Children, old folks and the struggling in-betweens—Tolstaya sees into all their hearts. Remarkable.
Tolstaya demonstrates an impressive range in these 23 stories, most having first appeared in On the Golden Porch (1989) and Sleepwalker in a Fog (1992), together with some newer work.
That range encompasses political satire, flights of surrealism and realistic urban and domestic dramas, nearly all set in the Soviet era. The longest story, “Limpopo,” is outright political satire, a scattershot peppering of a rule-bound society run by individuals who think in categories and blinkered comrades who travel to Italy and find gloomy people under gray skies. The satirical and the surreal blend perfectly in “A Clean Sheet”; here, the profoundly depressed Ignatiev visits a hush-hush clinic for the removal of his “diseased organ,” and emerges a new man, brutally assertive. Such transformations elude most of Tolstaya’s characters. They suffer the indignities of life in communal apartments in Moscow or Leningrad, or live miserably on the outskirts, like the married couple in “The Fakir,” who worship at the shrine of a dilettante who has his own place in central Moscow (heaven!). Tolstaya’s favorite theme is an inexhaustible one: the passage of time, often accompanied by a potent regret for opportunities lost. Alexandra Ernestovna, 84, has survived three husbands, but it’s her abandonment of her passionate lover that still gnaws at her (“Sweet Shura”). Middle-aged Natasha had one chance at love, blew it, and became a dull teacher (“The Moon Came Out”). The governess Zhenechka, a trusting soul, is recalled after her death by a former pupil; teased by her charges, exploited by employers and relatives, Zherechka deserved far better; “Most Beloved” is a moving tribute to simple goodness, flecked by remorse. The best expression of this theme is the marvelous “Fire and Dust.” Newly married Rimma sees “enormous happiness” in her future as she contrasts her life with that of Pipka, a crazy disaster-prone bohemian, but somehow Rimma’s life crumbles into an empty marriage while Pipka lands on her feet.
Children, old folks and the struggling in-betweens—Tolstaya sees into all their hearts. Remarkable.Pub Date: April 17, 2007
ISBN: 1-59017-197-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
It's being called a novel, but it is more a hybrid: short-stories/essays/confessions about the Vietnam War—the subject that O'Brien reasonably comes back to with every book. Some of these stories/memoirs are very good in their starkness and factualness: the title piece, about what a foot soldier actually has on him (weights included) at any given time, lends a palpability that makes the emotional freight (fear, horror, guilt) correspond superbly. Maybe the most moving piece here is "On The Rainy River," about a draftee's ambivalence about going, and how he decided to go: "I would go to war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to." But so much else is so structurally coy that real effects are muted and disadvantaged: O'Brien is writing a book more about earnestness than about war, and the peekaboos of this isn't really me but of course it truly is serve no true purpose. They make this an annoyingly arty book, hiding more than not behind Hemingwayesque time-signatures and puerile repetitions about war (and memory and everything else, for that matter) being hell and heaven both. A disappointment.
Pub Date: March 28, 1990
ISBN: 0618706410
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
As Tolkien had his Silmarillion, so Martin has this trilogy of foundational tales. They succeed on their own, but in...
Huzzah! Martin (The Ice Dragon, 2014, etc.) delivers just what fans have been waiting for: stirring tales of the founding of the Targaryen line.
Duncan—Dunk for short—has his hapless moments. He’s big, nearly gigantic, “hugely tall for his age, a shambling, shaggy, big-boned boy of sixteen or seventeen.” Uncertain of himself, clumsy, and alone in the world, he has every one of the makings of a hero, if only events will turn in that direction. They do, courtesy of a tiny boy who steals into the “hedge knight” Dunk’s life and eventually reveals a name to match that of Ser Duncan the Tall—an altogether better name, at that, than Duncan of Flea Bottom would have been. Egg, as the squire calls himself, has a strange light about him, as if he will be destined to go on to better things, as indeed he will. Reminiscent of a simpler Arthur Rackham, the illustrations capture that light, as they do the growing friendship between Dunk and Egg—think Manute Bol and Muggsy Bogues, if your knowledge of basketball matches your interest in fantasy. This being Martin, that friendship will not be without its fraught moments, its dangers and double crosses and knightly politics. There are plenty of goopily violent episodes as well, from jousts (“this time Lord Leo Tyrell aimed his point so expertly he ripped the Grey Lion’s helm cleanly off his head”) to medieval torture (“Egg…used the hat to fan away the flies. There were hundreds crawling on the dead men, and more drifting lazily through the still, hot air.”). Throughout, Martin delivers thoughtful foreshadowing of the themes and lineages that will populate his Ice and Fire series, in which Egg, it turns out, is much less fragile than he seems.
As Tolkien had his Silmarillion, so Martin has this trilogy of foundational tales. They succeed on their own, but in addition, they succeed in making fans want more—and with luck, Martin will oblige them with more of these early yarns.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53348-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
