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Self Help
A sweeping Anglo-Russian story of family love and family lies, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2007
528 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2007
89 people are currently reading
629 people want to read
About the author
Edward Docx
8 books48 followersEdward Docx was born in 1972 in the north of England. He grew up in Cheshire and London. After school, he went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he read English Literature and was Junior Common Room President.
He began his professional writing career working on the national newspapers. In 2003, his first novel, The Calligrapher, was published to widespread acclaim. It was selected by the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News as a Best Book of the Year and is now translated into eight languages.
In 2007, his second novel, Pravda (entitled Self Help in the UK), was published; it was long-listed for the Man Booker and went on to win The Geoffrey Faber Prize. In 2003 and then again in 2007, Docx travelled in South America as part of the research for his third novel which is scheduled for 2010.
Edward Docx lives in London. He is a full time writer.
He began his professional writing career working on the national newspapers. In 2003, his first novel, The Calligrapher, was published to widespread acclaim. It was selected by the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News as a Best Book of the Year and is now translated into eight languages.
In 2007, his second novel, Pravda (entitled Self Help in the UK), was published; it was long-listed for the Man Booker and went on to win The Geoffrey Faber Prize. In 2003 and then again in 2007, Docx travelled in South America as part of the research for his third novel which is scheduled for 2010.
Edward Docx lives in London. He is a full time writer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
August 17, 2011
I found the book a bit pretentious - it wasn't really my kind of book and that linked in with the fact that I couldn't feel for any of the characters aside from the Russian Piano Player (concentrating on him may have made better story rather than the sappy and annoying Gabriel). I did get into the book near the end but then the actual end went downhill again.
October 9, 2011
I didn't really connect with this book, as it seemed uneven to me. The writing was a bit pretentious. Sometimes the prose just didn't flow -- there was one point when I wondered whether the writer just got a new thesaurus -- though other times, it was really quite nice and I could get a real sense of setting.
The characters, too, were unevenly drawn and often one (or maybe sometimes two) dimensional but not fully realized, IMO. Gabriel and Isabella were often so self-absorbed for much of the book that it was hard for me to have the patience to care what happened to them. There were a couple of places where Gabriel showed promise, but ultimately he fell back to being rather wishy washy. Nicholas was so overly simplified that he was not interesting to me; by the time there was some depth added, it was too little, too late for me. Arkady and his story were engaging most of the time, but something felt a bit off.
The "surprise" at the end felt a little contrived. It felt like there were components of a few books packed into this one, but none of them were fully explored. I think if the author had dropped a few elements (e.g., Henry's addiction) and put more more energy into the remaining storylines, it might have been a more satisfying book. All in all, as others have noted, I wanted to like this book more than I did.
The characters, too, were unevenly drawn and often one (or maybe sometimes two) dimensional but not fully realized, IMO. Gabriel and Isabella were often so self-absorbed for much of the book that it was hard for me to have the patience to care what happened to them. There were a couple of places where Gabriel showed promise, but ultimately he fell back to being rather wishy washy. Nicholas was so overly simplified that he was not interesting to me; by the time there was some depth added, it was too little, too late for me. Arkady and his story were engaging most of the time, but something felt a bit off.
The "surprise" at the end felt a little contrived. It felt like there were components of a few books packed into this one, but none of them were fully explored. I think if the author had dropped a few elements (e.g., Henry's addiction) and put more more energy into the remaining storylines, it might have been a more satisfying book. All in all, as others have noted, I wanted to like this book more than I did.
October 14, 2009
It took my a while to complete Pravda, but not because I didn't like it. In fact, I really liked it. A lot.
One of the things I love about reading in general is that when it's done right it can take you to another world. This was definitely the case with Pravda. Docx paints a portrait of a family that is really caught between two worlds...post-Communist Russia and the western world. This dichotomy is the key to why the main characters in the book, twins Gabriel and Isabella, are each so uncertain about their place in the world. Add to the mix a bastard of a father and a mysterious Russian pianist and, well, it's a fascinating story.
Pravda is a novel about a family, but this family is harboring some interesting secrets. The characters are compelling and real, and the story unfolds slowly toward an unexpected climax.
This review wouldn't be complete without a mention of Docx himself, who is easily one of the most gifted novelists I've read in a long while. He is a brilliant storyteller and his use of language is special. The dude can write a sweet sentence! I found myself enjoying his writing itself as much as the story. I'm definitely going to read whatever he writes next, and will add his previous novel, The Calligrapher, to my "to-read" list right away.
One of the things I love about reading in general is that when it's done right it can take you to another world. This was definitely the case with Pravda. Docx paints a portrait of a family that is really caught between two worlds...post-Communist Russia and the western world. This dichotomy is the key to why the main characters in the book, twins Gabriel and Isabella, are each so uncertain about their place in the world. Add to the mix a bastard of a father and a mysterious Russian pianist and, well, it's a fascinating story.
Pravda is a novel about a family, but this family is harboring some interesting secrets. The characters are compelling and real, and the story unfolds slowly toward an unexpected climax.
This review wouldn't be complete without a mention of Docx himself, who is easily one of the most gifted novelists I've read in a long while. He is a brilliant storyteller and his use of language is special. The dude can write a sweet sentence! I found myself enjoying his writing itself as much as the story. I'm definitely going to read whatever he writes next, and will add his previous novel, The Calligrapher, to my "to-read" list right away.
November 21, 2011
I read this in a Picador edition, entitled 'Self Help'. There's some lovely descriptive writing, particularly about London and Paris, and a few 'jewel' insights had me smiling and appreciative... However... too many points of view made it unclear whose story it was and stood in the way of my caring about any of them, and the whole book felt padded with description, interior monologue and emoting. As an example, there's a whole chapter where nothing happens except that a character we don't care about yet walks through the streets of St Petersburg, weeping for his dead mother whom we also don't care about yet. Do men weep uncontrollably in public? I felt the chapter was just a vehicle for authorial place description. At half the length, with maybe three points of view, this could be a good book.
January 5, 2015
Devo dizer que experimentei alguma dificuldade em acompanhar o ritmo inconstante do livro... mas o último terço deste "A Verdade" representa uma espécie de renascimento não só para as personagens principais como também para o leitor. O ruir de uma vida desencadeia a ruptura da descendência com as convenções a que - irresistivelmente - se submetiam e a busca do significado de um percurso vivencial específico converte-se na revelação da sua Verdade escondida - agora imutável, límpida, eterna, essencial. E a neve cai. Um nome gravado em cirílico numa campa, o fogo da Verdade debaixo da brancura imaculada da neve espessa que cobre Sampetersburgo.
January 13, 2013
I got up to page 130 and then bailed. As other reviewers have noted, I had a hard time connecting to the characters and story. I did flip to the end to see what the big family secret/scandal was, and it was so blah that I'm glad I didn't soldier through all 390-ish pages to get to it.
March 31, 2014
Romanul lui Edward Docx, publicat cu acest titlu în Anglia și intitulat Pravda în SUA, nominalizat la premiul Booker în 2007, este puternic inspirat din dezvăluirea bunicii indiene pe patul de moarte: socrul ei a avut o legătură de scurtă durată cu o rusoaică, în urma căreia s-a născut mama lui Docx; socrul, rușinat, și-a convins fiul s-o crească pe micuță, ciopârțind și lipind astfel aiurea câteva ramuri ale arborelui genealogic al familiei. Până la urmă, șocul dezvăluirii a făcut mai mult bine decât rău, mama lui Docx a renunțat la cariera de bacteriolog pentru a deveni impresar artistic, iar Edward a lăsat orice scrupul deoparte și a clădit un roman pornind de la această idee. O spune chiar el, într-un interviu pentru The London Evening Standard: „Unul din aspectele stranii ale scrisului este acela că trebuie să oprești orice fel de cenzură din mintea ta, deci fără principii morale. Nu te poți gândi la ce-o să spună bunica sau chestii de genul ăsta, altfel nu ai mai scrie deloc. Scrii ce faci.”
Citește continuarea pe Hyperliteratura:
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Citește continuarea pe Hyperliteratura:
http://hyperliteratura.ro/self-help-u...
abandoned
December 5, 2008I've been carrying this book back and forth on my commute for too long now without cracking it. Every month or so I resolve to finish, but it never sticks. It's preventing me from starting anything else non-work related, because I feel like I'd be book cheating. Time to give up and move on.
A recommendation from C -- I like it quite a bit so far -- maybe I should heed her suggestions more often.
One bit, though, appearing on page 19, does make me a little cautious, in that it reminds me of something I might write, in the limited sense of its wrenching (and resultingly illogical) overdoneness:
"But just the same, she dared not allow her mind to look up, for she sensed that the tattered images of her dreams were still hung high on the masts of her consciousness like the ragged remainders of sails flapping after a storm."
Ahoy, Cap'n--avert your gaze from the consciousness masts!
A recommendation from C -- I like it quite a bit so far -- maybe I should heed her suggestions more often.
One bit, though, appearing on page 19, does make me a little cautious, in that it reminds me of something I might write, in the limited sense of its wrenching (and resultingly illogical) overdoneness:
"But just the same, she dared not allow her mind to look up, for she sensed that the tattered images of her dreams were still hung high on the masts of her consciousness like the ragged remainders of sails flapping after a storm."
Ahoy, Cap'n--avert your gaze from the consciousness masts!
March 21, 2009
While I made it through this book, I never really managed to connect with it. All of the characters (except the one the author bumped off) were wholly unremarkable. The two characters intended to be the most sympathetic did little else besides brood or complain about their father, who, though undeniably a hall-of-fame windbag, hardly seemed worth the energy. One of the other characters started off as strongly reminiscent of the villain in the prequel to "The Da Vinci Code", and fizzled out with such anticlimax that I was left wondering why he was given the level of importance that he was. Unless descriptions of weather and drug addicts are enough to encompass a city, I was no closer to visualizing St. Petersburg than I was when I started the book.
Ultimately, all I can say is, if this book was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, that must be one gargantuan list.
Ultimately, all I can say is, if this book was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, that must be one gargantuan list.
June 4, 2009
Okay, I'll admit it -- I only read the first 200 pages before it was time for book club. This book was really evocative -- I could really picture all of the characters and the scenes and that's a skill in and of itself and for that reason I kept with the book. But holy whatever, each character was so insanely, obnoxiously, dramatically, self-indugently self-analytical. The chapters switched from character-to-character, but each character-centered chapter was the same as the last one focused on that same character -- following the individual as they wore out the same mental path, over and over again, in their fictious heads. Oh the histrionics! There's a big dramatic suprise in the last 50 pages, but I wouldn't slog through the first 325 pages to get to it.
October 13, 2008
I gave up on it, with some reluctance. The cover says it was "long-listed" for the Booker Prize. In the distance between the long list and the short list lies whatever Mr. Docx needs to practice to capture the imagination. The prose seems masterful, but I'm not enlisted enough to invest the time to discover what the point of it all might be.
As a diplomatically phrased rejection letter I once received put it, "I wanted to like this more than I did."
Gerald.
Boychik Lit
As a diplomatically phrased rejection letter I once received put it, "I wanted to like this more than I did."
Gerald.
Boychik Lit
September 12, 2018
Enjoyed this a lot. Particularly good at describing the effects of grief and shock at a sudden loss of a parent, but a lot of other good stuff too: a look into the closeness of twins, the end of the Soviet Union, crushing poverty and addiction, and the power of music. And how relationships can become stifling. How hard it can be to forgive. It's not actually as dark as it sounds--lots of humor and redemption, too. A good story--and, as the reviewers have said, good on atmosphere, especially in the Russian scenes.
Currently reading
March 4, 2009The writer seems to one of those modern guys who loves to use "fuck" and scandalous characters like a little kid who is enjoying say bad words. It just feels like a desperate attempt to make his writing "edgy."
February 3, 2009
Couldn't ask for more from a book -- great writing, great story lines, complex characters. I found myself reading it slowly because I didn't want it to end.
February 8, 2025
A woman dies in post-Soviet, gangster-run St Petersburg and her unacknowledged son, a divinely talented pianist, needs to contact her heirs in London to persuade them to continue paying his fees to study at the Conservatoire.
This is a book of cities, almost always in dreadful weather. Arkady lives in St Petersburg, Isabella his half-sister lives in New York, Gabriel, her twin brother, is a journalist in London. Their father Nicholas lives in Paris. The London scenes are informed by the inevitable Dickens and the Russian scenes by Dostoevsky (the scene in Crime and Punishment in which Raskolnikov stands on a bridge is mentioned twice). As for Paris, there seem to be echoes from Zola's The Masterpiece: just like the hero of that novel, Nicholas is a painter who despairs of ever producing truly good work (“The fact that he was a profoundly mediocre painter might not have bothered him at all except ... that every time he closed his eyes, he could see quite clearly what it was that he wanted to achieve. ... The artist's vision without the accompanying artistry: a curse of the gods if ever there was one.”; Ch 20) and lives on the Ile St-Louis.
The children, Isabella and Gabriel, are thrown into psychological crisis by the death of their mother. “When a parent passes away, the family demons do not retreat, but rise from their sarcophagi instead.” (Ch 19)
The keeper of the secrets is their father, the man who controlled them throughout their childhood and emotionally and physically abused them when they were young. The man they hate. Nicholas is a towering figure, a truth teller who understands himself at the deepest level. “What interested him most of all in life was trying to understand the exact shape and weight of other people's inner selves, the architecture of their spirit.” (Ch 20) He is the villain of the piece but he is the most beautifully written character of the book, “a selfish cowardly bullying bastard and a charming intelligent thoughtful man at the same time.” (Ch 43)
But the other main characters - Isabella, Gabriel who has become outwardly a clone of his father, a faithless lover and a man capable of extraordinarily eloquent invective, Arkady and his protector, Henry the heroin addict - are all wonderfully written. The book is written with each chapter from the perspective of one or more of these characters, but always in the third person and the past tense.
For me, the most impressive feature of this book was the brilliance of the description. Time and again, Docx summarised a whole scene with a few words, often using language creatively or coining neologisms to do so, in phrases such as “The Sunday sky as raw and pale as fear-sickened flesh waiting at the whipping post.” (Ch 40) and “Notre-Dame like some mighty queen termite, belly-stranded in the middle of the river by the sheer volume of her pregnancy.” (Ch 51)
This is a book of cities, almost always in dreadful weather. Arkady lives in St Petersburg, Isabella his half-sister lives in New York, Gabriel, her twin brother, is a journalist in London. Their father Nicholas lives in Paris. The London scenes are informed by the inevitable Dickens and the Russian scenes by Dostoevsky (the scene in Crime and Punishment in which Raskolnikov stands on a bridge is mentioned twice). As for Paris, there seem to be echoes from Zola's The Masterpiece: just like the hero of that novel, Nicholas is a painter who despairs of ever producing truly good work (“The fact that he was a profoundly mediocre painter might not have bothered him at all except ... that every time he closed his eyes, he could see quite clearly what it was that he wanted to achieve. ... The artist's vision without the accompanying artistry: a curse of the gods if ever there was one.”; Ch 20) and lives on the Ile St-Louis.
The children, Isabella and Gabriel, are thrown into psychological crisis by the death of their mother. “When a parent passes away, the family demons do not retreat, but rise from their sarcophagi instead.” (Ch 19)
The keeper of the secrets is their father, the man who controlled them throughout their childhood and emotionally and physically abused them when they were young. The man they hate. Nicholas is a towering figure, a truth teller who understands himself at the deepest level. “What interested him most of all in life was trying to understand the exact shape and weight of other people's inner selves, the architecture of their spirit.” (Ch 20) He is the villain of the piece but he is the most beautifully written character of the book, “a selfish cowardly bullying bastard and a charming intelligent thoughtful man at the same time.” (Ch 43)
But the other main characters - Isabella, Gabriel who has become outwardly a clone of his father, a faithless lover and a man capable of extraordinarily eloquent invective, Arkady and his protector, Henry the heroin addict - are all wonderfully written. The book is written with each chapter from the perspective of one or more of these characters, but always in the third person and the past tense.
For me, the most impressive feature of this book was the brilliance of the description. Time and again, Docx summarised a whole scene with a few words, often using language creatively or coining neologisms to do so, in phrases such as “The Sunday sky as raw and pale as fear-sickened flesh waiting at the whipping post.” (Ch 40) and “Notre-Dame like some mighty queen termite, belly-stranded in the middle of the river by the sheer volume of her pregnancy.” (Ch 51)
June 6, 2021
I read this book because I'd seen an excellent New Statesman article that Edward Docx had written on Dr Jim Down https://www.newstatesman.com/politics... (Jim's dad was my first consultant when I qualified).
The copy of Self Help I got was a large hardback withdrawn from Pembrokeshire County Library. I haven't read such a heavy book in years! It's testament to the writing that the weight didn't stop me reading it in bed and everywhere. When I finished it my partner remarked on how gripped I was by it.
It's a story about a complex family set mainly between St Petersburg, London and Paris. I can't profess to know St Petersburg much but I have stayed there and visited the sites. It was trips to Russia (and probably Finland in winter) that got me back into drinking vodka, after the typical teenage over-indulgence that normally puts one off for life. I needn't say more need I? But I digress. Of course any book about Russia would include vodka drinking - but it's not a big part of it.
The book is a slow burn and at times that's frustrating. The descriptions are detailed and some of it is superfluous but that said, if you immerse yourself in it you understand the characters and the settings better and it pulls you in. Docx describes all three cities and the characters lives, others they encounter and their relationships really well.
It's hard to talk in detail about the book without giving away key plot lines though early on you find out that it's about two twins coping with their Russian parents' separation and events that happened to the parents when they were about the age of the twins. It jumps about in time and that's fine. All the chapters are short and great for moving it on whenever you have 10mins to spare. It details the twins struggles with life today, perhaps as a consequence of their upbringing, but perhaps not too. Is that just an excuse?
The book has a surprising twist at the end that I didn't expect though of course I knew something was going to happen / be revealed and I wasn't disappointed.
The copy of Self Help I got was a large hardback withdrawn from Pembrokeshire County Library. I haven't read such a heavy book in years! It's testament to the writing that the weight didn't stop me reading it in bed and everywhere. When I finished it my partner remarked on how gripped I was by it.
It's a story about a complex family set mainly between St Petersburg, London and Paris. I can't profess to know St Petersburg much but I have stayed there and visited the sites. It was trips to Russia (and probably Finland in winter) that got me back into drinking vodka, after the typical teenage over-indulgence that normally puts one off for life. I needn't say more need I? But I digress. Of course any book about Russia would include vodka drinking - but it's not a big part of it.
The book is a slow burn and at times that's frustrating. The descriptions are detailed and some of it is superfluous but that said, if you immerse yourself in it you understand the characters and the settings better and it pulls you in. Docx describes all three cities and the characters lives, others they encounter and their relationships really well.
It's hard to talk in detail about the book without giving away key plot lines though early on you find out that it's about two twins coping with their Russian parents' separation and events that happened to the parents when they were about the age of the twins. It jumps about in time and that's fine. All the chapters are short and great for moving it on whenever you have 10mins to spare. It details the twins struggles with life today, perhaps as a consequence of their upbringing, but perhaps not too. Is that just an excuse?
The book has a surprising twist at the end that I didn't expect though of course I knew something was going to happen / be revealed and I wasn't disappointed.
March 18, 2022
The death of family matriarch, Maria Glover, unites the different strands of this novel variously set in St Petersburg, New York, London and Paris. Docx gets under the skin of the cities and a diverse set of characters from journalist, gay bon viveur, exiled Russian Marxist, cultured junkie to piano virtuoso, all of whom are so believable and human that by the end of the novel you feel they are friends or relations who still live and breathe outside its pages. The writing is outstanding with a keen eye for new collective nouns! Every now and then I wanted to pare down the adjectives just a touch but that's a mean stylistic quibble. The plot is perfectly paced and reveals its secrets and connections in a very satisfying arc. The secrets and tragic personality flaws that cause endless pain in families take their place alongside wider exploration of life and style in these four very different cites. Well worth the read and a little patience at the beginning while the narrative gets into its stride.
April 22, 2018
This book had some passages that made me want to call it well-written, and some that made me want to call it over-written. I don't think the author understands women at all - not so much because of his characterization of Isabella, but because of the offhand remarks made about other women (essentially things like: they are clamoring for male attention but then like to pretend they're outraged by it).
Also, I guess you can consider this a semi-spoiler, but if you're going to pull the rug out from under your characters, it should probably have some impact. Pull it out earlier in the book and show some fallout, or pull it out at the very, very end and make sure it's dramatic enough to really affect your reader. Don't do it 30 pages from the end and then just sort of meander on. And while I'm on that topic, making me care about the characters in the 300+ pages which precede the rug-pulling would be a good thing, too.
Also, I guess you can consider this a semi-spoiler, but if you're going to pull the rug out from under your characters, it should probably have some impact. Pull it out earlier in the book and show some fallout, or pull it out at the very, very end and make sure it's dramatic enough to really affect your reader. Don't do it 30 pages from the end and then just sort of meander on. And while I'm on that topic, making me care about the characters in the 300+ pages which precede the rug-pulling would be a good thing, too.
December 22, 2015
Gabriel and Isabella are fraternal twins in their 20s, devoted to each other with the kind of intimacy twins often seem to have but unable to make much of a commitment to anything or anyone else. Gabriel for example is simultaneously in love with two women (and therefore with neither) and is wasting time in an impossible and meaningless job. Isabella walks out on both her own job and her boyfriend, neither of which has given her any real cause for dissatisfaction.
The origin of their problem is deep-seated, but the event triggering the crisis in this book is the sudden death of their strong-willed mother, Masha, who'd left the family some years some earlier to return to her native Russia. Their father, Nicholas, had spun off in his own direction at an earlier point, partly because he'd discovered a preference for boys but also because of a philosophical rejection of "life's kindly smothering disguises" / "the derisory covenants of this disreputable age" (i.e., the safe routines within which we all take comfort).
There are extended meditations on the concept of meaninglessness, the notion that earlier generations surely had "a lot of shit on their plate--war, disease, violent death, and so on" but that now, among other things, "all ideas had become small or embarrassing or superficial" and "the strength of an argument was gauged only by the emotional temperature at which it was delivered" and "absolutely nothing credible existed." (This viewpoint first came to my attention when I was studying existentialism in college, but I later encountered it more viscerally through the writings of Annie Proulx and Cormac McCarthy. In those writers' hands it made me uncomfortable: We create, or let others create, the meaning in our lives. But that creation can be snatched away at any moment. Then what?)
Although Gabriel despises Nicholas, their thoughts often seem to run along similar paths. Both for example perceive around themselves silly Western people who have self-images drastically out of touch with reality. That is, those people imagine themselves to be talented and underappreciated when in fact they are already being given much more than their due (not that either Gabriel or Nicholas presume to be one iota better). Such pampered existence is contrasted with life in Russia (a country well known by all family members), where "there was power, there was beauty, and there was talent; either you had one of those or by and large you shut up."
At any rate, Nicholas had never been a supportive father (to put it mildly), and the twins have avoided contact with him for years, even though Masha had continued to remain important to all three of them. Her death now leaves everyone rudderless. Also, there's another family member, unknown to Gabriel and Isabella: her older son in Russia, whom she located on her return there by hiring a detective. Arkady is an exceptionally gifted pianist, who might've had a state-sponsored scholarship to the conservatory had the Soviet Union not collapsed just as he was coming of age. Masha had begun paying his tuition there. Now she is gone, and with her go his last hopes.
That is, unless Arkady can make himself known to his siblings and the family can find common cause in his rescue.
The above may be a fair synopsis, but it doesn't say much about the experience of reading this book. For me, progress through it was unusually slow. Until passing the halfway point, every time I picked it up again I had to backtrack for a reminder of what was happening. In other words, it didn't captivate me at first, and I don't know why. I definitely cared about Arkady, and worried about his unhappy friend Henry, whose selfless efforts put into motion all of the important plot developments. I think if more of the focus had been on those two, the reading would have been easier. This probably means I didn't connect easily with Gabriel, Isabella, and especially not with Nicholas--despite understanding and even largely agreeing with them.
How could I not see truth in this Lennonesque soliloquy by Nicholas?
"You are peasants, my friends, of peasant stock and loamy soul, only lately freed from your bonds--muck and ignorance cling to your every desperate venture. ... The democracy you live by, this freedom, these right, they are so many cruel jokes being played on you by your old rulers as they snigger and snort behind their latest disguises."
As in other worthy books I could name, any drawbacks with characters or plot developments may be compensated for in quality and perceptiveness of the prose. That happens here, as perhaps evidenced by the snippet above. In closing I just want to preserve one more such passage (this one perhaps overwritten but arresting nonetheless):
"He wondered how far from an actual chicken a piece of chicken in a Chinese chicken dish could go and still get away with being called a piece of chicken. Of course, these nameless cubes (tasting of chalk and chamois leather) had nothing to do with young hens roaming around the farmyard; nothing to do with the main bits of even a battery bird, not leg nor breast; and nothing to do with the secondaries either--the wings or feet; nothing to do with livers, gizzards, or neck; nothing to do with bones or beaks or feathers. No--at best is was just about possible that these bits he was now eating had once been on the same factory floor as other meats that had known a few chicken pieces in their youth. You had to credit them for their audacity--they were quite prepared to go out into the world armed with nothing by way of a briefing save these old-timers' stories of what chicken used to be and just … just fake it, just belligerently pretend."
The origin of their problem is deep-seated, but the event triggering the crisis in this book is the sudden death of their strong-willed mother, Masha, who'd left the family some years some earlier to return to her native Russia. Their father, Nicholas, had spun off in his own direction at an earlier point, partly because he'd discovered a preference for boys but also because of a philosophical rejection of "life's kindly smothering disguises" / "the derisory covenants of this disreputable age" (i.e., the safe routines within which we all take comfort).
There are extended meditations on the concept of meaninglessness, the notion that earlier generations surely had "a lot of shit on their plate--war, disease, violent death, and so on" but that now, among other things, "all ideas had become small or embarrassing or superficial" and "the strength of an argument was gauged only by the emotional temperature at which it was delivered" and "absolutely nothing credible existed." (This viewpoint first came to my attention when I was studying existentialism in college, but I later encountered it more viscerally through the writings of Annie Proulx and Cormac McCarthy. In those writers' hands it made me uncomfortable: We create, or let others create, the meaning in our lives. But that creation can be snatched away at any moment. Then what?)
Although Gabriel despises Nicholas, their thoughts often seem to run along similar paths. Both for example perceive around themselves silly Western people who have self-images drastically out of touch with reality. That is, those people imagine themselves to be talented and underappreciated when in fact they are already being given much more than their due (not that either Gabriel or Nicholas presume to be one iota better). Such pampered existence is contrasted with life in Russia (a country well known by all family members), where "there was power, there was beauty, and there was talent; either you had one of those or by and large you shut up."
At any rate, Nicholas had never been a supportive father (to put it mildly), and the twins have avoided contact with him for years, even though Masha had continued to remain important to all three of them. Her death now leaves everyone rudderless. Also, there's another family member, unknown to Gabriel and Isabella: her older son in Russia, whom she located on her return there by hiring a detective. Arkady is an exceptionally gifted pianist, who might've had a state-sponsored scholarship to the conservatory had the Soviet Union not collapsed just as he was coming of age. Masha had begun paying his tuition there. Now she is gone, and with her go his last hopes.
That is, unless Arkady can make himself known to his siblings and the family can find common cause in his rescue.
The above may be a fair synopsis, but it doesn't say much about the experience of reading this book. For me, progress through it was unusually slow. Until passing the halfway point, every time I picked it up again I had to backtrack for a reminder of what was happening. In other words, it didn't captivate me at first, and I don't know why. I definitely cared about Arkady, and worried about his unhappy friend Henry, whose selfless efforts put into motion all of the important plot developments. I think if more of the focus had been on those two, the reading would have been easier. This probably means I didn't connect easily with Gabriel, Isabella, and especially not with Nicholas--despite understanding and even largely agreeing with them.
How could I not see truth in this Lennonesque soliloquy by Nicholas?
"You are peasants, my friends, of peasant stock and loamy soul, only lately freed from your bonds--muck and ignorance cling to your every desperate venture. ... The democracy you live by, this freedom, these right, they are so many cruel jokes being played on you by your old rulers as they snigger and snort behind their latest disguises."
As in other worthy books I could name, any drawbacks with characters or plot developments may be compensated for in quality and perceptiveness of the prose. That happens here, as perhaps evidenced by the snippet above. In closing I just want to preserve one more such passage (this one perhaps overwritten but arresting nonetheless):
"He wondered how far from an actual chicken a piece of chicken in a Chinese chicken dish could go and still get away with being called a piece of chicken. Of course, these nameless cubes (tasting of chalk and chamois leather) had nothing to do with young hens roaming around the farmyard; nothing to do with the main bits of even a battery bird, not leg nor breast; and nothing to do with the secondaries either--the wings or feet; nothing to do with livers, gizzards, or neck; nothing to do with bones or beaks or feathers. No--at best is was just about possible that these bits he was now eating had once been on the same factory floor as other meats that had known a few chicken pieces in their youth. You had to credit them for their audacity--they were quite prepared to go out into the world armed with nothing by way of a briefing save these old-timers' stories of what chicken used to be and just … just fake it, just belligerently pretend."
December 27, 2021
Engrossing. Fascinating. Mesmerizing. Why are Russians so weird? Why are the English so cold and self-absorbed? I think it's okay for me to pose these questions since my parents were both Russian, and I grew up speaking Russian - although not in England - and my father went to Oxford (not Cambridge). I remember Papa as being a tad self-absorbed - aren't we all, but definitely not cold. Is it a Soviet thing? Is Docx a Basque name, because it sure as hell does not sound Russian? Or is it just a construct. And why are Russians just Russians, whereas other nationalities get a THE in front of their name ?
I did find this novel engrossing - not only extremely clever but extremely well-written as well. I am not sure if non-Russians will be equally fascinated or intrigued. I am curious to see the other reviews.
I did find this novel engrossing - not only extremely clever but extremely well-written as well. I am not sure if non-Russians will be equally fascinated or intrigued. I am curious to see the other reviews.
October 21, 2023
I was so looking forward to reading this because I absolutely love 'Let Go My Hand' and ... I just didn't. Love it, I mean. In fact, it was a lot like the parson's egg, good in parts, and like the parson's egg, that isn't enough to make a breakfast or a novel a five-star read. Some bits were really excellent and thought-provoking and fabulous: rants and musings. But the characters themselves ... hm. You couldn't really warm to any of them. I kind of liked Nicholas, but when I read that he wrote a scathing review of Gabriel's play, I lost interest in him. Arkady was interesting but difficult to understand. I enjoyed the sneering fight between the twins very much. Well written and utterly believable, as was the getting over it some time later that same day. And the last bit of the book is very gripping. But I must admit to skimming the first 400 pages or so . Sadly.
March 17, 2019
Een roman van Edward Docx is altijd de moeite.
Dit is nog maar zijn tweede, en voor mij rommelt dit nog wat qua grote verhaalsstructuur: hij wil te veel over alle figuren zeggen, zodat mijn aandacht te veel verstrooid raakt en het traag vooruitgaat. Soms drukt hij ongedoseerd en monotoon zwaar door op depressie en wanhoop, maar daartegenover staan schitterende psychologische tekeningen en ook dialogen die laten zien dat dit de schrijver zal worden van het onvolprezen 'Laat los mijn hand'.
Dit is nog maar zijn tweede, en voor mij rommelt dit nog wat qua grote verhaalsstructuur: hij wil te veel over alle figuren zeggen, zodat mijn aandacht te veel verstrooid raakt en het traag vooruitgaat. Soms drukt hij ongedoseerd en monotoon zwaar door op depressie en wanhoop, maar daartegenover staan schitterende psychologische tekeningen en ook dialogen die laten zien dat dit de schrijver zal worden van het onvolprezen 'Laat los mijn hand'.
November 21, 2020
I want to describe this book as profound, but I am not sure that is the right word. Set in Russia, Londan, and New Your, it is the story of family secrets and resented loyalties. As often happens, when the mother dies, the fragile fabric of the family starts to unravel, and not all tears are easy to mend.
March 24, 2018
Gabriel and Isabella (twins, in their thirties) lose their mother.
A story set in various cities - St Petersburg, London, Paris - and told from various perspectives.
Families, loyalties, siblings, love, identity.
I enjoyed it thoroughly.
A story set in various cities - St Petersburg, London, Paris - and told from various perspectives.
Families, loyalties, siblings, love, identity.
I enjoyed it thoroughly.
April 3, 2021
Another interesting and enjoyable book by Edward Docx. He presents great physical descriptions that really bring you into the scene. Docx also develops interesting characters with meaningful interplay among them.
November 14, 2023
Typically I give books 100 pages before I quit, but I was so bored after almost 60 I had to stop. I had plenty of time to read due to an illness, but it dragged. I couldn't do it. Don't even really know what this book is about still.
December 19, 2022
got pretty good towards the end, but the beginning was mad painful in parts. was an interesting read overall but idk what message to take from it?? i enjoyed it more than i expected
March 15, 2023
Adult twins are faced with the sudden death of their Russian mother and trying to piece together why their father was such a bad one. Mostly set in St Petersburg and London. Very little plot.
Want to read
June 7, 2025( Feira do Livro )
January 16, 2022
Pravda, by Edward Docx, is the story of twins, Gabriel and Isabella Glover, born to Russian parents living in England. The story begins with the death of their mother, causing the twins to return to Russia, and to look inside themselves for the first time in their adult lives. Throughout the novel they learn hard truths about themselves and their family. Though this story has the potential to be a thrilling and poignant tale of growth, the message is lost. Docx, despite using excruciating detail for every minuscule plot point, seems to under-explain the key details that would have otherwise tied this story together. As far as plot, not much happens - which wouldn’t bother me if the inner monologue of each member of the Glover family was not unbearable. The only likable characters in the whole book are Arkady and Henry, who are both fighting the poverty of living in Russia and fighting to reconcile their own potential against the opportunities life has offered them. The ending, though surprising and compelling, does not make up for the stagnancy of the rest of the novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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