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Journey through Chaos. with a Foreword by Upton Sinclair
Journey Through Chaos - An unorthodox autobiography by Victor Alexandrov - With a forward by Upton Sinclair.
This autobiography is one of the strangest ever written. It's author, Victor Alexandrov, is one of the orphans of our disordered civilization. The Russian Revolution cast him out at fourteen into a world ruled by terror, famine, and disease. Without roots, desperate and alone, he wandered through a restless, uneasy Europe.
His life was one continuous, breathless adventure. He starved and stole in the Ukraine with the band of "wild children", witnesses the seething dawn of Nazism in Germany, shared the poverty of the Balkans, the martyrdom of the Spanish Civil War, the helpless anguish of a continent on the brink of destruction.
He worked as a bootblack, a seaman, a gigolo's valet, a soldier, a taxi-driver, a journalist. He frequented the palaces of Europe's rulers and the dark corners where her rulers-to-be were biding their time. He understood what he saw better than most men, for his own life was a symptom of the blight that attacked the world.
Victor Alexandrov has left out nothing of his incredible story. Journey Through Chaos tells how he lived, cheated, fought, and loved in a sick and frightened world. It is frank and honest about morals, hunger, politics, deceit, crime. Parts of it may be shocking, but all of it is true.
The story of his life is, in a sense, the history of our time. One this age could have produced it. Only this one man could have written it.
This autobiography is one of the strangest ever written. It's author, Victor Alexandrov, is one of the orphans of our disordered civilization. The Russian Revolution cast him out at fourteen into a world ruled by terror, famine, and disease. Without roots, desperate and alone, he wandered through a restless, uneasy Europe.
His life was one continuous, breathless adventure. He starved and stole in the Ukraine with the band of "wild children", witnesses the seething dawn of Nazism in Germany, shared the poverty of the Balkans, the martyrdom of the Spanish Civil War, the helpless anguish of a continent on the brink of destruction.
He worked as a bootblack, a seaman, a gigolo's valet, a soldier, a taxi-driver, a journalist. He frequented the palaces of Europe's rulers and the dark corners where her rulers-to-be were biding their time. He understood what he saw better than most men, for his own life was a symptom of the blight that attacked the world.
Victor Alexandrov has left out nothing of his incredible story. Journey Through Chaos tells how he lived, cheated, fought, and loved in a sick and frightened world. It is frank and honest about morals, hunger, politics, deceit, crime. Parts of it may be shocking, but all of it is true.
The story of his life is, in a sense, the history of our time. One this age could have produced it. Only this one man could have written it.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1945
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 8, 2014
An amazing life story that is extremely well written and steeped in details that allow the reader to step through a portal in time to experience the life of the author. It feels like reading many stories woven together as Alexander is adept at his ability to craft language as well as bring characters of his past to life and weave details of time, place people and politics in a most entertaining fashion. His writing is candid, intelligent, humorous and insightful and will provide the reader with new perspectives about the time period (approx 1917-1945) in Russia, Germany, Greece/the Balkans, France and Spain.
June 25, 2013
This was a compelling read, which tells an incredible story in its raw entirety. The author has written his story in a way that keeps the reader engrossed, and explains from a first-person, outsider point of view how events in Europe began and unfolded.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews