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61st out of 128 books
—
57 voters
The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight
by
Gina Ochsner (Goodreads Author)
In a crumbling apartment building in post-Soviet Russia, there’s a ghost who won’t keep quiet.
Mircha fell from the roof and was never properly buried, so he sticks around to heckle the living: his wife, Azade; Olga, a disillusioned translator/censor for a military newspaper; Yuri, an army veteran who always wears an aviator’s helmet; and Tanya.
Tanya carries a notebook wher...more
Mircha fell from the roof and was never properly buried, so he sticks around to heckle the living: his wife, Azade; Olga, a disillusioned translator/censor for a military newspaper; Yuri, an army veteran who always wears an aviator’s helmet; and Tanya.
Tanya carries a notebook wher...more
Hardcover, 370 pages
Published
February 8th 2010
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(first published 2009)
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For the first 150pps or so, this was the best book I'd read in a while, or at least the one I was most excited about. Ochsner has an amazing way of balancing deep character insight, a strong metaphorical sense of location and the particular sense of living in post-Soviet Russia (maybe she could do the same, for example, in tidewater Maryland and maybe not-- who knows?), and a flair for writing jazzy, fizzy, fun sentences that practically dance outside the bounds of literal meaning.
And then, for...more
And then, for...more
I really liked this despite the fantasy elements (which usually annoy me). The residents of a condemned building in post-Soviet Russia struggle to survive in a world in chaos--their salaries go unpaid, their told (and made to write) lies about the war and those lost in it, and they are haunted by of their own, Mircha, who had thrown himself from the roof of the building and now came to give advice and always at the worst possible moments. Ochsner manages to inject humor into their grim lives wit...more
The Russian Book of Color and Flight offers provocative insight into what has happened in post-Soviet Russia. As it continues playing "King of the Hill" by fighting wars with Cheynya, Bosnia, Afganistan, Georgia, etc. (not in a historical timeline), the ordinary Russian bears the brunt of such folly.
Muslims, Jews, and Christians circumspectly inhabit a condemned building. While there is no plot per se, the narratives are provided by the main characters in the building. How they live (totally in...more
Muslims, Jews, and Christians circumspectly inhabit a condemned building. While there is no plot per se, the narratives are provided by the main characters in the building. How they live (totally in...more
This book is a mixture of desolate and charming.
By desolate, I mean that they live in mid-to-late 1900s Russia and have no money and are literally fishing in an overfished creek to be able to put food in their mouths. They go to jobs for which they are not paid. There is no running water or heat in the condemned buildings in which they are squatting. They're unlucky in love. One of the main characters kills himself then comes back as a ghost to continue talking to them.
But the way it's written...more
By desolate, I mean that they live in mid-to-late 1900s Russia and have no money and are literally fishing in an overfished creek to be able to put food in their mouths. They go to jobs for which they are not paid. There is no running water or heat in the condemned buildings in which they are squatting. They're unlucky in love. One of the main characters kills himself then comes back as a ghost to continue talking to them.
But the way it's written...more
Ochsner repeats what we already know about life in the former Soviet Union--it's grim, arbitrary and absurd. The different ethnicities coexist uneasily together on the edge of deprivation and despair.
But "The Russian Dreambook" transcends cliche through memorable characters and narrative. These are lives of parable, lived with gallows humor. Though the physical circumstances are dreary, often unbearable, the world is still filled with magic and dreams. There is no clarity in this Russia--every b...more
But "The Russian Dreambook" transcends cliche through memorable characters and narrative. These are lives of parable, lived with gallows humor. Though the physical circumstances are dreary, often unbearable, the world is still filled with magic and dreams. There is no clarity in this Russia--every b...more
It was a piece of literary fiction that I actually enjoyed. Oschner really brought post-Communist Russia to life...the misery and poverty and grayness. In the bleakest situation (where having a working latrine is one of the pluses of life), these characters manage to find happiness where they live. An almost impossible task, but still possible.
Out of the 4 perspectives, I related with Tanya the most (loved her musings about the cloud color) and Azade the least (thought the exposition about her b...more
Out of the 4 perspectives, I related with Tanya the most (loved her musings about the cloud color) and Azade the least (thought the exposition about her b...more
Wow! What a bleak tale this is! I don't know where the line is between what is plausible for the setting (crumbling apartment building, post-Soviet, perhaps near Siberia) and what is the dark side of magical realism. I'm not sure that line matters. The characters, the setting, and the happenings are so well drawn it will depress the crap out of you. At the same time, you can't quite let it go. As bleak as it is (and who knew I'd have to think about the distinction between dark and bleak for this...more
Picked this one up randomly at Broadway Books. Well, maybe not sooo randomly, one of the people I work for is Russian and I thought I may give it to her to check out, but figured I'd read it first. I read it, and I think I'll keep it, though I may loan it to the person it was somewhat intended for.
I was caught up in the story, despite it getting a bit messy at times, that seemed to go with the flow of it, since it's a "dreambook of color and flight", after all.
Fun, well written, the story is a...more
I was caught up in the story, despite it getting a bit messy at times, that seemed to go with the flow of it, since it's a "dreambook of color and flight", after all.
Fun, well written, the story is a...more
Um. Well, this takes place in post-Soviet Russia, and is more or less about three widows - an Eastern Orthodox Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew - who all live in the same condemned apartment building with their children. Christian Lukeria torments her overweight granddaughter Tanya who spends a lot of her time obsessing over clouds and colors; Muslim Azade learns people's secrets by smelling their excrement and worries over where she went wrong with her son Vitek; Jewish Olga frets over the fate o...more
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I just assumed the author of a book with this title and story would be Russian, but she went to Russia and observed things and then produced this. (According to an interview - http://bookmunch.wordpress.com/2009/0...). The book's premise is amusing but the characters I found annoying - it seemed more like an American's idea of Russians than Russians.
I am again reminded that even if someone is a award winning fiction writer a particular book may not work for you, the reader. I stopped after fifty...more
I am again reminded that even if someone is a award winning fiction writer a particular book may not work for you, the reader. I stopped after fifty...more
I really enjoyed this book. I think that the characterisation is good and the story line excellent. I was really involved with all the characters and I wanted to know what was going to happen to them.
As with other reviewers I think that the end of the book is weaker than the beginning. It feels a little as though the author ran out of ideas or had set a deadline and needed to finish the book rather than fill out the story. Despite this I was kept interested right up till the end and heaved a con...more
As with other reviewers I think that the end of the book is weaker than the beginning. It feels a little as though the author ran out of ideas or had set a deadline and needed to finish the book rather than fill out the story. Despite this I was kept interested right up till the end and heaved a con...more
A novel about four residents living in a neglected Post-Soviet Russia apartment building and their daily struggles. Oschner's writing is so vivid and lyrical, that even the bleak, dreariness that envelopes the entire story, comes to life at once. The beautiful writing, with just the right amount of fantasy and humor (the use of toilets as metaphor is the most I've ever seen in a novel) helped to get through a few sections where I thought it dragged or the storyline started to turn cliche. Overal...more
so the traditonal aspects of the Russian novel are alive and well in The Russian Dreambook. and by that i mean dark-humoured absurdism.
the dead don't stay dead -and- in this case have a lot of opinions about what's going on and talks more than he ever did while alive. the past -both history and folklore- mingles easily with the present. the truth is always subjective and constantly under review. and even the simple act of taking a crap has political, economic and social implications. very littl...more
the dead don't stay dead -and- in this case have a lot of opinions about what's going on and talks more than he ever did while alive. the past -both history and folklore- mingles easily with the present. the truth is always subjective and constantly under review. and even the simple act of taking a crap has political, economic and social implications. very littl...more
I savored this little book--the elegant writing, the willingness of characters to make definitive statements about life. This is what I love about fiction, something I find irritating in non-fiction, because it's all too often invoked in the self-help genre. But characters giving us advice and insight into the truths about life? This is what I love best in fiction.
(Unless it's Phillip Roth-- like being pigeonholed by a bore at a party for 80 pages--but that's not real fiction, it's authorial ran...more
(Unless it's Phillip Roth-- like being pigeonholed by a bore at a party for 80 pages--but that's not real fiction, it's authorial ran...more
I read this book at the same time that I was listening to Winter Garden and the story of the siege of Leningrad. An interesting synchronicity. I don't know much about Gina Ochsner, but she must have some strong Russian roots or ties because she has captured the sardonic approach to life that I see in most modern Russian novels - I often do not like it but something in this book kept me going. Perhaps it is the touch of the mystical. Also, reading the two books together made me more sensitive to...more
May 26, 2010
Shellie (Layers of Thought)
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
magical realism, translation and language lovers
Recommended to Shellie (Layers of Thought) by:
Net Galley
Actually 4.5 stars
Synopsis: Within a current day setting in Russia, with all its difficult economics and “shell shocked” population, a number of diverse individuals relay their lives via an omnipresent narrator in separate yet interrelated chapters. They all live in the same dilapidated building where the plumbing has been non existent for several months. They are coping, but it seems there is nothing they can do about the situation. Most significantly the group experiences a death of one of the...more
Synopsis: Within a current day setting in Russia, with all its difficult economics and “shell shocked” population, a number of diverse individuals relay their lives via an omnipresent narrator in separate yet interrelated chapters. They all live in the same dilapidated building where the plumbing has been non existent for several months. They are coping, but it seems there is nothing they can do about the situation. Most significantly the group experiences a death of one of the...more
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Huge-hearted with a spirituality both grounded and airy; such a mix of magic, hope, sadness, compassion & cruelty—and also hilarity & absurdity; comparable in its POV shifts (and generational shifts) to J S Foer’s EXTREMELY LOUD, but more open to ghosts and fables; really in a class of its own, alive with synesthesia: “colour with the noise turned low” (119); “Red she loved. In particular, Siberian red, a lead chromate that can be made to dance the scales of colour from lemon yellow to c...more
I received this book from goodreads; thank you! I enjoyed it a lot: the characters are memorable, the setting is so bleak, yet well described. There is a touch of the supernatural with a haunting of the slowly sinking apartment building. The strange museum full of replicas of second rate art and the cynical yet sometimes hopeful people scarred by perennial wars and multitudes of social problems add up to a fascinating read with even some humor thrown in.
Okay, so this book was really pretty weird. But I like weird and weird is my thing and I thought it worked. It was a good weird. Good weird is good. There was a little bit of shockingness at how bad the author makes Russian life sound. I was told in 7th grade that Russia is pretty much like the US, only Russian instead. People wear jeans, they go to school, etc. This book makes it sound like people have no money, though, oddly, there was always something to dig out of their pockets. But the impo...more
I won this book through Goodreads and was anxious to get started on reading it. This book tells the story of several residents in a very run down apartment building before the fall of the Soviet Union (exact time is never really stated). The residents of the apartment building deal with the ills of Soviet Russia (and the strange appearance of the sort of zombie ghost of a former resident).
I was intrigued by the characters in the story. They were all very interesting but I almost wish that Ochsne...more
I was intrigued by the characters in the story. They were all very interesting but I almost wish that Ochsne...more
It started off nicely at first, and I was interested to see what would happen, especially to Tanya, Olga, and Yuri. The other characters were more abrasive, and didn't seem to offer as much, but I continued.
Unfortunately, the book sort of started to drag, and it just didn't feel like the story was strong enough. Towards the very end, the writing was rather tedious, with lots of pseudo-philosophical conversations that were just meaningless filler.
Unfortunately, the book sort of started to drag, and it just didn't feel like the story was strong enough. Towards the very end, the writing was rather tedious, with lots of pseudo-philosophical conversations that were just meaningless filler.
Very stereotypically Russian literature. A little absurdism, a little aestheticism, a little post-imperialism. I'm not really sure how to describe it--the general plot is about a group of people who live in a block of generally dismal apartments, and some of them work at an art museum. The art museum doesn't have any original art--only reproductions of some pretty strange things from other art museums. The staff is vying for a grant from a group of misguided American philanthropists. There are a...more
A surly ghost haunts a decomposing apartment complex. Meanwhile the inhabitants fret through a post soviet Russian winter. The Ochsner spins through her characters, making them real, sad and brilliant along the way. The light plot is a great canvass for their eccentricities and foibles. The oppressions of the poverty in post soviet Russia are made tangible, but not unbearable, and especially good reading.
I thought that it wasn't written by a Russian, but it did have a certain Russian feel to it. I didn't like how the characters had the same narrative voice, but I enjoyed the sort of dreamy almost nonsense style of writing. I also felt the end was a bit of a cop-out, but it did make me feel happy none the less!
Gina Ochsner has a poetic style of writing and is especially gifted at descriptions. Unfortunately it is not enough to float this novel into the air. This story of post-soviet life simply does not ring true. The characters never ascend past caricatures and Russian / Jewish stereotypes. I understand this is her debut novel and she has two collections of short stories. I am interested in reading her short fiction but this first novel just doesn't do it for me.
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An enjoyable read, but one you must be willing to meet on it's own terms. You need to shape yourself to the way that Ochsner tells her tales - you can't expect them to fit more familiar shapes.
I like the way a vague story builds at the hands of the various narrators. I like the multitude of references to other stories and myths and dreams within the book - it really does what the title claims. I like the gentle magic realism, and regular striking images that left me breathless.
After reading her...more
I like the way a vague story builds at the hands of the various narrators. I like the multitude of references to other stories and myths and dreams within the book - it really does what the title claims. I like the gentle magic realism, and regular striking images that left me breathless.
After reading her...more
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like
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I thoroughly enjoyed this book from the first page. What surprised though, was that given the sad, dire circumstances of the characters, there was a hopeful tone throughout the book, and never once did I feel bogged down by the events or the characters' take on what was happening to them.
New book by a Keizer author to be released in February. This has been nominated for an Oregon Book Award, which I didn't understand since it hadn't yet been released but then I read that this has already been published in the U.K.
This was a book I won on Goodreads.com, so I felt obligated to finish it. The author uses beautiful, descriptive language which I enjoyed, but it was completely wiped out by her obsession with bodily functions. The book never really went anywhere as far as I could tell. If there was a symbolic meaning, it was lost on me. I just didn't get it.
I hope that Gina Ochsner goes on to write something uplifting because she truly has a gift for prose.
I hope that Gina Ochsner goes on to write something uplifting because she truly has a gift for prose.
I liked the characters a lot. I enjoyed reading about their predicaments and encounters.
But I didn't like the way it was written -- stylized tactics seemed forced, unnecessarily convoluted.
But I didn't like the way it was written -- stylized tactics seemed forced, unnecessarily convoluted.
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| Have a question for Gina Ochsner? | 1 | 7 | Feb 12, 2010 07:50am |
GINA OCHSNER is the author of two collections of short stories, People I Wanted to Be and The Necessary Grace to Fall, both of which won the Oregon Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Glimmer Train, and others. She is a recipient of the Flannery OConnor Award, the Ruth Hindman Foundation Prize, Guggenheim and NEA Grants, and the Raymond Carve...more
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Jul 28, 2010 08:22am