Once
more on Vlad’s blog.
I
discovered Lyudmila Ulitskaya’s writing by pure chance. A happy one, I would
add. In the spring of 2016, I was lucky enough to put my hands on the short
story collection, Childhood and other stories. I really enjoyed
reading it so I recommended it on this blog.
A while ago, in the show
Guaranteed 100%, Lyudmila Ulitskaya was invited. A beautiful interview that you must
not miss, you can access it here. I had to read the new novel, published at
Humanitas Publishing House under the name of Imago, even if the original name
of the novel (as it was published in Russian) is The Green Tent.
The action
is gently narrated, in short chapters (maybe it’s a way of keeping the readers
interested and not boring them with long chapters, and thus motivating them to
keep reading despite the large number of pages; I have seen it also in another
writer’s novels - Joël Dicker), just like removing one onion skin after
another. After each skin, one sees the actions presented before from another
point of view. I find it done very masterly, and the readers get to feel
omniscient, just like the writer must have felt when writing it, for she makes
small notes regarding future happenings.
The
novel Imago tells the story of three boys’ friendship, from school to late
in their lives. Family liaisons, school problems, dreams about the future,
teenager issues, professors-mentors, didactic environment, professional life,
personal life, all are dominated by one thing – the iron fist of communism. Fortunately,
the fist is put into antithesis. With various ideals. And from the two, threads
start. Threads that fight, that attract themselves, that cohabit and live to
tell the story.
