Emanuel Lavrentievich closed the book and returned to his review. There was an odd sensation in his eyes and the back of his throat, and a number of thoughts, all of which he knew he would be well advised not to dwell on, were doing their best to gain his attention. He moved his gaze over the words he had already written, but they refused to cohere into sentences. And some of them surely had nothing to do with it? He deleted "Chekhov", "ineluctably" and "icon", pondered a while, and then put back "icon".

No, he thought, it was entirely unsatisfactory. With a few decisive keystrokes, he erased the whole review. The now empty window, a minimalist, Malevitch-like rectangle of white delicately flanked by bars of blue, gray and black, seemed more appropriate; he was examining it intently when a noise disturbed him. Turning to his right, he slowly resolved the two irregular poppy-colored ovoids into the outline of Ekaterina Pavlovna, wearing her red dress and looking at him with a concerned expression.

"I thought you were nearly finished," she said. "But you haven't even started."

"I can't decide what to say," said Emanuel.

I was really drawn in by the beautiful imagery and the well drawn protoganist in this book.

This novel at its core is a story of man in his 50s having to confront the decisions that he made as a younger man and how they shaped the course of his life. Sukhanov essentially had two paths that he could have taken. On one path he pursues his passions but will inevitably struggle economically and will be outcasted to a certain extent. The other path requires him to give up, even forsake, that which he is most talented and passionate about, but in exchange he will live quite comfortably. Having a beautiful wife and anticipating future children, Sukhanov "sells out"...a decision he makes for the benefit of his family, but ironically contributes to alienate him from each one of them later on.

This novel comments a lot on the power of art and the individual, but also examines the relationship between politics and art. To top it off, Sukhanov's first passion, surrealist art, is the very form that his nightmares and delusions take later in his life that cause him to question everything he knows.

One can easily empathize with Sukhanov; he is a likable protagonist and we can share the distress of facing our own dilemmas. I also appreciate that Grushin doesn't automatically steer us down one path or the other. There is another character in the book that essentially represents the fate of the other path, and it's not one that we would want either.

DNF. Somewhere around the 200 page mark, only a hundred or so from the end, I gave up on this - a book which objectively was probably reasonably deserving of praise, but which had failed to really engage me. This novel deals with a Soviet gentleman - a father, an art critic and magazine editor, a traditionalist in a time of change in the USSR. In some ways a complex character, but in others a person in which I could only find myself taking a far from deep interest. I could neither identify with the lack of progressiveness of the traditional views, or the excess of pretension of novel artistic sensibilities. Though the writing was occasionally shining with beautiful moments and small observations, in general it was meandering and descriptive for little real benefit. After the umpteenth flashback to the protagonist’s formative moments, I realised I had no interest in how it was going to end.

Every now and then history elbows its way into a book I’m reading. The life of recently departed Vaclav Havel, at first glance, would seem to offer a stern rebuke to life of Grushin’s protag, “Tolya” Sukhanov (is it fair do compare historical figures with fictional characters? why else to we read novels, if not to see the grubby, muddled “truth” of “real” life in a new light?). Havel, an artist in his own right, chose not to “live within the lie,” as Solzhenitsyn put it; Tolya conforms to the lie. But what sold me on G’s version of this timeless conflict is her unwillingness to portray TS as solely a victim of a repressive system. For an ostensibly “political” novel, G. keeps the menace of ideology, for the most part, relatively muted. In at least one key place, she works against our conventional expectations of Stalin's henchmen breaking down doors in middle of night and hauling off dissidents. The machinations, frustrations, disappointments, and compromises of S’s daily life, personal and professional, don’t seem much different from those of any mid to upper level manager in a large institution. His kids insult him, his wife ignores him, and his boss (a cranky, pompous father-in-law, no less) barely tolerates him, and he suspects everyone of trying to take advantage of him. It was this chronic erosion of a comfortable life built on an illusion of control that made him more sympathetic than his failures as an artist, though I hasten to add that you can’t separate the two so neatly.

Another reviewer described G’s tone and prose as “overheated” and “melodramatic,” and I’d have to agree; or to put it more generously, I’d describe her as one of those very talented, microscopic stylists who can’t resist adorning every little detail with pristine, lyrical imagery. Sometimes the effect is magical; sometimes it‘s just wearying. She writes in long, rolling, looping sentences that take up several lines of print. Once you catch the rhythm of them, they can be energizing and fun to ride, but if you’re tired and ate too much beef and potatoes for dinner, they can be a slog and sleep-inducing.

My reaction was lukewarm through the first 50-75 pages, but the novel grew on me on a good bit as I got further into it. For all the ruminating on role of art in public discourse, it was S’s befuddled frustrations with his smart-aleck kids that gradually won me over. Tolya may be no Vaclav Havel, but then, according to his obits, Havel never had kids.

An extremely strange book, as if entangled in the networks of its own vague images—a combination of gray, joyless reality and exhausting bright dreams of the main character. A complex composition, striving from a complete misunderstanding straight to a stunning epiphany and horror. Very unconventional and intelligent prose about the difficult pre-perestroika Russian times and about the figure of the artist against the background of the political portrait of the country.

This story is about Sukhanov's life, which is truly reflected through a series dreams—the title of the book directly reflects its whole essence. But you can also tell about the most ordinary things in such a way that you can't help but gasp! Through the prism of Sukhanov's life, you first see a sleek picture of a rich family that doesn't limit itself in anything and doesn't recognize poor old acquaintances. All this strange picture is interrupted after a meeting with an old acquaintance with whom Anatoly Pavlovich once studied. From that time on, he begins to fall into a certain kind of state, drifting away to the strangest memories. Sometimes it happens quite abruptly, the narrative begins to go from the first person, the hero sometimes sees very strange pictures, and then analyzes what he saw. Everything reminds him about his long-forgotten past.

And so, intertwining with each other, the past and the present in their symbiosis force the reader to fall deeper into the web of the narrative, and the canvas of Sukhanov's life slowly but surely appears before you. What he gave up in order to be who he is now, how he feels. He seems to have been blind all his life, and then for a short period at a fairly mature age, an epiphany rolled over him and he suddenly he understands everything. The fact that contact with children is lost, then why Nina, this beautiful Nina with the eyes of a mermaid, married him? I must note that the descriptions of women in the book are a separate article of pleasure. I'm very greedy for such things, for these vivid images that seem to rise up in front of you—you feel them, and this makes the book even more vivid and raw. And somehow I suddenly found out, at 5 o'clock in the morning, quite by chance, that one person suddenly took up art. An insignificant fact in itself, but at 5 in the morning and when reading this book, it acquires some strange and mysterious meaning.

This book contains a lot of wonderful thoughts about love, life, and understanding yourself. It pushes you to think about yourself, so you can't help but read it slowly and unhurriedly.

This paranoid, dark, twisted, funny and moving novel enthralled me. Once I got used to it, I loved Grushin’s writing. She has a style that’s hard to describe; descriptive, blunt, and lush. I was hooked pretty quickly by this strange tale and found myself impatient to get back to it whenever I had to put it down. The world of Sukhanov was highly addictive. You never really knew what was going to happen next as this Soviet official wandered around 1980s Moscow in a fog, dipping in and out of reality, and creating some very amusing scenes with those around him.

The past is always lurking right there ready to claim us. One minute Sukhanov is living his cushy life, the next he’s entire being is overcome by the force of nostalgia and regret. The narrative switches up without warning from third person to first person and it works magnificently.

Is Sukhanov an unreliable narrator? Looking back, I’d say yes. But aren’t we all? How clouded by hindsight and remorse are we? When everything is filtered through the lens of the present, it’s easy to see what we should’ve done; easier still to justify what we did do. Nothing is isolated. Everything we do sends ripples that touch those around us and alter the future.

Life is nothing but forks in the road. Sukhanov went one way, his friend went the other. Who was wiser? We are our choices, Sartre said. Indeed. I’d go one step further and say we are also our consequences. We have to live with what we’ve done and that never goes away, no matter how deeply you bury it. There were parts in this novel that made my chest tighten. The hold memories have on us is something so powerful and absolute. Sukhanov’s mental break was beautiful, claustrophobic and hopeless. This book is a gem.

Sukhanov's wife, Nina, describing her husband's early, experimental paintings, when she first saw them, says: they are dark, very dark indeed, darker than expected but, also, strange and...beautiful." This is a pretty good summing up of the novel, too.

Simply put, hahaha, this is a dark, colourful novel, bleak, dripping wet, grey, heavy and light as snow flakes, bright, slow, annoying in parts, and rising to flights of fancy so beautiful, painful, and inspiring in its anguish and salvation that I wanted to stop reading it at times to allow its sheer brilliance to sink deep into me.

I started out not liking this book; it had too many instances of the word "dark" and "darknesss" for my liking; but, by the end, with its many dreams, rainbows and elegant wings, Grushin, the authour, was speaking my kind of language and I loved her palyfulness immensely.

Like the protagonist (Sukhanov), many people have burried their calling in life deep into the concerns of everyday life (work, family, a roof over ones head); like the protagonist, this calling sometimes seeks ways to break free of its shackles until oneday, hopefully, it breaks out in fantastic ways.

I don't know, for a first novel, it's hard to imagine how she could improve on it. I really can't wait to read her next book.

On The Vicissitudes of the Dream Life of Sukhanov.

In the beginning it was fire...

I've rescued this book from a mouldy crate (which once contained Portuguese tangerines) left on the floor of a firemen station in a provincial English town on a placid Saturday afternoon of early May.
The first novel by Olga Grushin was lying on her meek ivory back crushed beneath a pile of heavy-weighted low-browed gaudy rubbish labeled Sophie Kinsella, Danielle Steel and E.L. James.

(BBC Oxford set the mood broadcasting 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' by Bonnie Tyler)

The local firemen were sipping cups of tea wrapped up in their fluorescent-striped uniforms chatting amiably with elderly bystanders and enjoying their charity event. They couldn't save The Dream Life of Sukhanov.
And no one of the reluctant book-scourers of Abingdon-on-Thames had the keen eye or the noble heart needed to pick up this gem of a novel. What they did, little by little, was making room for The Dream Life of Sukhanov by taking the aforementioned Kinsella, Steele and James away.

(BBC Oxford adjusted their standards by switching to 'Ring of Fire' by Johnny Cash)

Thus, I was able to spot the novel, lift it up and - taken by a sudden impulse - decide to save it from oblivion and bring it home, across the street. It costed me one quid. Sgt. Sam Fireman said: 'thanks, mate'.

You may be surprised to know that I had never heard of Olga Grushin before.

However, put a nice sketch of the Red Square in Moscow on the cover as well as a line stating 'shortlisted for the orange award for new writers 2006' and a broad spectrum of praise from Vogue (do they know books?) to The Financial Times (do they care about books?) and that's it: you buy me.
What I thought is this: in the worst case scenario - say, if this is going to be awful cheap Russian-flavoured crap like 'Snowdrops' - I will have good fun in writing an evil review smashing this novel to bits. But if the novel proves to be good, that would be almost better than being sarcastic about it.

And then came water...

It happened that the very same night my partner in life and in book-rescuing were invited to a social gathering involving the making and baking of a half-dozen pizzas, multilingual chatting and the occasional warm beer.
You know, we're not exactly the Oxford University Ball types. Falling hopelessly drunk in a college quadrangle blabbering obscenities in Latin is not our idea of entertainment. Or not anymore.

Anyway, what matters here is that I put 'The Dream Life of Sukhanov' in my rucksack so that I could have something to read on the bus (my partner abhors noise on the public transport and wears fancy earplugs which do not encourage conversation). And that's when I begin to understand that this novel was stunning.
A few pages were enough to make me realise that Olga Grushin likes adjectives but does have talent.

I left a postcard from Lisbon (a homage to those Portuguese tangerines) as a bookmark between page 16 and 17 and left the bus with my partner to reach our social gathering. We wanted to walk a bit. The problem is that we didn't expect a deluge to welcome us in Oxford.

It took us half an hour to reach our destination where our friends had already started to make dough, warm up the ovens and assemble the ingredients for the pizza bonanza. We were desperately wet but beastly hungry and after fishing bottles of beers from my rucksack, I forgot to check what happened to The Dream Life of Sukhanov.

We baked. We ate. We chatted. We drank.
We said goodnight see you later guys.
My partner and I left.

Back home - despite the late hour - I spent twenty minutes hair-drying my freshly rescued book page after page. The first novel by Olga Grushin took so much water that its last 80 pages were like a single thick plank of plywood. The Red Square was flooded beyond recognition. Only the faintest outlines of Saint Basil and the Kremlin were still there.

(I hope my neighbours have forgiven me for the noise. If you meet them, say sorry on my behalf and tell them that the hair-dryer bit wasn't a song by Kraftwerk and was for a good cause).

Ok, to cut a long story short, I am glad to tell you that The Dream Life of Sukhanov survived the deluge.
The Red Square is back on dry soil. One can actually leaf through each of the last 80 pages. Luckily.

In short. Go, fetch this book. It is truly exquisite.

It doesn't have much of a plot but it's masterfully written. It includes some of the best pages about art which I've ever read (not that I'm an expert, but still). There are sentences which are worth of Nabokov and others which would have pleased Bulgakov. Believe me.

The likes and works of Chagall, Dalì, Rublev are here. Moscow in the mid-1980s is here.
The moral miseries and sour memories of a privileged man - Tolya Sukhanov, you bet - are here.
Some interesting literary experiments in switching from the first to the third person narrator (and back, and back again!) are here. Beauty is here.

Just keep this novel in a dry place, please.

A first novel: loaded with all the allusions and insinuations the phrase carries.

Let me compare this novel - because I want to - with another first novel by an American writer.

Which novel? 'Everything is Illuminated' by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The advantage Grushin has over Foer is age, and maturity.

Where 'The Dream of Sukhanov' scores over 'Everything is Illuminated' is in its sincerity to its subject, which on one level of abstraction is similar to Foer's novel: a third generation exploration of politics' (or war's) impact on the individual. In approaching this theme, Grushin's novel does not get lost in gimmickry, a la Foer. Even in phases when the main character's dreams - as may be weaned from the title itself - take over the narrative, a Nabokovian clutch on the plot is never relented. Compare this with Foer's play of jumping from here to there, in space and in time; with the almost insufferable importance he gives to the text itself, compared to the overall pacing and content. Foer just wants you to love him, not his novel. Grushin's energies are directed more at her art, rather than being brazenly attention-seeking.

Foer is more talented than Grushin, but his understanding of the art of the novel is very flimsy. Grushin, on the other hand, knows what she wants to achieve.

Having said that, let me also poke my opinionated nose and spit out an evaluation of 'The Dream Life of Sukhanov'. I didn't like for most parts. And I didn't like it for the same reasons that I didn't like 'Everything is Illuminated'.

Grushin's style is steeped in the Modernist tradition. She explores the current and dream consciousness of her main character with an unflinching desire to arrive at a certain center for her novel. But her desire to dazzle becomes obvious in some passages. It is here, in this similarity with that prankster Foer, that she fails.

She apes Gogol in the scenes of conversation; she apes Nabokov in the sentence. (Although I didn't find where she aped Bulgakov, reviewers smarter than me must have had their reasons to believe so) And whenever she does this act of mimicing, she loses herself.

Which brings me to a bigger question: Why is the new American novelist always crushed with this desire to dazzle? Why can't he or she write a novel, instead of writing a book that is incredibly entertaining? Why, just why, is the art of the novel relegated to a medium of entertainment?

But there is hope. Grushin's novel, by being less successful than that of Foer's, gives us hope. If she can stick to her modus operandi, and arrive at a voice of her own, from which she is not very far away right now, as it stands, she will make a better novelist. Foer, on the other hand, stands a great risk of getting drowned in his success.

The Dream Life of Sukhanov follows Soviet apparatchik Anatoly Sukhanov as his carefully constructed life unravels before the readers’ eyes. Through the numerous flashbacks we see the protagonist as a child, growing in the shadows of Stalin’s terror and WWII, then an aspiring artist and wanna-be revolutionary, and then a complacent bureaucrat and a sell-out. You can see a big slice of Russia’s turbulent history through the prism of a singular life, but the book’s main focus is on Sukhanov the individual. Olga Grushin is a talented author and the Dream Life of Sukhanov is a remarkable work that achieved a great balance of story and character, historical scope and individual focus, power writing and lyricism. It’s one of the better books I’ve read in 2017. I hope you enjoy it too.

Quick quibble: aggravatingly adverbby. (A little alliteration for what ails ya?) It slows the reader's pace, which is a fortunate side effect, because this book does so much in the way of imagination, paranoia, and simple historical narrative. There's a lot worth paying attention to.

My favorite stylistic flair is the author's true stealth in sliding from third-person to first-person narrative in service of flashbacks. The stitching is impeccable. They never felt sloppy or even a tinge pretentious.

I recommend this to anyone who loves art and/or Nabokovian prose. His ghost was smiling through this one.