the symbolic figures or allegorical allusions that a native reader might find more illuminating.

Granting this discrepancy, I emphasize that the build-up doesn't lead to an equally inventive conclusion. So much wit and poignancy and insight pours into this novel, but it overflows into a storyline that spills out and diffuses its gathered potency into dribbles and splats.

Take three parts Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, two parts Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, one part Eco's The Name of the Rose, add a pinch of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (for that oh so subtle sci-fi flavor), mix vigorously, serve while sitting next to a nice warm fire cause it's gonna be a long night of pure enjoyment.

Platonov is the finest Russian prose-writer of the last century, but this republication of a volume first published around 1970 is a disappointment. Firstly, the translation is mediocre; secondly, the short novel "Dzhan", the longest and greatest work in this volume, was translated from a heavily censored Soviet text. Many of the most striking, most unusual or most subversive passages of the original have been cut out.

If you really want to know how it all happened, you have to read this book. But don't just read it, try to place yourself there and at the time. And you will understand it.