Happy Moscow - Softcover

Platonov, Andrei; Chandler, Robert; Chandler, Elizabeth

3.79

1,048 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 186046646X ISBN 13: 9781860466465

Publisher: Harvill Pr, 2001

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Moscow in the 1930s is the consummate symbol of the Soviet paradise, a fairy-tale capital where, in Stalin's words, "life has become better, life has become merrier". In Happy Moscow Platonov exposes the gulf between this premature triumphalism and the harsh reality of low living standards and even lower expectations. For in Stalin's ideal city there is no longer a place for those who do not fit the bright, shining image of the new men and women of the future. The heroine, Moscow Chestnova, is an Everywoman, both virgin and whore, who flits from man to man, fascinated by the brave new world supposedly taking shape around her. In a variety of styles ranging from the grotesque to the sentimental to the absurd, Platonov lays bare the ways in which language itself has been debased, even borrowing slogans from Stalin's own speeches for comic effect.

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About the Author:

Andrey Platonovich Platonov (1899-1951) was the son of a railway worker. He wrote his most politically controversial works in the 1920s and 1930s which include The Foundation Pit and The Return.

Review:

"Joseph Brodsky placed Platonov alongside the great classics of modernity, Joyce, Musil or Kafka - the last of whom he greatly resembles at times . . . It is his way with language which gives Platonov's works their special force"
Peter France, Scotsman
-- Review

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