Into a wintry world of snow and ice, of spiritual paucity, loveless coupling, and quiet despair Belmondo flashes his insouciant smile, vanquishes enemies, seduces willing beauties, and faces every danger with panache. The effect is earth-shattering. "On the whole, we understood little of the universe of Belmondo.... But we perceived the essential: the surprising freedom of this multiple world, where people seemed to escape those implacable laws that ruled our own lives, from the humblest workers' canteen to the imperial hall of the Kremlin, not forgetting the silhouettes of the watchtowers fixed over the camp." What would be an imminently forgettable film in the West becomes a beacon to the three boys; suddenly, the world is much bigger than the frozen Siberian taiga and each boy sees some part of Belmondo in himself: Alyosha the lover, Samurai the warrior, Utkin the poet.
Makine's novel is framed with short sections at beginning and end that are set in Brighton Beach, New York, 20 years later. We learn, briefly, what has happened to these young men--and in the disparity between the reality of their destinies and the heroism of their youthful imaginings lies both the irony and the heartbreak of Once upon the River Love --Alix Wilber
]]>Spanning eight decades --from the October Revolution of 1917 to the Cold War to the fall of Communism --the book follows the narrator's grand-father, Nikolai, a Red Army deserter who seeks peace and isolation in a remote forest village. Years later, his son Pavel will fight in World War II, become a KGB spy, and, like Nikolai, return to his native Caucasus in a vain attempt to escape the increasing tyrannies of the postwar Soviet era. It is here, amidst the raging warfare, espionage, and crushing poverty, where our narrator is born. Sweeping in its scope and heartbreaking in its truths, Requiem for a Lost Empire is both a harrowing history of the Soviet Union and a loving tribute to the fortitude of its people.
]]>Andrei Makine resembles his heroine in that he is a kind of runaway; born in 1958, he fled the Soviet Union for France. There he wrote about his homeland in his adopted tongue. The well-received novels Once Upon the River Love and Dreams of My Russian Summers first appeared in French and have since been translated widely. Perhaps it is all these layers of language and memory that make his prose so thick and difficult; clearly there is a great clumsiness in this particular translation, which is rife with sentences like "She was breathing jerkily," and "A thought struck her with the painfulness and beauty of its truth." Ultimately, such writing sabotages The Crime of Olga Arbyelina, fogging up the book's exotic landscape. Translations can work two ways: they can transport you into a world of strange new music, or they can feel like schoolwork. This book is definitely the latter: you know it's supposed to be a learning experience, but the difficult, self-serious prose makes you want to resist, stare at the clock, play hooky. --Emily White
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