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Good Bye Lenin
Jan. 31st, 2022 09:31 pmBook Review: The Dream Life of Sukhanov, by Olga Grushin
This found its way onto my to-read list some years ago, and later, a copy arrived I think via a book-swap shelf. It is 1985; Anatoly Sukhanov is a state-approved art critic in the USSR, and although he has achieved a level of professional success, he finds change is in the air and starting to make itself felt, unwelcomely, in various aspects of his life.
One shouldn't judge a book by its cover, so we are told, but how far does one have to read before beginning to judge it? The first few chapters were not engaging, but then it became more interesting, only to flag again later on, a pattern which cycled a few times. It felt like there were inconsistencies. Does Sukhanov know the Moscow Metro or not? Who leaves their bag behind with a stranger on the platform, to go and buy a train ticket? And for that matter, to leave their wallet in the bag too? Some aspects of his fall from grace feel rather cliched, full of excessively literary devices. For all that it signifies slipping between reality and dreaminess, I found the switches in the narration from third to first person quite irritating and unnecessary. But at the same time, the fundamental story of his own history was interesting, the contortions and compromises in position required to gain favour and be successful in the Khrushchev era and later. The humanity of personal ambition frustrated and quashed is universal; the consequences of raging against the machine are rather more dependent on the nature of that machine.
This found its way onto my to-read list some years ago, and later, a copy arrived I think via a book-swap shelf. It is 1985; Anatoly Sukhanov is a state-approved art critic in the USSR, and although he has achieved a level of professional success, he finds change is in the air and starting to make itself felt, unwelcomely, in various aspects of his life.
One shouldn't judge a book by its cover, so we are told, but how far does one have to read before beginning to judge it? The first few chapters were not engaging, but then it became more interesting, only to flag again later on, a pattern which cycled a few times. It felt like there were inconsistencies. Does Sukhanov know the Moscow Metro or not? Who leaves their bag behind with a stranger on the platform, to go and buy a train ticket? And for that matter, to leave their wallet in the bag too? Some aspects of his fall from grace feel rather cliched, full of excessively literary devices. For all that it signifies slipping between reality and dreaminess, I found the switches in the narration from third to first person quite irritating and unnecessary. But at the same time, the fundamental story of his own history was interesting, the contortions and compromises in position required to gain favour and be successful in the Khrushchev era and later. The humanity of personal ambition frustrated and quashed is universal; the consequences of raging against the machine are rather more dependent on the nature of that machine.