RaveLos Angeles Review of BooksThe novel contains remarkably little dramatic tension; interpersonal stakes are rarely articulated or even made palpable. Incomprehensibly large and complex historical trajectories take the place of discernible psychological motivations. Kirill does what he does, thinks what he thinks, because he is in thrall to a larger psychology, a suprapersonal ethics that belongs to the narrator ... The text is rich ... there is little unease in the course of The Goose Fritz: its sense of destiny is too strong, its hero too bound up in his narrator to allow for internal distance. This hermeticism results in a kind of interpretive dogma ... Each detail of narration is an occasion for a meaningful sign to appear, and the purposiveness of these signs is never second-guessed ... Lebedev’s prose is lyrical as a rule: cast in assonant patterns, attentive to rhythmic weight, responsive to the habits and desires of language. Antonina W. Bouis’s translation is both faithful and inspired, spinning the story out in a tirelessly beautiful English.
