PositiveThe Dallas Morning NewsThe early chapters, in which Ostrovsky discusses the intellectual underpinnings of Gorbachev’s reforms, are excellent. Ostrovsky sets perestroika and glasnost in the wider context of Russian and Soviet book-worship, arguing convincingly that believing communists who took Lenin much too seriously actually did more to undermine the U.S.S.R. than dissidents criticizing the regime from the outside ... Ostrovsky’s analysis of the decline of Russian liberalism and the rise of Putinist authoritarianism is impressive and, for the most part, persuasive, although at times the huge scope of the book results in a little too much pruning of the historical material ... even if The Invention of Russia doesn’t quite live up to its majestic title and occasionally veers into the realm of op-ed style bloviating, it is unquestionably a valuable addition to the growing literature on contemporary Russia — at once informed, insightful and highly readable.
Vladimir Sorokin, Trans. by Jamey Gambrell
PositiveThe Dallas Morning NewsSorokin is a veteran of the Soviet literary underground, and this surrealistic eruption of alien elements inside an established literary form is an old tactic of his: A gifted literary mimic, he often pits different types of language against each other inside his books.
Ludmila Ulitskaya
MixedThe Dallas Morning NewsUndisciplined, sprawling, even a bit chaotic, The Big Green Tent has its flaws. But for all that it is still a very interesting read as Ulitskaya covers with breathless gusto a period of Russian history unfamiliar to most American readers...You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll occasionally want to throw the book across the room in frustration — but you’ll keep reading.
