Ожог

by Vasily Aksyonov, Василий Аксенов

"The Burn is an ambitious attempt to capture the spirt of the Moscow intelligentsia of the '60's, when Moscow was alive with new ideas and new talent, as well as with casual sex and heavy drinking. It has amplitude, a rich and free language, a raw ecstacy which accurately reflects the uninhibited mood of those days."
-San Francisco Chronicle

"Bitter, mocking yet filled with jazzy exuberance, The Burn takes readers on a wild ride through the paradoxical, often phantasmagoric, world of Russian intellectuals, who love and hate the whorehouse- Motherland ... A dazzling, hypnotic performance."
-Newsweek

"A supremely ambitious work worthy of a great tradition, it makes Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago seem sentimental and much of Solzhenitsyn's fiction wooden in comparison ... The Burn will be read and pondered, debated and studied, for as long as literature has admirers."
-New York Times

Translated from the Russian by Michael Glenny

Genres: Russia, Fiction, Russian Literature, Literature, Novels

640 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov (Russian: Василий Аксенов) was a Soviet and Russian novelist. He is known in the West as the author of The Burn (Ожог, Ozhog, from 1975) and Generations of Winter (Московская сага, Moskovskaya Saga, from 1992), a family saga depicting three generations of the Gradov family between 1925 and 1953.

He was the son of Evgenia Ginzburg, jewish russian writer, teacher and survivor of a stalinist gulag.

Reviews

[Atreju · Rating 2 out of 5]

Con un intervallo di sobrietà di un centinaio di pagine alla metà del romanzo, si tratta di puro delirio alcolico. Scritto molto bene, per carità, e poi trasuda anche Russia da ogni singolo frammento di cellulosa. Però sempre di delirio si tratta.
Cinque personaggi che sembrano condividere, oltre che lo stesso patronimico, anche la stessa identica infanzia, in persona di Tolja von Steinbock. Filosofia, politica, jazz e becero soddisfacimento dei bisogni corporali. C'è di tutto in questo libro. Ritroviamo anche elementi autobiografici evidenti, dati dalla prigionia kolymese della madre dello stesso Aksjonov (la scrittrice Evgenija Ginzburg, una dei più importanti autori dell'universo concentrazionario sovietico).
L'alcol, abbiamo detto. La quantità di alcol ingerita e sbandierata è forse alla base di questa scissione delle personalità (se è veramente così che va interpretata...) e comunque è la ragione fondante di un delirio narrativo continuo, infinito, estenuante. Non nego che a tratti la lettura sia estremamente godibile (bellissime scene, linguaggio densissimo e ricchissimo, a volte perfino sovrabbondante), tuttavia il testo è ponderoso e ci si perde di continuo, è ostico procedere, ci si deve fermare e ripetere. Fino a quando non ci si rende conto che non tutto si può capire, non si può certo capire il delirio alcolico, ci si può solamente far travolgere.

Niente di più lontano dal realismo socialista, ça va sans dire. Già questo è un fiore all'occhiello. Tuttavia, non posso dire di aver apprezzato appieno il risultato. Ho anche l'impressione che il delirio esibito sia non solo quello dei personaggi/personaggio ma anche quello dello stesso autore, e financo di una società complessivamente stordita, troppo inebriata di politica, di ideologia fino al midollo. La denuncia degli orrori dei lager è evidente e l'ustione è anche quella dell'anima del piccolo Tolja, segnato a vita dalla barbarie.

[Lee Kofman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved madly the first 80-90 pages. They had that poetical, slightly mocking, very intelligent voice. Then the tone sharply changed, becoming hyper-satirical, hyper-postmodern, sometimes even evil. The women's hatred is sky-rocketing. Still, the motherfucker is talented and I loved the breadth of the novel's ambition, his interrogation of human condition, politics, culture. So yes, the book left me severely conflicted.

[Gremrien · Rating 2 out of 5]

“… К девяти часам утра у ларька скопилось человек тридцать – сорок. Национальная проблема обсуждалась с нарастающим ожесточением.
– Лично я в Молдавии служил, так там эти молдаваны вроде цыган!
– У меня картошка, как козий горох, а у латыша-суки – как бычья мотня!
– Дерьмом кроют! Срут круто! На латышском говне эта картошка!
– А корейцы собак жрут, понял, и полный порядок!
– В Израиле не наши евреи воюют, а древние!
– Русского человека все в жопу харят, кому не лень!
– Вот кто жить умеет, ребята, так это узбек!
– Чего ты пиздишь – Индия, Индия! Да я всю Индию без оружия пройду, понял, всех голыми руками передушу!
– А русскому человеку любой чучмек в зенки плюет!
– Вот я в Коми был – так? – ну, как положено – карел на печке с бабой лежит, а русский Иван в лесу горбатит!
– Весь мир, ебать мой рот, кормим! Чеха кормим, монгола кормим, арабов черножопых и тех кормим!
– У нас теперь «Экстра» за четыре двенадцать, а в Сирии наш спирт по пятьдесят копеек литр, и никто его не пьет.
– А на хуя ж он тогда там?
– Пушки моют!
– Ох, падлы! Ох, суки!
Вдруг со стуком поднялись доски, и все увидели за стеклом ларька родное хмурое лицо Софьи Степановны.
– Разберись, алкаши, – проговорила она вместо приветствия.”

This book is very challenging. I already said some time that I “read” it in a very early age: I suppose I was twelve or thirteen, plus-minus. I have no idea what a child in such age can understand in “Ожог,” and I know perfectly that I personally did not understand much, too. The most funny thing is that, reading it now, I realized that I remember vividly all those “understandable” fragments and characters that I grasped then, in my teenager years, but still have no idea what are other fragments about and how one should read them to get the proper impression.

It is not even that the book is difficult to read. It looks for me unreadable in many places, like a very personal reflection of the inner self of the author that he was not interested much to be read by somebody else. That’s a very strange thing, because the book does not seem unreadable in the sense that you hate it and think that it is stupid. No, it is quite intelligent and moving. But still…

Gosh, I feel myself like a stupid teenager again. There is some adult world somewhere, and “Ожог” is (was?) very popular in this world (does it mean that it is understood by all those adults? I suppose so…). I know that it was a blast during some period of time. I personally can only be amazed by such vast population of readers for this book.

By the way, that’s what Валерия Новодворская said about Василий Аксенов in 2007, when he was still alive (died in 2009):

“Но вот мы дошли до первого юбилея одного из “наших”, Василия Аксенова, и поздравления киснут во мне, как простокваша, и я думаю: а наш ли он еще? Это не только его проблема – такой юбилейный вальсок будет звучать почти над всеми накрытыми столами. Кроме немногих.
Ни в чем не солживили (хорошее слово из арсенала А.К. Толстого, из “Царя Федора Иоанновича”) свою жизнь Булат Окуджава, Юрий Левитанский, Александр Галич. А Василий Аксенов начинал с того, что носил передачи матери, Евгении Гинзбург, в магаданскую тюрьму. Потом были довольно пустые просоветские романы “Коллеги” и “Звездный билет”. Последний роман был особенно возмутителен. Там один герой (отрицательный персонаж) допытывается, почему в стране ничего нет: ни куска мяса, ни пары джинсов. А положительный герой отвечает, что это плата за звездный билет в эпоху. Почти что “зато мы делаем ракеты”. Понятное дело: мальчик еще не набрал скорость.
Феерический стиль, ирония, нездешность появляются в “Затоваренной бочкотаре”. А когда доходит до “Превратностей метода”, мы видим умного, усталого, скептически настроенного интеллигента – уже без всякого соцреализма.
А потом идет Самиздат. Два шедевра, кафкианских по стилю и по мастерству. Аксеновские “капричос”. “Ожог” и “Остров Крым”. Здесь уже есть все: громадные запасы полынной горечи, больше, чем в “Откровении Иоанна Богослова”, в “Ожоге” – пять сквозных персонажей, лики героя, и долгожданный Апокалипсис над Москвой в виде гигантского динозавра на Лермонтовской. Настоящие лагеря и хреновые диссиденты, голубая мечта о Венгрии-56 и Чехословакии-68, жуткая участь наивных лузеров из свободного Крыма, гибель последнего острова свободы в СССР… Мы учились ненависти к советской власти, этой суке, этой акуле, по “Острову”. Аксенов предвосхитил многое. ТВ-МИГ – это же бывшее НТВ, НТВ Гусинского и Киселева.
За “Ожог” и “Остров Крым” давали срок: 7 лет лагерей и 5 лет ссылки. Эти книги шли в приговор. Нет, на обысках изымали и другие: Булгакова (“Роковые яйца”, “Собачье сердце”, “Багровый остров”), ахматовский “Реквием”, “Один день Ивана Денисовича”. Но в приговор шло не все, только особо “злостное”: Зиновьев, Оруэлл, “Архипелаг”, Джилас, “Посев”. И “Ожог” с “Островом Крымом”.
Аксенов мог бы этим гордиться. Но он поддержал чеченскую войну; не идет на конфронтацию с Путиным и российским истеблишментом; он санкционировал ужасную, бездарную экранизацию своей талантливой “Московской саги” (центральной мыслью “экранизаторов” стала защита социалистического отечества его жертвами, Градовыми, несмотря на Сталина, террор, лагеря, дело врачей). Неужели ради тиражей, гонораров и переизданий? Неужели диссидент и пророк Аксенов стал хладнокровным дельцом? Все понятно. Наш товарищ по оружию нам изменил, вступил в СОС (“Союз общей судьбы”) и сдал Совдепии наш Остров Крым, территорию нашей свободы и нашего протеста.
А мы не пишем для газеты “Курьер” и в СОС не состоим. Мы даже не пойдем капитулировать перед их танками и подлодками со старшим Лучниковым, отцом героя, белым офицером. Мы будем сражаться за наш Остров, Демсоюз не сдается. И в Турцию мы не уплывем. А к предательству нам не привыкать. Я поздравляю автора “Ожога” и “Острова Крым”, а отрекшегося от него Василия Павловича Аксенова, материалы о котором сделало путинское ТВ, мне поздравить не с чем.”

Oh, how I understand her. And respect her more and more now. It is very possible that he would become another person “in an altered state of consciousness,” with “Крымнаш,” “украинская хунта,” etc, if he had been alive now. At least, there were clear preliminary symptoms in 2007. I cannot even imagine this for the author of “Ожог” and “Остров Крым,” and Валерия Новодворская obviously could not imagine anything similar, too, but she had this immense bravery to recognize and condemn it. Shit happens. People change. It is especially hard when your friends, likeminded people, and “comrades-in-arms” (“наши,” as she said) became zombies, but you must talk about it, not hush in fear and astonishment.

—

One more quote from “Ожог”:

“Письма, правда, составлялись, и все в большем и большем количестве – в Союз Писателей, в Академию наук, в Президиум Верховного Совета, в ЦК, в ООН… Письмо Двенадцати, Письмо Шестидесяти Четырех, Письмо Двадцати Семи… В защиту Гинзбурга и Галанскова, в поддержку Сахарова, поздравления Солженицыну… Все письма составлены были с позиций марксизма, в защиту «ленинских норм», против «тревожных симптомов возрождения сталинизма».
Режим хмуро молчал, на претензии сучки-интеллигенции не отвечал, но лишь вяловато, туповато, «бескомпромиссно» делал свое дело – гаечки подкручивал, жилочки подвязывал, яички подрезал. В этом нежелании выяснить отношения «путем взаимной переписки» и крылась гибель «шестидесятых годов», советской «новой волны», социалистического ренессанса.
Мы же свои, мы советские люди, мы ведь только озабоченность проявляем, выражаем гражданские чувства, а нам не отвечают! Нам только все что-то подкручивают, подвязывают, подрезают, надавливают на хрящи. Откуда знать могли либеральные элитары, что Режим видел в их излияниях некоторую опасность для своей священной пайковой системы.”

[Fred Dameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aksyonov is called one of the greatest Russian authors of the post Stalin era. The Burn is a magnificent work. As all modern Russian works it takes 100 to 150 pages before you can figure out all the characters and who is the narrator. In this case there are five narrators and the story shifts from narrator to narrator between paragraphs. Early on this can be confusing, but you get used to the idea of five points of view with the prime narrator actually being Aksyonov himself for large parts of the work. In many ways this work is autobiographical or at least what Aksyonov believes is autobiographical.

Let me explain. AS I said when I reviewed Master and Margarita, I believe that many Stalin era and post Stalin era writers are describing their PTSD in their works. So if a writer is expressing his own dreams, hopes, and loves in his works and is affected by PTSD some times the story goes way far south. The story becomes mixed with reality Vs. the fantasy, a fantasy that is all to real for the suffer. The fantasy then becomes the reality in the work and truths about a man, a place and a people at that time are revealed. But, these realities are revealed in such a way as to show that the author may or may not be all there. SO if the author is not all there can we, the State, punish him because of a mental defect? Or do we, the State, glorify his work and give him special privileges that we do not bestow on other artists? Is it not easier to grant the privilege and get rid of the dissident than to actually try to change the State that the artist/author is revealing to the world? That is the question that the State had to answer with "Burn". The answer was to let Aksyonov emigrate and get rid of the dissident. All the better for us in the west as we have access to him and his work.

[Abby Mudd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a true masterpiece. It is not everyones cup on tea, and I do believe that some of the book is probably lost in translation. (I don't speak, Russian so I don't know). This book, is filled with deep symbolism, lots of interesting references. It's very different from anything, I've read. If you have trouble with pieces of this book--I'd recommend reading some papers on it. I did a critical anaylsis on this book in college, and I could have written a 100 more pages about it.. Vasily Aksyonov was a Russian writer, that deserves far more acclaim beyond Russia than he has recieved.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was tough to get into this book, and at about the 100 page point I considered stopping altogether, thinking that in my review I would have to speculate on the amount of vodka Aksenov consumed in writing it. However, I kept at it, and let go of trying to pin things down and fully understand everything I was reading, and let it flow instead. At around page 200 I was glad I did, because a framework started to emerge through the haze, and because the book was so insightful into Soviet life under Stalin and in the generations which followed.

Written in 1980, near the end of the Soviet Union, Aksenov provides a glimpse into some of the horrors of Magadan, one of Stalin’s prison camps that that he and his mother had been exiled to in real life, and his cynicism with the realities of Moscow in the present. At the same time, however, it also reflects his optimism in the Russian people (the “enigmatic Russian soul with an innate potential reserve of goodness”), and a glimpse into change for the future. It’s a unique voice, and Aksenov writes in an ambitious, fantastic way – references to Russian history and the West abound, and the style is one of the beat poets, Joseph Heller, or Thomas Pynchon. The plot is nonlinear, and large portions of it are dream sequences, or perhaps not, depending on your interpretation.

My take on what it’s “about”: a young boy named Tolya von Steinbeck sees his mother arrested and taken to the Magadan, a part of the Dalstroy organization of forced labor which existed in the Soviet Union under Stalin from 1932-1953. The events of his childhood are traumatic and include torture and rape. He grows up not only prone to abusing alcohol, but with mental health problems. He spawns five alter egos in his mind – a laser scientist, sculptor, writer, surgeon, and saxophone player, all with the same patronymic as his, Apollinarievich. He (and they), struggle against repression in the Soviet Union of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, and Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia in 1968. There two “beady eyes” of the prison officer and sadist Chepstov are a recurring theme, and represent the constant feeling of surveillance and a reminder of the cruelty of the Soviet government.

Aside from the difficulty of getting into the book, my only knock against it is that it seemed misogynistic to me. There is a steady stream of commentary about women’s bodies and descriptions of “whores” associated with many (most?) of the female characters in the book. I’m all for the sex (ahem) but there is a cheapness and immaturity in the many varieties that appear througout that is off putting. And at its worst, it has a father raping his daughter, and the daughter immediately having a couple of orgasms in the process (please…). The father justifies it to the girl by revealing to her that he’s actually not her biological father, but ughhhh. There’s also a father who lusts after his daughter’s body and gets sexual pleasure out of spanking her, hoping she’ll have a D on her report card so that he’ll have a reason to. Maybe it’s brazenly honest in the sense that it happens, and those are small segments of a giant, ambitious book, so I don’t judge the whole because of these incest scenes per se, but wonder if a woman would dislike the book for its overall attitude towards women, and pass that along as a caution.

Quotes:
On fashion in Russia (in my experience, still true!):
“She wears Italian shoes at sixty rubles a pair, and yet only makes eighty rubles a month. The riddle of these little lab assistants. A monthly salary of eighty, but they can buy shoes at sixty. One of the great mysteries in Moscow.”

On the world of poets:
“Then we admitted that it was this world, the world of calm little loners, the world of the poets, that was the true world, and that the other one, huge and juicy as a swollen blister, was false, ephemeral, and already reeking of decay.”

On the ‘split world’ under communism:
“The mob followed them into the middle of Red Square, but stopped there. This marked the beginning of the zone of influence emanating from the sacred buildings of the Kremlin, and to enter this zone with thoughts of commerce on one’s mind would have been sacrilege. Even the children in the mob knew the difference between GUM on one side of the square and the Kremlin on the other.”

And:
“When returning home, for instance, from Japan via Poland after a three-month voyage in foreign seas you suddenly saw the crosses of the Kremlin merging in unnatural but somehow unbreakable union with the symbols of atheism, and you were seized by a spasm of patriotism, for you were looking at the lips and nipples of your Motherland, which still, despite a dreary coating of propagandist stucco, gave off the smell of milk.”

On Russian (and American) idealism:
“All you Russians have this barbaric, profoundly provincial feeling about your country. You’re always pretending to be some sort of shield for Europe, always droning on about the same old messianic idea. It’s all nonsense! There’s no such thing as the ‘mysterious Slav soul,’ just as there’s nothing left of the ‘great American dream’ in today’s world either. There are just two monstrous octopuses, two gigantic bags of half-dead protoplasm, which can only react to external stimuli in two ways: by contradiction or by absorption. And it finds absorption, of course, much more pleasant than contraction.”

On Russia vs. Europe; this after the author says that “it is characteristic of any serious Russian book to tackle serious problems”:
“In Europe there are frivolous democracies with mild climates, where an intellectual spends his life flitting from a dentist’s drill to the wheel of a Citroen, from a computer to an espresso bar, from the conductor’s podium to a woman’s bed, and where literature is something almost as refined, witty, and useful as a silver dish of oysters laid out on brown seaweed and garnished with cracked ice.
Russia, with its six-month winter, its tsarism, Marxism, and Stalinism, is not like that. What we like is some heavy, masochistic problem, which we can prod with a tired, exhausted, not very clean but very honest finger. That is what we really need, and it is not our fault.
Not our fault? Really? But who let the genie out of the bottle, who cut themselves off from the people, who groveled before the people, who grew fat on the backs of the people, who let the Tatars into the city, invited the Varangians to come and rule over them, licked the boots of Europe, isolated themselves from Europe, struggled madly against the government, submitted obediently to dim-witted dictators? We did all that – we, the Russian intelligentsia.”

And this:
“It’s always like that in Russia. Even the most mediocre modernist in the arts, an admirer of everything in the West, who damns everything home-grown, is secretly convinced in his heart of hearts that the world’s greatest talent will emerge from Russia, and it only has to be nurtured for it to burst forth and astonish the whole world no less than the first atomic mushroom cloud or ballistic missile.”

On food (I thought this was funny but ate far better over there):
“…we bought some food at the market and sat down cross-legged under the glass wall of the supermarket to enjoy our aristocratic breakfast. We spiked the beer with pepper vodka and orange liqueur. Between drinks we ate pieces of a strange, soapy, deep-water fish and Roquefort cheese, that putrid, shit-tasting dropout from the otherwise wholesome but dull family of Soviet cheeses, and little ‘hunter’ sausages, stuffed with the revolting lard used by the Consumers’ Union, and semiprocessed kidneys made from Indian poultry, and strawberry mousse made of Rumanian oil.”

Lastly on a memorable night:
“That night was a very special night in my life, a night like a beacon. After such a night you could go into the wastes of Siberia, you could even go to prison, but the glow of that night would continue to brighten your life for a long time.”

And on the other hand:
“What are they worth, those blurred, faded nights, days, and evenings of ours? What indeed are our blurred, faded memories worth at all? What price our whole past life? And did it ever happen at all if we remember so little about it?”

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is, frankly, a masterpiece. Difficult, perhaps, but a masterpiece nonetheless.

The book basically follows five versions of the same character, each of whom has connections to a certain Tolya von Steinbock, whose childhood resembles Aksyonov's (His mother, Yevgenia Ginsburg, was imprisoned in the gulag during the Stalinist purges; and Aksyonov himself was pursued by the NKVD for quite some time.).

This book is strangely lyrical, sweeps one along like the saxophone song one of its narratives contain. Best scene: Tolya's near-suicide on the dining room table. Also many references to Russian literature, particularly The Master and Margarita . All in all, it is a beautiful book, one that I cannot quite describe in words.

Aksyonov is easily the greatest of the shestidesyatniki and worlds better than many contemporary American postmodernists. Beautiful both in Russian and in translation.

[Trounin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ко всему можно быть готовым, кроме советского потока сознания. Нет, это невозможно. Поток сознания не мог существовать в советской литературе. Однако, существовал. Он возник одномоментно и сразу всей своей тяжестью закрыл образовавшуюся брешь. Пришёл для того, чтобы занять своё место. И ведь занял. Да как занял! Не какой-нибудь поход по ирландским пабам и не какое-нибудь взирание на мир через гранённый стакан с алкоголем. Нет и нет. Всё гораздо хуже. Неподготовленный мозг советских людей был раздавлен культурными ценностями Запада, вследствие чего размяк и стал выдавать за героизм типичную пустословную браваду. Вот и затеял Василий Аксёнов написать «Ожог» в странном для советского времени стиле, устроив Африку в почти родном Магадане.

(c) Trounin

[Shawn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, it's clear that he was in touch with a good deal of other contemporary world literature and maybe especially American novels of the 1960s and 1970s. And I can appreciate that he was really pushing limits and that kids of those times in the USSR could really find something to hang onto here. But now, it reads a bit like a Norman Mailer first draft. Maybe I'll come back to this -- it was an important book it seems for some folks who I know know something. Any insights?

[Katerina Kirova · Rating 2 out of 5]

На середине эта книга меня победила. Дочитать не смогла. Начало бодрое, но совершенно не получается сочувствовать единому-в-пяти-лицах главному герою. Кажется, что автор хочет сказать: ах, какая хорошая была наша интеллигенция, за что всё это насилие советской власти. А я хоть и представляю себе при чтении инженера Лапенко, в голове всё равно крутится: «и поделом вам».

[Katrinka · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Read" is a lie; unfortunately, that category doesn't exist. I finally gave up on this one-- and that doesn't happen often.

[Octavio Solis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aksyonov's epic novel THE BURN works on the reader like a trip through Soviet/Russian history on acid. The narrative careens across the page like a runaway car, with the main protagonist Von Steinbock splitting off into no less than five altar egos! The story is confounding, confusing, offensive and utterly hilarious but it is never boring. I felt I was in the presence of something special, even if I only cracked the surface of its many meanings. There are statues of dinosaurs that come to life, superstar drunken hockey players, government spies working the cloak room, zany shootouts in Africa, American playboys, and lots and lots and lots of somewhat graphic sex. But all of it feels as erotic as a pratfall. The entire landscape of the novel, its mythos, is in the service of some seriously wicked satire.

I know that if I were Russian and a product of the Soviet information service, I would get much more of the spiraling references to specific names, dates, locations and events, ironies would emerge from their shell with rapturous glee; but I am not. Nor am I schooled in the history of oppression in the Soviet Union (though we all think we know what that is).... But the tone and the crazy confluences, contradictions, and juxtapositions are still delightful to encounter. I see now why there is so much intense and ridiculously exaggerated love-making in the novel; it's thumbing its nose at the censors who would firmly disapprove of such indecency. I get that. I understand that. But I also see the sex as more than a form of rebellion. It's a consolation. Along with vodka, carnal delights are a way of escaping the cloying and ever-present oppression of the truly corrupt Soviet government.

I took this novel in in small dosages, and read this way, I was able to sink into specific episodes that were easier to follow and simply wonderful to vicariously experience, especially when reality was rendered useless through the mad viewpoints of our hero's various psyches. Like ULYSSES, I will have to return to this massive book from time to time as I glean more of the Russian mindset from our present day. It's not an easy read, my friend, nor is is very pleasant at times, but I feel strangely revitalized by the nutty inventiveness of this (nearly) lost work of Russian literature.

For now, I'm going to sift through the book and pick out names and references and google them straightaway to figure what they meant. Some, like the Sevastopol Malakhov, I have already reviewed
and placed in its context!

[Polina]

Роман Василия Аксенова "Ожог", донельзя напряженное действие которого разворачивается в Москве, Ленинграде, Крыму шестидесятых-семидесятых годов и "столице Колымского края" Магадане сороковых-пятидесятых, обжигает мрачной фантасмагорией советских реалий. Книга выходит в авторской редакции без купюр. "Такое уже с ним бывало. Вот так, возвращаясь из Японии через Польшу после трехмесячного плавания по чужим адриатикам, ты вдруг видишь кресты Кремля, слившиеся в противоестественном, но почему-то нерушимом союзе с символами атеизма, и вдруг тебя перехватывает пароксизм патриотизма, ибо ты видишь губы и соски своей Родины, от которых, несмотря на унылую пропагандистскую штукатурку, все-таки пахнет молоком. Синяя птица Метерлинка. Чеховская Чайка. Стальная Птица - Там Где Пехота Не Пройдет, Где Бронепоезд Не Промчится. Птица-Формула - Надежда - Сил Мира Во Всем Мире. Цапля, Тонконогая Мокр...

[Mack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bit too jumbled and convoluted for me. I’m guessing Beatnik writers were a partial influence and I’m already not a fan of them, so a Russian version of their work isn’t enjoyable to me. Plus, the random graphic rape and sex scenes didn’t help to make me like it. I’m totally willing to give Aksyonov another chance, but this novel was not it.

[Hanna Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik vond het interessant om te lezen hoe openlijk kritisch deze schrijver was over de USSR. Het boek was ook erg goed in het neerzetten van een sfeer van hedonisme en achterdocht. Dat het lastig te volgen was was daarom niet erg, maar wel even wennen in het begin. Ik vond het constante vrij extreme seksisme minder leuk dus daarom trek ik een ster van mijn rating af.

[Anna Zenchenkova · Rating 1 out of 5]

Я редко не дочитываю книги, даже если они мне не нравятся. И эта книга - тот самый редкий случай, который мне не то чтобы не понравился, но не был мной понят совершенно. Что-то очень странное, к чему я (пока?) не готова.

[Ana Utkina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Читать было иногда интересно, иногда муторно. Очень далеко от любимых Апельсины из Марокко и Звездного билета. Такой манифест безнадеги

[Steve Majerus-Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this novel about the intelligentsia of post-Stalin Russia, but it is an interesting, innovative read. I was often lost, to be honest.

[Mark Kagan]

h/t Alex Chudovinsky

[R.W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A feverish, stream of consciousness novel about Russian liberals in the 60's. Could have used some serious editing but nonetheless fascinating.

[Yulian Stoinov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Остана недовършена. Би трябвало да разказва отново историята, описана в "Таинственная страсть", но тук текстът е накъсан, объркан, на места историята е прекомерно хиперболизирана в опит да се предаде "саксофоничният" ритъм на 70-те, само дето в СССР такъв не е имало.

[Andy Boroditsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Очень сильная книга, создает настроение и задает много вопросов этически-философского характера, хотя ответ на них тоже понятен, и понятно, что простого или даже хорошего решения нет. Как писал Быков, "Воздух солон. Жребий предначертан. Сказаны последние слова. Статус полуострова исчерпан. Выживают только острова." В книге много непонятных "лишних" сюжетов и дополнительных линий, которые, как заблудившийся турист, ходят вокруг главного - ожога. Язык хороший, есть немного смешного:
"Он открутил окно, высунул свою растерзанную и весьма
битую голову под струю воздуха. - Эх, все-таки жизнь прекрасна! Москва!
Ночь! Бензин! Ты едешь к женщине, которая тебя хочет!! Рядом друг, который
тебя понимает!
- В салоне не блевать, - строго сказал водитель."

Много советского жаргона, думаю, большинству уже совсем непонятного. Автобиографическая часть жуткая. "Что, Саня, бьют? А так не били?" Очень понравился рассказ Сани про побег на Аляску - фактически единственный полностью светлый кусок.

[Kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Russian contemp fiction:Russia 1960s-----------vodka and stagnacity in Russia

[Lisa Hayden Espenschade]

Sent to limbo after about 100 chaotic and repetitive pages.

[Michael Christopher]

Russian edition of "The Burn."

[Alexander Skakunov · Rating 5 out of 5]

это вообще лучшее что я читал за всю жизнь!

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning. A visceral, feral look at the failures of the Soviet state and its fundamental attack on the very core of the human condition.