PositiveMediumThe Kremlin Ball is a collection of scathing portraits of Soviet high society between the revolutions of 1917 and the purges of the 1930’s, a time that is so crucial to understanding the history of the Soviet Union, and is so well critiqued and presented by the acerbic prose of Malaparte ... While the format and topic is distinctly Proustian—critiquing a society through its upper class citizens—the style is anything but Proustian; in fact, Malaparte’s style, with its lack of intellectual adornments and pomposity, is closest to that of George Orwell in his nonfiction ... Although the book remains unfinished, what remains of Curzio Malaparte’s hard hitting critiques are more alive than ever.
