# Оправдание Острова - Eugene Vodolazkin Finished: 5/15/2021 Rating: 4\* A "pritcha" about history. Would recommend. * It was quite enjoyable to read overall. * The chapters about making the movie and life in Paris seemed boring. * Maybe a bit too long. Why did they need a chapter about a horse-obsessed leader after a bee-obsessed leader? * It seems to mock the entire world history, not just the Russian. But nothing is too precise. * It makes one look at the history of the world "from the above". * The mystical element (ancient princes, yelling "knife" across the island, people generally hearing things from too far) are... interesting. * The mocking of the revolution was hilarious. * The narrator is unreliable, is he? For some parts of the story, he's very explicitly unreliable (when there are two tales of the same event), but for the rest? I wonder if the story of the revolution and of the abdication is told honestly. Are the ancient prince and princess really this holy? * I just love his style. * A lot of kindness and wisdom in there. * I loved the "discoveries" of evidence of their ancestry from August. I will read more of Vodolazkin for sure. Yuzefovich review: