The New Sweet Style

by Vasily Aksyonov, Christopher Morris (Translator), Василий Аксенов

Few writers enjoy the kind of international praise and prestige that Russian émigré novelist Vassily Aksyonov has earned for his previ-ous books. In his latest and most surprising novel, The New Sweet Style , Alexander Korbach--a singer/composer/playwright adored by the counterculture in Moscow and reviled by the Communist powers-that-were--comes to the United States to start over and to search for new ways of pursuing his art.
    
No one is at the airport to meet him. Oh, well. Sasha soon discovers that he's a distant cousin of a rich American retailer with an elegant flagship store in New York. But before he can "capitalize" on this connection, Sasha has to work as a garage attendant in Santa Monica, deal with his Russian ex-wife, face down the KGB, get in bed with the KGB, and drink a goodly  portion of vodka now and again (and again).
    
With his inimitably hilarious and melancholy sensibility, Vassily Aksyonov draws a sharp portrait of a flawed but resilient hero who wanders through his new homeland in search of happiness and an audience for his work. It's a  perfect, wise vision of a world that somehow manages to grow smaller and crazier with every passing day.

Genres: Russia, Fiction

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

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

[Olga Lukinskaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Не книга, а книжища из 12 частей на 800 страницах. Понравился юмор, вплетения магического реализма, отличные куски про первые шаги советского иммигранта в Штатах и потом про развал СССР в 1991 (все эти танки напротив Белого дома). Много авторских терминов рифмующегося с Калифорнией штата Очичёрния до израильской газеты "Неттехнам" (Манхеттен наоборот). Думаю, при повторном прочтении найдутся штуки, в первый раз незамеченные. Что не очень понравилось — трудно помнить всех действующих лиц и многократное странноватое слово "трахание", ну так в 90-е так говорили, видимо.

[Moira Mackinnon · Rating 2 out of 5]

A sprawling, sometimes brilliant novel, to me it was flawed by the overuse of a peculiar, joking style of addressing the reader directly. If used sparingly, it would have added to the flavour of the book. Instead it constantly drags you back from the action and becomes merely irritating.

[Kay Robart · Rating 2 out of 5]

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018...