An appealing new voice whispers words that convey the range of human emotions.
An affecting memoir by a young Englishwoman who was studying in Russia as the Soviet system crumbled.
Beginning when she was a child, Hobson describes the weekly Russian lessons near Southampton that her mother, née Tatyana Vinogradoff, took because she did not want to lose the language. Hobson was 17 when her mother died of cancer, and to honor her lost parent she resolved to study Russian herself. Her decision to do so in the remote town of Voronezh instead of Moscow—in 1991, at the very moment the Soviet monolith was cracking—marks her early on as a fearless, even daring traveler. She lived in a seedy hostel where, she writes, “A hubble of languages rose through the smoke and pungent smells of ten dinners cooking in one kitchen.” Hobson uses a swift and accurate brush to paint the portraits of her friends and acquaintances, and despite this brief volume still finds room for indelible portraits of the woman she calls “Liza Minnelli” because of a physical resemblance, Sveta (“She carried her beauty as though it were a mild disability”), and—most searchingly—her lover Mitya, who stands with resignation in a wrenching scene on a train platform as Hobson departs forever for England at year’s end. Hobson’s eye for arresting detail presents a Russian cold so severe that it freezes the town clock solid, and a statue of Stalin whose head has been removed and replaced with that of the local poet Kolstov. And she can set forth a touching tale with a few perfect words, as when she repeats the Russian story of a man who wears iron boots for 20 years, finally removes them . . . and flies away.
An appealing new voice whispers words that convey the range of human emotions.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2002
ISBN: 0-8050-6932-1
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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