2017: A Novel - Hardcover

Slavnikova, Olga

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590203097 ISBN 13: 9781590203095

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2010

Synopsis

In the year 2017 in Russia-exactly 100 years after the revolution-poets and writers are obsolete, class distinctions are painfully sharp, and spirits intervene in the lives of humans from their home high in the mythical Riphean Mountains. Professor Anfilogov, a wealthy and emotionless man, sets out on an expedition to unearth priceless rubies that no one else has been able to locate. Young Krylov, a talented gem cutter who Anfilogov had taken under his wing, is seeing off his mentor at the train station when he is drawn to a mysterious stranger who calls herself Tanya. A scandalous affair ensues, but trouble arises in the shape of Krylov's ex-wife Tamara and a spy who appears at the lovers' every rendezvous. As events unfold, Krylov begins to learn more than he bargained for about the women in his life and realizes why he recognizes the spy from somewhere deep within his past. Meanwhile, Anfilogov's expedition reveals ugly truths about man's disregard for nature and the disasters stemming from insatiable greed. Olga Slavnikova stuns with this engaging and remarkable tale of love, obsession, murder, and the lengths people will go to get what they want.

About this title

About the Author

Olga Slavnikova was born in 1957 near Ekaterinburg. She won the Russian Booker prize in 2006 for 2017.

Reviews

Set a century after the Russian Revolution, this satirical political thriller, which won the Russian Booker Prize in 2006, follows the less than engaging adventures of a Russian gem cutter named Krylov and the consequences of his affair with a virtual stranger. Heavy-handed parody undercuts Slavnikona's attempt to sound a warning about the future direction of Russia. For example, a few months after the U.S. president, Pamela Armstrong, perishes in a terrorist attack in Beirut, Armstrong's image appears on a new $600 bill, and her biography, which was published with lightning speed in every language, emphasizes her having adopted eighteen orphans of every existing skin color, from a Yakut as yellow as melted grease to a blue-black girl from Ghana. Fantasy elements, like the disappearances related to a mountain spirit known as the Stone Maiden, may remind some of The Master and Margarita, but American readers should be prepared for a futuristic fable that falls far short of Bulgakov's masterpiece. (Mar.)
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Strange things are happening in the rugged Riphean Mountains in this rambunctious novel of Russian society 100 years after the revolution, winner of the Russian Booker Prize. Slavnikova’s imaginary mountains, which resemble the Urals where she grew up, harbor mischievous spirits protecting deep veins of rubies that attract two unlikely rock hounds, the impervious professor Anfilogov and his humble, steel-toothed conspirator, Kolyan. As Slavnikova’s high-strung, stubbornly romantic narrator, Krylov, a down-and-out historian turned gem cutter, sees them off at the train station, he falls in love with a stranger. Their affair is so clandestine they don’t know each other’s names or why they’re being followed. As Anfilogov and Kolyan dig for gemstones in a catastrophically poisoned landscape, Krylov’s ferocious ex-wife, Tamara, one of Russia’s new capitalists, faces a spectacular takedown, while a new, bizarrely theatrical civil war breaks out. Wildly elaborate descriptions, rampant anomalies, Krylov’s brooding, and a provocative mix of mystery and satire prove demanding. But Slavnikova’s characters are magnetizing, and her crystal clear vision of a world in which “commercial infinities” choke off humanism and art is salubriously caustic. --Donna Seaman

Edition details

• Publisher: The Overlook Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1590203097
• ISBN 13: 9781590203095
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448