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“A postmodern literary masterpiece.” –The Times Literary Supplement
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“A postmodern literary masterpiece.” –The Times Literary Supplement
Two hundr... read full description
reviews
Feb 14, 2009
karen
rated it: 
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
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14 comments
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(28 people liked it)
Sep 30, 2010
Josh
rated it: 
Besides the meaning of the word "horripilating" ("the erection of hairs on the skin due to cold, fear or excitement"), found on the chocolate-and-lime backmatter of this book's NYRB edition, reading Tolstoya's vision of civilization's hilarious, underwhelming ashes gave me a feeling of gratitude, and also anger that the ostensible genre of this book will allow people to compare it to mechanic nightmares like 1984 and Animal Farm, or even the killer, terrorizing Road. But Russ
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8 comments
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(7 people liked it)
Jun 22, 2007
Jason
rated it:
(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...
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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(3 people liked it)
Sep 27, 2007
Phillip
rated it:
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.
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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(4 people liked it)
Apr 14, 2009
Rich
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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(2 people liked it)
Dec 07, 2007
Nate
rated it:
"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 black More...
"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 black More...
9 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Mar 15, 2011
Lori L
rated it:
The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya is a Russian dystopian novel. Set two hundred years after some kind of nuclear accident or blast, a government scribe named Benedikt lives in what was Moscow. Moscow is now called Fyodor-Kuzmichsk, after its dictator Fyodor. Kuzmich uses scribes to copy "his" writing, which is actually that of past literary works.
In this society, mice are dietary staples and a source of trading currency. Citizens born after the Blast often have mutations, that ar More...
In this society, mice are dietary staples and a source of trading currency. Citizens born after the Blast often have mutations, that ar More...
May 21, 2010
Tyler
rated it:
The Slynx is a novel of extreme opposites, which is only fitting for a post-apocalyptic satire. Books that manage to be both heartbreaking and hilarious are rare: Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is one, as is Capek's The War with the Newts- and The Slynx certainly deserves to be in their company. It runs the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous.
The novel starts out in somewhat typical dystopian fashion. The time is a few hundred years after "The Blast". The place is More...
The novel starts out in somewhat typical dystopian fashion. The time is a few hundred years after "The Blast". The place is More...
Feb 16, 2010
El
rated it:
Moscow. Some 200 years after "the Blast", a vague sort of accident that turns life as we know it into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Most of the characters don't even seem to know what "the Blast" was, or what life was like before it occurred, or how to return to a civilized life. They are controlled by their government now (oh, how I love you, Russian literature) under the strict ruling of the tyrant, Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe. His decrees are law, and Freethinkers are not
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2 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Jun 20, 2011
MJ
rated it:
This exceptional little pearl should go straight atop your reading list, knocking off that willowy story collection, those fat-arsed historical doorstoppers, and that free verse thing carved into tree bark. Get rid of them all. Put them in a glorious bonfire and read this instead.
The granddaughter of Leo T has all the talent of her antecedent, cribbing also the mordant wit of Bulgakov, the lyrical euphony of Nabokov, the despairing glamour of Zamyatin. The Slynx is a first-rate novel More...
The granddaughter of Leo T has all the talent of her antecedent, cribbing also the mordant wit of Bulgakov, the lyrical euphony of Nabokov, the despairing glamour of Zamyatin. The Slynx is a first-rate novel More...
7 comments
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(12 people liked it)
May 01, 2009
Liz
rated it:
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...
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...
3 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Mar 23, 2011
Zach
rated it: 
Here is a paragraph from this book:
After the entrance there were more corridors and the sweet smell grew nearer. Glancing upward, Benedikt clasped his hands: books! The shelves were packed with books! Lord Almighty! Saints alive! his knees gave way, he trembled and whined softly: you couldn't read them all in a whole lifetime! A forest of pages, an endless, indiscriminate blizzard, uncounted! Ah...! Ah!!! Aaaaa! Maybe... just maybe... somewhere here... maybe the secret book is here som More...
After the entrance there were more corridors and the sweet smell grew nearer. Glancing upward, Benedikt clasped his hands: books! The shelves were packed with books! Lord Almighty! Saints alive! his knees gave way, he trembled and whined softly: you couldn't read them all in a whole lifetime! A forest of pages, an endless, indiscriminate blizzard, uncounted! Ah...! Ah!!! Aaaaa! Maybe... just maybe... somewhere here... maybe the secret book is here som More...
6 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Oct 11, 2011
Szytrus
rated it:
I'm glad I read afterword from my polish translator. After that I realized that my supposes that it's a book about Russia and about human were right (amazing!). Also afterword pointed me some things that i probably wouldn't see and things that I would never see.
My intuition tells me that it's criticism of some period in Russia history, and not necessary only Soviet Union. There's a lot about relations between social classes. Suddenly intelligence didn't appear as the worst at all. This t More...
My intuition tells me that it's criticism of some period in Russia history, and not necessary only Soviet Union. There's a lot about relations between social classes. Suddenly intelligence didn't appear as the worst at all. This t More...
Feb 17, 2009
Michael
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Sep 19, 2008
Jeremy
rated it: 
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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(1 person liked it)
Oct 23, 2010
Sean
rated it:
I had such high hopes for this one. A modern, Russian, post-apocalyptic comedy featuring the horrible slynx that lives in the forest, poisonous flying rabbits, and plenty of absurd mutations. But there's no story. Only description. It gets boring fast. Tries to draw on all of those wacky Russian types of characters and situations and attitudes, but doesn't have much of interest to say about them. The post-apocalyptic angle is hardly used at all, except to have the characters figure things out (t
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Aug 11, 2011
Aubrey
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jan 13, 2011
Kathryn
rated it:
I have little experience with Russian literature but what I have so far read, I have enjoyed immensely. I hope people with similar tastes as me do not read this book as their first foray into Russian literature. They might never return.
Before mentioning my complaints, I will say that I respect Tolstaya's creativity. The world she created was at times interesting.
The issues I have with this book are numerous and more than I am willing to cover here so I am providing a shor More...
Before mentioning my complaints, I will say that I respect Tolstaya's creativity. The world she created was at times interesting.
The issues I have with this book are numerous and more than I am willing to cover here so I am providing a shor More...
0 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Mar 04, 2009
Troy
rated it:
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...
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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(1 person liked it)
Jan 22, 2011
Jacob
rated it:
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, and make
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(1 person liked it)
May 31, 2011
Yulia
rated it:
Надо сказать, что у меня очень предвзятое отношение к современной русской литературе - я регулярно её переоцениваю. Просто мне очень хочется, чтобы современная литература была достойна того достояние, которое нам оставил в первую очередь 19-й век и первая половина 20-го. Может быть, именно поэтому мне книга понравилась языком, выраженными в ней идеями. После я прочла немало негативных отзывов об этом произведении, что, конечно, подпортило общее впечатление о книге, но в целом мне книга понравила
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Feb 14, 2010
Katelyn
rated it: 
I either missed something here or a lot of this was post-modern gobbledygook. Built on a neat premise, though. Maybe soon I will write about futuristic dystopia as an easy out for an author, so (s)he doesn't have to address society as it is today...
We'll see.
We'll see.
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(1 person liked it)
Apr 11, 2011
Judy
rated it:
This is both wonderfully imagined and difficult material, especially in light of Japan's nuclear woes. It describes a way of life in the years following a major nuclear incident. There are lots of books from the pre-blast years, but they describe a way of life that has disappeared and makes no sense.
Jul 20, 2009
Jude
rated it:
i'm not sure whats going on in this book, as i'm neither a moscovite nor one who has a particular fascination with russian culture, but the constant and subtle weird makes the book a fun read.
Aug 21, 2011
Robert
rated it:
Interesting =- esp as a russian dysutopia. But read someone slow -- and stretched some for its statirical affect. so interesting - but not engrossing read.
Jan 14, 2011
Kate
rated it:
One of the best post-apocalyptic (or fantasy) books I've ever read. Disturbing. If I understood Russian history better, I would have gotten more out of it -- but even I could tell how ingeniously she drew on centuries of Russian history & literature.
Jun 15, 2009
Bob
rated it:
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...
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...
Oct 13, 2009
Leif
rated it:
Yes to this. The Slynx is a hallucinagenic romp (yes!) through Moscow of the far-future, but you knew that. More? It's incredibly concerned with books, and reading, so if you're into those things this might be quite interesting. More? Mice are used as currency. Mice. It's post-nuclear, and it's great. More? No. Just read the Slynx if you're looking for a recent dystopian novel, or a Russian dystopia, or a female-authored dystopia (I know it shouldn't matter, but there are still those h
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