The Slynx (New York Review Books Classics)

by Tatyana Tolstaya, Jamey Gambrell
The Slynx (New York Review Books Classics)
book data
122 ratings, 3.84 average rating, 31 reviews (more data...)
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published
April 17th 2007 (first published 2000) by NYRB Classics

binding
Paperback, 288 pages

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isbn
1590171969    (isbn13: 9781590171967)

description
Two hundred years after civilization ended in an event known as the Blast, Benedikt isn't one to complain. He's got a job—transcribing old books and...more




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The Inquisitive B...: Books to Consider--Fiction 8 5 04/30/2009 04:50PM  

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 278)

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karen
02/12/09
karen rated it: 4 of 5 stars

i have a long and troubled relationship with the russians. for years i didnt want to read them, because i felt that i wouldnt understand them with their troubled political history, their interchangeable names, their fucking ability to endure that is so intimidating and making-me-small-feeling. and then i read bulgakov. and i felt a little more confident.... then i got a little older and i thought... maybe im ready for some dostoevsky... and then i wondered what i had been so worried about, becau...more
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  1 comment

Jason Pettus
06/22/07
Jason Pettus rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in June, 2007
(Full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

Ah, those Russian writers -- those crazy, drunken, angst-filled, delightful Russian writers! Mention the phrase "Russian literature" to most Americans, and you're likely to see the same mental images appear again and again; the dense books, the heavy symbolism, the perverse dark humor, and of course the national introspection, always the national introspection, as inherent a pa...more
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Phillip
bookshelves: 50-favorite-books, fiction
Read in January, 2005
Like Dostoevsky staring into the face of a post-apocalyptic future, The Slynx is a bawdy romp into the interior landscapes of a Russian post-nuclear future.

Part folk tale, part sci-fi yarn (not unlike Tarkovsky's Stalker, but cranked up on crystal meth) Tolstaya's language is as giddy as Gogol in Dead Souls and her universal themes are familiar to anyone that has rampaged Russian literature. The unique gift of this novel is really Tolstaya's sense of humor and her urgent prose.
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Rich
11/04/08
Rich rated it: 4 of 5 stars

bookshelves: law-school
Read in April, 2009
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Nate
12/07/07
Nate rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: some-favorite-novels
Read in December, 2007
"Give black rabbit meat a good soaking, bring it to a boil seven times, set it in the sun for a week or two, then steam it in the oven — and it won't kill you.

"That is, if you catch a female. Because the male, boiled or not, it doesn't matter. People didn't used to know this, they were hungry and they ate the males too. But now they know: if you eat the males you'll be stuck with a wheezing and a gurgling in your chest the rest of your life. Your legs will wither. Thick bla...more
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Liz
04/15/09
Liz rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in April, 2009
This is such a strange and beautiful little book. I am a total sucker for distopian, postapocalyptic lit in general, but this is one of the most creative, funny, uniquely-voiced renderings of the frightning, dismal future I have ever come across.
Set in Russia after "The Blast" has destroyed human existance as we know it, "The Slynx" takes place in a world that is at once outrageously bizarre and primitave, and eerily recognizable. Citizens, or "golubchiks," ...more
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Michael
01/12/09
Michael rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: nyrb-classics, read-in-2009
Read in February, 2009
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Jeremy
08/19/08
Jeremy rated it: 1 of 5 stars

Read in September, 2008
Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't make it beyond 20 pages. Something lost in translation, or it isn't very good?
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Michael
01/01/09
Michael rated it: 3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: reading-pool, russian-lit
Read in February, 2009
Gives you a new appreciation for mice.
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Alina
03/14/07
Alina added it

delicious russian language
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Troy
01/05/09
Troy rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: nyrb-books, read-in-2009
Read in March, 2009
This is a hilarious book; a dystopia beautifully written and filled with endless imagination. I don't even know what to say about it... I'm still digesting it. The writing is as fantastic, inventive and clever as the world that Tatyana Tolstaya contructs.

This dystopia happens after The Blast, which brought about a new Dark Age, filled with extreme ignorance, radiation poisoning that has mutated everything (poisonous black rabbits fly from tree to tree, kittens have trunks and finger...more
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seisyll
07/22/08
seisyll rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in August, 2008
Watch out for this book The Slynx, it is incorrigible! You've never heard someone go on at such length on mice and how fire looks and the sorts of things girls can put in their hair... it is just like how life used to be when all you had to do was figure out whether or not to make a statue in your neighbor's yard. And is dill okay with you? Maybe if it sat in the pig's pen or if it was thrown out to live with the mice a little first!

If you like this book, then run out and go take ...more
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  1 comment

Jacob
07/14/08
Jacob rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in February, 2009
You expect post-apocalyptic fiction to be depressing. You expect dystopias to be bleak. The words “wickedly funny” do not usually come to mind. But in The Slynx, a story of Moscow set two hundred years after The Blast destroyed civilization, life is not quite what it seems to be. The people don’t really deserve to be enlightened, and the thought police are almost justified; at least, books aren’t the thing to worry about. Just thank Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, that you have fire. Oh, ...more
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Bob
05/04/09
Bob rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in June, 2009
Had this sitting around for some time and moved it closer to the top of the to-read pile after its appearance on AbeBooks quite intriguing "20 Post-Apocalyptic Novels" list http://tinyurl.com/cctyoo

Fantastic! One of the best books I've read in weeks! Just barely fits into the "post-nuclear apocalypse dystopian" genre (as exemplified by Canticle for Leibowitz) - that's more like a convenient trope for constructing an allegory of Russian society and literary culture...more
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Jennifer
12/16/08
Jennifer rated it: 1 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2009
one of those books you hope is really good (i mean she is the great grandniece of the tolstoys) but it ends up being terribly difficult to get through. still, it's fun-- if that's the right word for it. i'm still working my way through it. it's russian literature "fun."
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Jane
05/27/09
Jane added it

Interesting dystopian novel of Moscow 200 years after a nuclear blast.
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Molly
07/06/08
Molly rated it: 4 of 5 stars

I read this book for my 21st Century Russia class this semester, in the culture segment. It is a post-apocalyptic story; very post modern. I really enjoyed it, but wouldn't have gotten as much out of it had I not had discussion with my professor (who is Russian). Some of the translations weren't quite accurate in meaning, and some of the cultural references went over my head. But I definitely enjoyed it.
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Kam
08/26/08
Kam rated it: 4 of 5 stars

bookshelves: fun---and-smart
Read in September, 2008
recommended to Kam by: Book club
Good book, and I'm getting fussy these days. "Dystopia", but don't let that turn you off! Well-written and funny. Lots of imagination. She's the -- granddaughter I think it is? -- of Tolstoy.
After "the Blast", and what's left. Serious and humorous.
Pessimistic in the end, but a good and fun read.
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Jane
07/10/07
Jane rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in February, 2009
This is the best thing I've read in ages. Hilarious and grim, clever as all get-out but with plenty of poo jokes. Meandered off a bit in places, but altogether a lovely little satire that is entirely worth the two or three days it might take you to read it.
Really, four and a half stars (it's no Infinite Jest)
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Angela
08/19/07
Angela rated it: 4 of 5 stars

That book reveals a portrait of a nation cursed to have a tragic history but a remarkable, undistructible and astonishing literature..
This is a post-modernist masterpiece, in which Tolstaya reminds us of Gogol's "Death souls"..
The language is fabulous..and its meanings..sharp, ironic, "tearful"...
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quotes from this book

"...a book is a delicate friend, a white bird, an exquisite being, afraid of water. Darling things! Afraid of water, of fire, They shiver in the wind. Clumsy, crude human fingers leave bruises on them that'll never fade! Never! Some people touch books without washing their hands! Some underline things in ink! Some even tear pages out! " More quotes...





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