Люди с чистой совестью

by Anna Kozlova, Анна Козлова

221 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Stas · Rating 3 out of 5]

"People with clean conscience". At first I was hating this book: debauched young politician, in a coke and booze-soaked threesome with his own wife and his supposed best friend, political machinations, spontaneous anti-semitism, rudeness and vulgarity. But platitudes and sentimentalties gradually began to be occasionally punctuated by a passionate bitterness, reaching sometimes a remarkably precise diagnosis of the situation, both sexual and political/ A very sizable group of Russian writers today still cannot get away from Dostoyevsky, but they have also read Celine, and perhaps Jellinek and Houlebecq. Yep, Houlebecq, that's it - he is all over this book. But also, and this is less flattering, coming from me, it reminds me of Tom Robbins and Tom Wolfe. This is not literature, it's journalism. It's satire, it's a joke, but it's not serious, it doesn't have staying power. It's too much a novel of ideas.
Mostly I am thankful for, on p. 144, an evocation of a memory from a childhood in which i share:
"There was no better diversion, than to stare, on a winter evening, at the far off apartment buildings, cross-hatched by the yellow squares of the windows".
And a final story of an aged female alcoholic mourning the death of her pet, nay, 'he was like a son to me' a giant hog she keeps in her city apartment. A piece of choice Russian grotesque.

[Quiver · Rating 2 out of 5]

The books describes the despicable state of Russia's modern middle class sickeningly well. And for the sickening feeling it gave me, I give it two stars. You have been warned.