A WEEK LIKE ANY OTHER

by Natalya Baranskaya ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1990

Biting and observant tales of female mundanity and woe in the Soviet Union, published to acclaim and controversy there, and appearing here now in a solid translation. Daily life in all its drab conformity is Baranskaya's theme in almost all of these stories. The title piece, a novella, follows a working mother through the seemingly endless monotony of petty pressures and chores facing one who seems to represent a large segment of modern Soviet women. ""The Petunin Affair"" is longer on plot but no less grim: a TV journalist is implicated in a comic Kafkaesque subversion involving the mysterious spiking of a water jug with vodka. The victim, a TV announcer, fails prey in the middle of an ""anti-alcoholism"" program, causing a hysterical finger-pointing campaign at the station and, more seriously, ominous echoes of state power and even neo-Stalinist paranoia. It is the collection's best story and a not-so-subtle interrogation of the preconditions of glasnost. ""Lubka"" and ""At Her Father's and Her Mother's Place"" both concern the tenuous, emotionally uncertain relationships of young girls to their fathers and seem to bode ill about women's place in the family in Soviet society. ""A Delicate Subject"" is more explicitly critical and feminist: the daughter of Zoya Tikhonovna is nearly ruined by accusations that she is ""loose"" and sexually irresponsible. The story provides a suggestive look at sexual mores in today's Russia, and marks them decidedly unfair to women. No fire-starters here for the casual reader, but a generally fascinating collection that is a must for Sovietologists.

Pub Date: March 1, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Seal Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990

Categories: FICTION