Jacob's Ladder: A Novel
by Ludmila Ulitskaya
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Description
"Jumping between the diaries and letters of Jacob Ossetsky in Kiev in the early 1900s and the experiences of his granddaughter Nora in the theatrical world of Moscow in the 1970s and beyond, Jacob's Ladder guides the reader through some of the most turbulent times in the history of Russia and Ukraine, and draws suggestive parallels between historical events of the early twentieth century and those of more recent memory. Spanning the seeming promise of the prerevolutionary years, to the dark show more Stalinist era, to the corruption and confusion of the present day, Jacob's Ladder is a pageant of romance, betrayal, and memory. With a scale worthy of Tolstoy, it asks how much control any of us have over our lives--and how much is in fact determined by history, by chance, or indeed by the genes passed down by the generations that have preceded us into the world."-- show lessTags
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Member Reviews
(Somewhere between 2 and 3 stars. After all, 2=ok and 3=good. And I don't think this is Ulitskaya's best.)
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Russian Literature
184 works; 35 members
Kirkus Starred Fiction Reviews of Books Published in 2019
411 works; 12 members
Author Information
97+ Works 2,544 Members
Ludmila Ulitskaya was born in Russia and trained as a geneticist, she turned to writing after she had been stripped of her scientific credentials in the 1970's for translating a banned novel - Leon Uris's Exodus - into Russian. She lives in Moscow.
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- L'échelle de Jacob
- Original title
- Лестница Якова
- Original publication date
- 2015
- Epigraph*
- L’ombre, la continuation de l’existence,
à l’horizon de la page,
s’ébauche comme les brumes d’un futur matin,
et la phrase n’a pas de fin.VLADIMIR NABOKOV
Vers sur lesquels s’a... (show all)chève le roman Le Don. (Toutes les notes sont de la traductrice.) - Dedication*
- /
- First words*
- Chapitre 1
La malle en osier
975
Le bébé avait été superbe dès l’instant de sa venue au monde, avec une fossette bien distincte sur le menton et une petite tête soignée qui semblait ... (show all)sortie des mains d’un bon coiffeur : une coupe très courte, exactement comme sa mère, il avait juste les cheveux un peu plus clairs. [...] - Quotations*
- Младенец был прекрасен с первой минуты появления на свет - с заметной ямкой на подбородке и аккуратной головкой, как будто ... (show all)з рук хорошего парикмахера: короткая стрижка, точно как у матери, только волосы посветлее.
- Original language*
- Russe
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 891.73 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages East Indo-European and Celtic literatures Russian and East Slavic languages Russian fiction
- LCC
- PG3489.2 .L58 .L4713 — Language and Literature Slavic languages and literatures. Baltic languages. Albanian language Slavic. Baltic. Albanian Russian literature Individual authors and works 1961-2000
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 142
- Popularity
- 231,024
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.66)
- Languages
- 8 — Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 17
- ASINs
- 3
