Volume 52, Number 9 · May 26, 2005
Adventures of a True Believer
By Gary Shteyngart
Monumental Propaganda
by Vladimir Voinovich, translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
Knopf, 365 pp., $25.00
If Russia weren't governed by fools and reprobates, if the roads were smooth and wide and free of bandits, if Russia were suddenly a modern European country as far removed from Stalin's legacy as today's Germany is from Hitler's, three groups of citizens would suffer the most: corrupt traffic cops, oligarchs, and satirists. Of this last group, Vladimir Voinovich is possibly the most important Russian satirical writer of the last fifty years, and given the absurdity and repressiveness that characterized those fifty years, one of the most subversive writers in the nation's history. If all Russian writers (as Dostoevsky said[1] ) are supposed to come 'from under Gogol's 'Overcoat,'' Voinovich has come directly out of Gogol's 'Nose.'
Review, 3863 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |