I came upon this novel when it was left behind in a holiday apartment I was renting. When I began to read it, I was struck straight away by similarities with Solzhenitsyn, one of the greatest 20th-century exponents of quality fiction.
We learn of the second World War experiences of Ivan Demidov (his almost miraculous rescuing from the brink of death on the battlefield provides a stunning opening to the novel) and of his postwar life. He is declared a “Hero of the Soviet Union” for his valour, which allows him priority and extra rations at understocked grocery stores. For a time, he is celebrated in propaganda TV programmes and invited to give patriotic speeches in elementary schools, but Russia gradually loses interest in its war heroes.
The other main character is Ivan’s beautiful and intelligent daughter Olya, who studies languages and is employed as an “interpreter” by the KGB. But her real role is to “entertain” and spy on foreign businessmen visiting Moscow. Her life as a glorified prostitute brings sufficient material comfort but little personal contentment.
The narrative skilfully mixes present and past and explores the experiences – mainly difficult and disheartening – of different generations of Russians. Andreï Makine sought and was granted political asylum in France while on a teacher-exchange programme there in 1987. In this, his first published book, he gives an early glimpse of one of his recurring themes: how the Soviet system prostituted (sometimes literally) its brightest and best.
Father and daughter are perhaps less fully developed characters than they might have been (in particular, more on the relationship between the two would have been welcome). This is a flaw that could be ascribed to it being a debut novel, but the meanness, squalor and corruption of a society that has lost its way are vividly, memorably and movingly rendered. Ivan and Olya desperately long to express themselves, verbally, emotionally and in every other way, but the world in which they find themselves inhibits and stymies them.
It is not all unremitting gloom. The abrupt but appropriate ending gives some, if limited, hope for better times.
