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.

Last updated 3 years ago