The Good Angel of Death

by Andrey Kurkov

When Kolya moves into a new flat in Kiev, he finds a book hidden within a volume of 'War and Peace'. His investigations take him to a graveyard, and more specifically to the coffin of a Ukrainian nationalist who died in mysterious circumstances and was buried with a sealed letter and a manuscript.

Armed only with three cases of baby milk, which have unexpected hallucinogenic properties, he sets off on what turns out to be a very bizarre journey, meeting a host of unlikely characters along the way including a spirit-like companion in the form of a chameleon.

Genres: Fiction, Ukraine, Russia, Roman, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Mystery

378 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Andrey Kurkov is a Russian and Ukrainian writer who writes in Russian (fiction) and Ukrainian (non-fiction).

Kurkov was born in the small town of Budogoszcz, Russia, on April 23, 1961. When he was young, his family moved to Kyiv, Ukraine. In 1983 Kurkov graduated from the Kyiv Pedagogical Academy of Foreign Languages and later also completed a training in Japanese translation.

Among Kurkov's most famous Russian novels are 'Smert postoronnego' (1996, translated into English in 2001 under the title 'Death and the Penguin') and 'Zakon ulitki' (2002, translated into English in 2005 as 'Penguin lost)'. Kurkov's only Ukrainian non-fiction book is 'Ruh "Emanus": istoriya solidarnosti' (2017).

Reviews

[Max Berendsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Review to follow

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kurkov's novel is a small-scale epic of Ukrainian identity. While it was quite abstract in places and it requires an understanding of a certain type of dry, dark humour and of the geo-political relations of Eastern Europe, it was very enjoyable and quite unlike anything I have read before. It leans heavily into the absurdity of national spirit and how something so immaterial and arbitrary can create havoc across borders and it also makes a passive fool of the hero, Kolya, a Russian immigrant in Ukraine, a stranger searching for his place, his home in the world. My favourite character is Gulya, his unexpected wife, who competently solves most probems they encounter, also shifting the power balance by simply noting that though her father sent her with him - Kolya himself is the 'present', the one 'given away', as he was saved by their she-camel and given to her. This balance is quite subtle and maybe not as subverstive as it could have been, but it makes for a clever read. The ending of the epic is purposefully underwhelming, in that the great search for identity and national spirit amounts to nothing and Kolya's idealism is twisted and used by criminals and state-representatives (like the Colonel who is both) to reach their own ends, as often happens with the ideals of patriots. By the end, the main characters do get a 'happily ever after', leaving all matters of state and nation behind them.

[Torsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Hauptperson Kolja gerät in die haarsträubendsten Abenteuer, die nur der postsowjetische (Nicht-)Alltag bieten kann... Ob er als Nachtwächter ein Drogenlager bewacht, auf einer schwimmenden Fischfabrik in den Armen einer russischen Matrone einen Sturm auf dem kaspischen Meer übersteht, nach einem Drogenrausch in der Wüste von einem Kasachen gerettet und dessen Tochter geschenkt wird, und so weiter... Nach dem Penguin Mischa schafft Kurkow wieder eine anrührende Tiergestalt: das Chameläon Petrowitsch. Leider liest es sich viel zu schnell...

[Robert Wechsler]

Just wasn’t interested in the story or characters.

[Maryna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Це була цікава історія про киянина Миколу, що по волі долі знайшов документ, який міг би визначати, що десь на березі Каспійського моря захоронен скарб національної та культурної важливості.
Що мені понравилося у цій книжці: сюжет дійсно захоплюючий, було важко вгадати, що потрапиться в пригодах героя. Історичний склад безладного часу кінця дев‘яностих дуже правдоподібний. Елемент майже містики був інтригуючим.
Не подобався мені сам Коля. Він здавався мені дивно байдужим, не схильний до авантюр такого масштабу, який описаний у цьому романі. Другорядні Петро і Гуля на приклад, були цікавішими.
Частина Коліних мандруваннь була достатньо монотонною.
Також не було дуже гарно поясненої розв‘язки, яка була необхідна на мій погляд.
Крім того, ця книга була написана задовго до подій 2014 року, а особливо лютого 2022 року. Опис стосунків між українцями та росіянами часом здається неймовірним у світлі нинішніх подій.

This is a story about Mykola, native of Kyiv, who by the will of fate have found a document that testifies that a treasure of national and cultural importance is maybe buried somewhere on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
What I liked about this book: the plot idea is really exciting, it was difficult to guess what will happen in the adventures of the hero. The historical composition of the chaotic time of the late nineties in the countries that were part of the recently collapsed Soviet Union was very plausible. The element of almost mysticism was intriguing.
What I didn't like: firstly, the Kolya himself. He seemed strangely indifferent to me, not prone to adventures of the scale described in this novel. Secondary characters like Petro and Gulya, for example, were more interesting.
Parts of Kolya’s journey were quite monotonous. Maybe due to his personality since he is the narrator.
There was also a not-so-well-explained resolution that was an important conclusion to this novel.
Also it’s good to remember that this book was written long before the events of 2014, and specially February 2022. The description of the relationship between the Ukrainians and Russians sometimes seems unbelievable in the light of current events.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good book, with some bizarre twists, the earler books are better in my opinion like death and the penguin

i really like kurkovs style of writing, melancholy cynical at times and gently funny - and at times laugh out loud funny

[Marcin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jestem gotów założyć się o miliony monet, że Kurkow należy do fanów „Latającego cyrku Monty Pythona”, gdyż ta powieść przesiąknięta jest pythonowskim poczuciem humoru. Równie dobrze zamiast tytułu nadanego przez pisarza, można byłoby ją ochrzcić mianem Żywotu Briana tyle tylko, że zamiast Briana głównym bohaterem jest Nikołaj alias Kola, a akcja osadzona jest w byłych republikach radzieckich od Ukrainy aż po Kazachstan. Prozę Kurkowa wypełniają nieoczekiwane, nierzadko nonsensowne zwroty akcji, a absurdalne perypetie bohaterów podbite są sporym ładunkiem komizmu łatwo zrozumiałego dla czytelnika z tej części Europy, która chlubnie zowie się Środkowo-Wschodnią. Pisarz doskonale wykorzystuje konwencję kryminału i powieści łotrzykowskiej, pozwalając powieściowym postaciom ładować się w coraz to liczniejsze awanturnicze tarapaty. Unosi się nad nimi duch Братских народов союз вековой co w aktualnej rzeczywistości politycznej brzmi niezwykle szyderczo. Nie może inaczej wybrzmieć przesłanie, które cyt. zmienia stosunek człowieka do otoczenia i do siebie samego (…) pobudzając w nim tylko to, co dobre (…),uczy kochać przedstawicieli wszystkich narodów, nie tylko własnego. Które cyt. pomoże zbudować kraj, w którym nie trzeba będzie głosić hasła „Ukraina tylko dla Ukraińców”, ale wszyscy w niej żyjący: Ukraińcy, Żydzi, Rosjanie, Kazachowie, Azerowie zbudują europejskie państwo. Skąd my to wszystko znamy?

[Myamabook · Rating 4 out of 5]

C’est complètement loufoque et bourré d’humour un poil cynique par moment. À prendre au second degré sinon l’écriture peut évidemment surprendre.

« La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure … ou comme on disait à l’époque soviétique: c’est la victoire de l’amitié entre les peuples! »

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

a sweet and somewhat absurd story

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kurkov's works have now transcended the borders of the old USSR to such an extent that he must be a candidate for an upcoming Nobel Prize for Literature. This novel is less well known than his Death and the Penguin but is every bit as good, constituting a picaresque journey from his home town Kiev to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and the Russian republics of the Caucasus. Dodgy dealings are very much to the fore as are magic realist fashionings.

The author's lineage is clearly identifiable with Gogol and Bulgakov especially major influences, but Kurkov's tale provides a modern twist - it was particularly enjoyable to read the book having just returned from a short holiday in Ukraine and the delicate political relationship between that country and its former overlords is teasingly dealt with. The result is a call for national traditions to be respected but for us all to get along nonetheless.

[Amu · Rating 2 out of 5]

A man finds an old manuscript and is inspired by its writers interest in deeper questions of life. Together with some strange events at his job in "baby food" factory, this inspiration leads him to an adventure all the way to Kazakhstan. It's full of mysterious people and surprising situations.

I loved Kurkov's Death and Penguin and liked The President's Last love. This one was not that much for me. It was funny only occasionally and I found its attitude towards women a bit problematic. The philosophical start should have developed more and given depth to the story.

What I did like about the book was how it dealt with the Soviet history and the national feelings of ex-Soviet nationalities. The Kazakhstan of this book was not the Kazakhstan I know but it made me miss the countries and friends who live there.

[Cerisaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea how to review this rather bizarre novel, my first venture into Kurkov' s writing, but I enjoyed it immensely and will read more of the authors work, starting with the more famous Death and the Penguin.

A picaresque tale of adventure and travel, musings on nationalism and identify, espionage and drug running, truly a story with something for every taste, even romance?

Obviously,, reading the novel in translation, knowing very little about its undercurrents regarding Russia and Ukraine, I am well aware I missed nuances and references. I was grateful to be reading on my Kindle with easy access to looking up places and names unfamiliar to me, in Kazakhstan and various republics around the Caspian sea. Reading world literature exposes just how limited are our horizons if we don't seek to explore beyond our cosy comfort zones. I am grateful to translators who work hard to bring such books to the English speaking readership.

Above all this book is funny, quirky and puzzling but in a good way, with droll, dry humour. I like the writing style, light and chatty even when it goes into philosophical and spiritual realms. Everything makes sense in the end. I liked the characters, and their relationships. I loved it!

[Nick Forbes · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it has flashes of the blackly bleak Eastern bloc comedy of Kurkov's other works it lacks the charm of the penguin novels. As a result it was a little hard-going and baggy at times and I struggled to muster the energy required to keep up with the intricacies of the plot and its many named characters. I got the sense at times that it was presenting a grander allegory of the Ukrainian experience through that of Kolya, the main character. However I lack the requisite understanding of the country's recent past to say this for certain, or to appreciate this if it was. Overall a decent read, but far from Kurkov's best

[David Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

J’ai choisi un livre de Kourkov a la médiathèque parce que je voulais découvrir un autre écrivain russe. Je n’avais aucune idée que Le caméléon, écrit en 2000, avait comme sujet le nationalisme ukrainien et le traitement des russes vivant à Kiev. Le caméléon est un conte passionnant ou c’est difficile à distinguer entre le bien et le mal. Évidemment, on pense énormément à la situation en ex URSS aujourd’hui. Si Zelenski était un caractère dans ce bouquin, il serait au bords des mauvais.

[Fekete Macska · Rating 3 out of 5]

Une lecture sympathique, qui, sous couvert d'aventure légèrement loufoque, est en fait un plaidoyer contre le nationalisme. Un chouette voyage qui nous emmène d'Ukraine au Kazakhstan, plein d'humour et de rebondissements. Je ne suis pas friande des romans d'aventures, et j'oublierai donc cette lecture assez rapidement, mais clairement un bon moment de lecture.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A long and rambling story (in the truest sense of the word) that moves from Ukraine to Kazakhstan and back again via Russia.

Not the easiest tale to follow, perhaps having lost something in translation, but the descriptions of the journey the lead character makes, and the scenery along the way, made it an interesting read.

[Julien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un mélange de road trip, de chasse au trésor, de compte des mille et une nuits sur fond de chute de l’union soviétique, de corruption et d’ésotérisme, un livre écrit sur un ton plaisant avec un humour déroutant, bref un excellent Kourkov qui passe des messages tout en nous distrayant avec malice !

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great summer reading book. A fascinating yarn that tickled my imagination. I look forward to reading more from Kurkov.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not much about the blurb on the back prepares us for the wonder of the book between the covers – a strangely annotated copy of a notebook hidden inside a copy of War and Peace left behind when Kolya buys an apartment from an old couple who are emigrating leads to a mysterious robbery, threatening phone calls and the promise of national treasure. However, Kolya lives in Kiev, and the treasure is buried near a no-longer-existing one-time Russian fort in Kazakhstan. Threatened by who-knows-whom, followed in the street, watched by the unidentified late night phone callers or maybe by someone else, Kolya (a Russian) heads off in search the Ukrainian national treasure in the Kazakh sands. It is all slightly mysterious, more than a little absurd, and with a strange feeling of The 39 Steps meets <>On the Road with a hint of Robert Louis Stevenson – but this is Andrey Kurkov and none of these is anywhere near what we have in our hands.

There is danger in not taking satire seriously, especially when it comes from such a potent tradition as Ukrainian satire (yes, that I have labelled this 'Russian fiction' may be problematic, except that it was written in Russian, not Ukrainian) – this is, after all, the home of Gogol, whose short stories in particular make fun of power and in doing so make it public and weaker. This is Kurkov’s 6th novel translated into English, and although it is not his most absurd or humorous or pointed, it is, I think, perhaps his sharpest. Whereas Death and the Penguin and Penguin Lost and, to an extent The Case of the General’s Thumb verge on the surreal, The President’s Last Love is more obvious in its political contempt – as if satire is not enough for bad times, and the brilliant A Matter of Life and Death poignant in its absurdity and desperation, this novel returns to harsh, sharp uncompromising attacks of General’s Thumb but with a more nuanced sense of the dangers of the new nationalism.

In his quest for the national treasure Kolya finds himself in league with the Ukrainian state, with rabid nationalists, with corrupt officials, married, left wandering in the desert to be saved by a camel, smuggling dirt and countless other slightly-through-to-utterly ridiculous situations all the while fleeing the threats made during his job a watchman in the baby food warehouse. As with other Kurkov novels, characters mutate and few are who or what they seem to be, allegiances and alliances shift and we are left with a form of resolution (in this case, a tight one) but sure of neither what it means nor quite how it came about. Where I adore Kurkov in this sense of tight ending is that amid all the absurdity there is no sense of deus ex machina – the ending is right, it fits and yet it hammers home the central point of the satire of the state and its politics.

Kurkov’s style is superb – he is spare, sparse and droll, but draws us into a rich and complex tale with fascinating characters that, for all his sparseness, are rounded and sophisticated. He is a writer very much in the tradition of Gogol, of Jann Kross (the great Estonian), of Dostoyevsky – writers whose tightly crafted, multi-layered fiction carries satire that flays its social and political targets but about which they can do little. In this case, the targets are both the corrupt Ukrainian state and the ultra- and puritanical-nationalism that emerged as its principle opponent (the book was first published in 2000 – as Ukraine struggled with its post-Soviet existence and lurched towards its own colour revolution, the orange clad nationalist-lite overthrow of Victor Yanukovich in 2004/5).

And even without all the knowledge we need to get its barbs (I am sure I get only a few of them) it is a funny, engaging and slightly ridiculous story about a guy travelling from Kiev the Kazakhstan and back – it is, after all, rich and sophisticated in its multi-layering. And, as always, he gives us really good women characters (in this case, most especially Gulya – quite brilliant).

[Bettie]

Description: When Kolya moves into a new flat in Kiev, he finds a book hidden within a volume of 'War and Peace'. His investigations take him to a graveyard, and more specifically to the coffin of a Ukrainian nationalist who died in mysterious circumstances and was buried with a sealed letter and a manuscript.

Armed only with three cases of baby milk, which have unexpected hallucinogenic properties, he sets off on what turns out to be a very bizarre journey, meeting a host of unlikely characters along the way including a spirit-like companion in the form of a chameleon.

Paperback discarded from Inverclyde Libraries

Translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield

Opening: Early in the spring of 1997 I sold my two-room flat on the edge of town and bought myself a single-room flat right in the centre of Kiev, beside St Sophia's Cathedral.

St Sophia



As Fionnuala piquantly puts it: "No cure for Kurkov love, only more Kurkov!"

Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev review – an invaluable guide to the present crisis

17 Aug 2014: Andrey Kurkov, the author of Death and the Penguin, is ideally placed to guide us through the Ukrainian revolution as it unfolds, writes Oliver Bullough, author of .

3.5* Death and the Penguin
4* Penguin Lost
3.5* A Matter of Life and Death
3.5* The Case Of The General's Thumb
TR The Good Angel of Death
WL Ukraine Diaries

[Iryna Khomchuk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Можна, я відразу почну прискіпуватися до перекладу назви твору - "Лагідний янгол смерті"? От хіба слова "добрий" та "лагідний" - тотожні? Це синоніми? Чи то перекладач записався у співавтори і з доброго янгола зробив лагідного? Втім, якби перекладач взяв на себе аж таку відповідальність, то йому довелося хоча б вичитати текст після машинного перекладу, бо кілька недоречностей останнього я, навіть із температурою, виловила мимохіть.

Втім, причепитися хочеться до всієї книги. Чому? От уявіть собі, що головний герой знаходить не абищо, а схованку українського національного духу. Він животворний - перетворює навіть найзапекліших людино- й україноненависників на чемних, добрих, порядних українців. Поховано цей дух в пісках на Мангишлаці, де відбував заслання Тарас Шевченко. Пахне він корицею, в'їдається в шкіру й не змивається милом. А походить від - увага! - сперми, якою щедро поливали піски Казахстану полишені напризволяще без жінок українські рекрути, у тому числі й Шевченко.

Звісно, основною в романі є детективна сюжетна лінія. Тут тобі й розриті могили, й муміфіковані трупи (та відрізані від них і теж муміфіковані чоловічі статеві органи), і таємничі записи на полях "Кобзаря", і переслідування, підозри, зброя, наркотики, втеча, повернення... І навіть хеппі енд і любов, от! От тільки, як на мій смак, закручено воно все в якусь непевну кашу, герої невиразні й неживі, легенда про янгола смерті притягнута за вуха (навіть більше, ніж сперма Шевченка), а насолода від читання геть сумнівна. Чи то таки моя температура далася взнаки?

[Olivia]

Ugh! Another book I'd give 3.5 stars to, if possible. This time because I did like it, but don't actually think it is that good. Insofar as it is a relatively unique book on the experience of being a post-Soviet Man (i.e., the Soviet Man - see, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sovi... ... hm actually that is not a very useful link but whatever), it was interesting. The translation is okay, but not awesome - you know you're reading a translated book. But it's about an ethnic Russian in Ukraine, and the search for a Ukrainian soul, so that is somewhat interesting, if you're into that sort of thing.

So in short, if you're into thinking about identity in the former Soviet Union, and/or you like Shteyngart and Pelevin both, you might like this. It's not funny like Shteyngart and it's not religious like Pelevin, but is a bit of a combination of them.

-------------- FAVOURITE QUOTE ---------------
"It was my city, but while I'd been away it seemed to have become more independent, it had gone running on ahead, and I would have to catch up with it, come to terms with it again, become a little part of it, dissolve into its air. I was already familiar from the past with this sensation of temporary rejection. After a few days, everything would be the way it used to be."

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good Angel Of Death by Andrey Kurkov (vintage)

This was a random buy in a bookshopo as I liked the cover and the blurb on the back sold it to me. I'm very glad I took the chance as this is a superb book and makes me want to find more of Kurkov's novels.
This book is about Kolya who moves into a new flat in Kiev where the last resident has left a bookshelf of books behind. When Kolya opens the big version of Crime And Punishment he finds another book hidden inside a copy of The Kobza Player by Shevchenko, that book has some rather obtuse notes in the margins that set Kolya on his way to a quest to search for the meaning of these notes and the treasure map he ends up thinking they are.
This then leads him on a journey to Kazakhstan's most inaccessible parts that he gets to on a factory ship that makes canned herring before he goes wandering in the desert for weeks where he picks up a wife and all sorts of odd stuff happens that in places is a bit Indiana Jones but with a serious russian drug smuggling twist to it.
I won't give away what happens or the eventual end of the journey, but will say it is one hell of a ride and I would never have guessed what happens. It also makes me need to get a copy of The Kobza Player to read now too.

[Eric Barber]

It took Amazon three months to get this book to me, and having read the Penguin series I was excited to read something else by Kurkov, and he did not disappoint at all.



Kolya, the narrator, buys a flat and discovers a secret inside a book that was left inside a copy of War and Peace, and it has to do with something very sacred ot Ukrainian Nationalism.



Mysteriously, he must flee the city because the warehouse where he was a night watchmen was being used by drug dealers who were threatening his life, so he packs up and heads ot Kazakhstan to find the item of importance to the Ukraine.



On his travels he becomes mired in the intrigue of post Soviet organmized crime that has him involved with the secret police of a bunch of former Soviet Countries and he learns that he is a patsy in a much larger international cabal.



Kurkov narrates the story with a very intriguing commentary of the former Soviet Union in the late 90's, combined with some very cerebral and spiritual thoughts that make this a superb read. I finished it in 24 hours!!!



Any Kurkov fan MUST read this.

[Guy Salvidge · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read and enjoyed Kurkov's A Matter of Death and Life a couple of years ago. It was a fun read. This, however, is not. What we have here in 380 pages of flat, uninteresting prose. Worse, the story isn't very promising either. I like reading novels set in the former Soviet Union (I liked PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies by Ken Kalfus. Kurkov is Ukrainian, but it's all the same to me. Okay, the plot. Our protagonist is a bit of an amiable drifter type who digs up someone's grave for also no reason at all, which propels him on an adventure to Kazhakstan and beyond. He ends up with a hot wife named Gulya (rather confusingly, there's another female character named Galya). The main plot revolves around this mystical sand that makes people kind and happy (!) and the interminable quest to send this magic sand back to the Ukraine. The only reason I finished this book was because I was on holiday and I had exhausted my other reading material. This is disappointing because I want to like Kurkov. I hear that his Death and the Penguin is perhaps his essential work. This decidedly is NOT.

[Johann Guenther · Rating 4 out of 5]

KURKOW, Andrej: „Petrowitsch“, Zürich 2000
Das bereits im Jahr 2000 vom Ukrainer Kurkow geschrieben Buch ist noch heute, 2012, aktuell. Speziell die Auseinandersetzung mit der Sprache. Wer Russisch und wer Ukrainisch ist. „Der Nationale Geist steht über der nationalen Sprache … Die Sprache ist nur das äußere Zeichen einer Nationalität … Wenn man die Sprache zum wichtigsten Faktor des nationalen Geistes macht, dann würde sie ein Instrument zur Aussonderung, es käme zu einer modernen Inquisition.“ (Seite 242/243)
Wie in Kurkow Geschichten üblich kommt der Erzähler völlig naiv in eine heiße Geschichte hinein. Nach dem Kauf eines antiken Buches fährt er in den zentralasiatischen Raum, wird verfolgt und mit einer jungen Kasachin verheiratet. Fast eine Geschichte aus 1000 und einer Nacht.
Das Buch hat aber ein Happy End, das hier nicht verraten werden soll. Oder ist es doch kein Happy End? Der Leser muss sich selbst bis zur letzten Seite und zum Ergebnis durcharbeiten !
(Hinterbrühl, 01.10.2012)

[Luis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This seems to be a real leap forward in Kurkov's writing style, gone is the sparse and laconic Hemingway-like prose of Death and the penguin and others to be replaced by a more detailed at times elegiac style, Maybe this is just a necessity to capture the grand sweep of the events described here. A surreal journey of discovery from Kiev to the Caspian sea, wanders in a desert and meetings with strange pilgrims along the way.
When talking about Kurkov, reviewers frequently mention Gogol and Dostoevsky but for me, there is a lot more of a Kafka feel, strange places and situations, bizarre happening and a sense that the protagonists lives are been controlled from afar by an uncomprehending and incomprehensibly distant force.
This novel is shot through with moments of real beauty, tender feeling and humanity and a good dose of slapstick humour. Kurkov is among the finest writers alive today.

[Peter K · Rating 2 out of 5]

The third of this Ukrainian author’s books that I have read and the least enjoyable of the three to be frank.

The story relates the tale of Kolya who moves into a new flat in Kiev and finds some old forgotten writings of an iconic Ukrainian author that leads him on a trail across Russia into the deserts of Kazakhstan.

The story twists and twines and, for me, sometimes lost energy in the slow detailed descriptions of Kolya’s odyssey and the friends and wife he picks up along the way.

I suppose it could be a deliberate on the author’s part that at some points details that seem to be portentous and heavy in meaning later dribble away whereas significant plot turns and changes arrive suddenly and somewhat incredibly.

Having said that it was a fairly enjoyable, though labored read and I was disappointed with the ending which felt flat, a little contrived and rushed.

[John Defrog: global citizen, local gadfly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kolya, a night watchman in Kiev moves into a new flat and discovers an annotated manuscript hidden inside a copy of War And Peace. One thing leads to another, and Kolya ends up on an epic journey to Kazakhstan in search of a national treasure buried by a Ukrainian war hero and poet, during which he acquires a wife and a chameleon, and encounters revolutionaries, ex-KGB spies and smugglers. This being Kurkov, it’s not an action-packed thriller so much as wry, laid-back political satire with a lot of rumination. I’m not sure how much of the satire translates into English (and how much knowledge of Russian/Ukranian politics is required), but overall I liked it, though the traveling parts get a bit tedious after awhile.

[Fandango · Rating 4 out of 5]

L'épopée extraordinaire de Nikolaï. Tout commence par des annotations dans un livre, s'ensuit une inhumation, un voyage cosmique, une traversée du désert et la rencontre avec un colonel en survêtement Adidas.
L'écriture est agréable et les personnages sympathiques. L'histoire est sans queue ni tête et j'ai eu un peu de mal à me sentir vraiment investie.

"Je l'avais surpris un jour en train d'emballer ses médailles (..) Me montrant l'une de ces dernières, il avait déclaré : "J'ai pris Prague!" "Prague s'en est-elle aperçue?" avais-je pensé sur le moment (...)"
"Elle était dépourvue de fenêtre, et des hôtes indésirables n'auraient donc pu y pénétrer autrement que par la porte, qui datait de l'époque soviétique, quand on produisait au moins une tonne de métal lourd par habitant."