A few good jokes in there, but who knew getting drunk could be so boooooooring ( )

Re-read this one. Brutal and hilarious. I guess people describe it as an Anti-epic. Reminds me of Gogol. ( )

This grail was coveted for years; what followed was a classic Jon Faith faint moment when I saw it on a shelf. I read it in a blur, which may have been a problem. It is an effective device to have the dissolute protagonist repeat and finally divulge, but it didn't click for me. This book PROFOUNDLY desverves another look. ( )

This didn't quite work for me, although I can't quite put my finger on what I didn't like -- it is an amusing tale (it helps if one has modest knowledge of Russian culture and literature), but particularly towards the end the story felt rather unstructured and thematically didn't really come to any kind of satisfying resolution, although that may kind of be the point in this case. It reminded me a bit of Gogol's "Dead Souls", with its hapless hero travelling aimlessly across the countryside, drinking and conversing with people on the way or with his imaginary angels about the Russian experience. In this case, our hero is actually trying to get somewhere, but in his state of drunkenness he is hardly able to find the train station, and even once on his way, his attention seems little focused on the destination. This may, I suppose, be an appropriate description of the Soviet experiment in the late 1960s, but for me as a reader it made the plot rather unfulfilling.

It’s late 1960s in Russia. Venya Erofeev is going from Moscow to Petushki by train. It’s not a long journey, but there’s enough time for him to tell monologues about history, philosophy, politics and his life.

The author is taking away a veil from an enigmatic Russian soul, simultaneously with acrid critique of the lifestyle of some people in Russia in late 1960s. I know, that the book provoked a lot of disputes among the readers at that time and was a new, modern way to express author’s point of view. To convey the message, the author uses offensive language along with biting irony and acrid social commentaries.

For that time, the significance of the book was tremendous, but nowadays, I think, it’s lost. As for me, since I didn’t live at that time, a lot of allusions and irony are just wasted on me; I simply don’t get it. I wonder, how people who haven’t been in Russia are taking the book; how they see it.
( )