false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg 135158 26 Each summer, Andrei Makine's narrator and his sister leave the Soviet Union for the mythical land of France-Atlantis. That this country is a beautiful confabulation, a consolation existing only in his maternal grandmother's mind, makes it no less real. Though Charlotte Lemonnier lives in a town on the edge of the steppe, each night she journeys to a long-ago Paris, telling tales that the children then translate with their more Russian minds: "The president of the Republic was bound to have something Stalinesque about him in the portrait sketched by our imagination. Neuilly was peopled with kolkhozniks. And the slow emergence of Paris from the waters evoked a very Russian emotion--that of fleeting relief after one more historic cataclysm ..." <p> Makine's first novel is a singing tribute to the alchemy of inspiration, but it is no less familiar with the sorrows of reality. And it is only as he gets older that the narrator begins to piece together his grandmother's far more tragic past--her experiences in the Great War, the October Revolution, and after. <i>Dreams of My Russian Summers</i> is a love letter to an extraordinary woman (it's hard not to see the book as autobiographical) as well as to language and literature, which the boy turns to in avoidance of history's manipulations. It has all the marks of an instant classic. 130243 1997 Dreams Of My Russian Summers: A Novel total:293|5:75|4:114|3:72|2:18|1:14| 293 1097 449 38 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 5 0 false Wed Oct 07 08:59:18 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 08:59:28 -0700 2009
The book is richly poetic. It reads l...more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 5 0 false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 18 13:19:42 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 13:30:27 -0800 2009 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 5 0 false Wed Nov 19 20:09:55 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 01 13:57:51 -0800 2008 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 4 0 false Mon May 18 14:18:30 -0700 2009 Wed May 20 10:20:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 4 0 false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 28 12:29:00 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 28 12:32:07 -0700 2008 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 4 0 false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 07 05:37:06 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 07 05:48:19 -0700 2007 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 4 0 false Sun May 20 13:54:27 -0700 2007 Sun May 20 13:54:27 -0700 2007
QUOTES
"Yes, I was Russian. Now I understood, in a still confused fashion, what that meant. Carrying within one's soul all those human beings disfigured by g...more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 5 0 false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Apr 10 14:41:55 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 10 14:50:35 -0700 2009 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 3 0 false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sat Apr 18 08:04:05 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 08:06:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1444795 1559703830 9781559703833 7 2 3.74 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1444795.Dreams_of_My_Russian_Summers 4 0 false Mon Jul 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 16:16:58 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 16:20:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 3 0 false Sun Jun 01 11:09:50 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 01 11:13:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 3 0 false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 21:07:08 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 21:07:08 -0800 2009 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 4 0 false Sun Feb 01 07:18:08 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 01 07:21:13 -0800 2009 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 5 0 false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1998 Fri Jan 09 07:41:43 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 09 07:42:55 -0800 2009 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 5 0 false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 21 09:01:55 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 21 09:03:00 -0800 2008 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 4 0 false Fri Aug 07 19:22:16 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 16 10:29:05 -0700 2009 ]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 4 0 false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue May 29 17:07:54 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 08 19:47:24 -0700 2007 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 5 0 false Sat Jun 13 07:55:15 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 13 07:55:22 -0700 2009 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 5 0 false Fri Nov 21 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Sep 07 17:08:16 -0700 2008 Fri Nov 21 13:11:51 -0800 2008 more...]]> 135158 0684852683 9780684852683 244 35 3.74 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172058510m/135158.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135158.Dreams_Of_My_Russian_Summers_A_Novel 4 0 false Sat May 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 28 10:52:57 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 15:38:57 -0700 2009
My engagement with the story ebbed and flowed...sometimes sluggish and other times a page turn...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=135158