Review of One-Two by Igor Eliseev

One-Two by Igor Eliseev

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Written in the best tradition of what I call “Russian noir-realism”, Igor Eliseev's One-Two paints a raw and lurid picture of the life of Soviet and post-Soviet outcasts, people whom the society rejected, denied an opportunity to be part of the “normal” life -- whatever this “normal” was, as the Soviet Union crumbled, fell and disintegrated. Told in her head by a conjoined twin to her sister, it is a story of their growing up unwanted and unloved at the bottom ladder of the society, but never quite losing Hope and Faith (the names of the twins).

One-Two is a painful and at times depressing story, but one that demands to be told, one that makes people pause to think, one where disgust (with some of the characters and situations) gives birth to compassion—with those who are forced to endure the bleakest of existence that fate has dealt them.

While some readers may think this novel is written in too simplistic a language (not a native language for the author, either) and style for a literary fiction, we should remember that the story is narrated by very young girl with the best of the education she got is from reading whatever books available in the library of an unwanted children home. Simple and naïve in the beginning, the readers witness her slow maturity through the story she tells, her observations of their miserly surroundings, the way she poses philosophical questions and draws lessons, as she and her inseparable sister go through their desolate life.

While I rate the story as exceptional, I thought the editors of the book could have done a better service to it by conveying better some nuances of Russian culture and the language, perhaps in more colloquial English (as opposed to straight forward translation of some words, which lost them their vernacular feel in English). As it is, I’m afraid, some of them will be lost on English language speakers, which is a shame. Therefore, I give this book 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.



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