Russian Ramblings is more like it
583165
The book is typical turn of the century babble with the sentence structure far more complex then it needs to be.  The am forcing myself to try to complete the book.
1479572
Long winded borish and full of useless political commentary.
2403870
I was hoping to find out more about Russian fairy tales. Unfortunately, this book is more about the sort of mythology Russians actually believe (or believed) than the stories they might tell but not actually believe. For example, the book talks a lot about things like which saints Russian peasants believed would help their crops grow, but barely talks at all about Baba Yaga or Koschei the Deathless.

The book is fine for what it is, but it wasn't what I was looking for.
1269869
I start reading Alan Furst's books not in the last place because it describes events closely linked to Russian history. I will not comment on the literature qualities of the books as it may be subjective. But  I must warn anybody who might take in earnest the picture of Russia as it is depicted by Mr.. Furst - it is not even close to reality. Some of the funniest blunders are listed below (page numbers are given by the Random House h/c edition):

- (p. 7): "He was ... a decorated Hero of the Soviet Union, Second Class" - there was no such thing as "Hero of the Soviet Union 2-nd class". One could get the Hero more then once instead. There were many cases of two or even three times Heroes, mostly among fighter pilots, who were awarded the title on explicit numerical basis, i.e. for enemy planes brought down

- (p. 14) "...and to eat salted herring and drink Armenian Champagne" - There was no such thing as Armenian champagne, nor there is now. The popular product from Armenia was not champagne but brandy that as they said was a beverage of choice of Winston Churchill. As for the champagne, the best Russian mark comes from Crimea. Besides, the salted herring, being undoutbfully popular among Russians is  never eaten with anything else but ice-cold vodka straight

-  (p. 157): "Take a squad", the captain said... - "My sergeant saw it ..." - at the time of Civil war, there were no officer's ranks in Red Army. Those in command were referred as "commanders": platoon commander, battalion commander, etc, and those were frequently abridged. So a person in command of an army was called "Comandarm", etc.

- (p. 220) "The Mannlicher was nice and heavy, ...he...managed to release the magazine" - that should be really not a small achievement, as the magazine of Mannlicher pistols, as well as its Mauser's analog,  was not detachable. The loading was done from above through the opening behind the barrel chamber

Apart from the listed factual errors there are several of more general sort, I would say, conceptual ones. For example:

- The hero was a Jew and a communist. To find such a person among functionaries of Russian emigration was as probable as a Negro among KKK bosses in Alabama. Anti-Semitism was one of the staples of White Russian ideology, not to speak about anticommunism. I would not approve it - but it is an undisputable historical fact.

- Mr. Furst's characters move to and fro USSR borders freely. In practice approximately after 1925 it was practically impossible to leave Russia. One can refer for this issue to the memoirs of Bazhanov who was Stalin's secretary in the 20-s. He managed to escape only using his high position and the history of his escape could be a novel much more gripping than any of Mr. Furst,s ones.

This list is far from complete and deals only with the Russian realities. I am sure that Turks, Frenchmen, Romanians and others can find more mistakes. We can even  compete in finding the most funny blunder of Alan Furst. Let't have fun!
4577433
This was my first time for The Gambler, my second for the more seminal Notes. The first I read out of a sense of duty and the second because of the many ideas found in the concept of the talking narration. Or I could say that I read them both so that I might be able to include the compilation as a book here.
 Most of Notes is not the dinner scene from Concerning the Wet Snow that I remember. That is too bad, because in my memory that had struck me as the heaviest philosophy and with the most concrete Russian imagery: the stain on the pants, the condescending party, the change of the start of the party, the preaching from the narrator about the lack of money, that attempt to take pride from poverty. It reminds me of Fyodor Karamazov in a way but to the opposite effect, a matter of who is being preached to. One great talent of Dostoevsky was the impassioned harangue. Notes is left being more of the prostitute Liza and the two plus two talk. As is always the case, Russian literature is all about appearances. I did think while reading of what Dostoevsky would be like if on choice occasions there was a soccer match or some mountain climbing. To borrow from the introduction, there was also the portrayal of a crime of passion. While Tolstoys characters slow down and recount in greater detail what may be happening step by step, it is Dostoevskys choice to black out the mind of somebody, somebody like Raskolnikov, who must act contrary to his principles because somebody else doesnt have those same principles. This blacking out, however, never needs to happen in these two stories.
 In The Gambler, the gambler is not so addicted as the surprising Grandmother, who comically appears to put all of her money on zero and red in roulette while those family members who stand to inherit it when she dies nervously look on. She is comic in the most modern since first of all, that she barks orders to be carried around and becomes obsessive while losing. At the moment she appears to have wisdom about keeping her money safe, she appears more wise on the point that her money shouldnt be passed on to begin with. She is comic as old characters are, that she always remembers something that the young think she doesnt. Therefore there is so little tragedy when she loses.
 I did not detect tragedy otherwise even where it was intended. Here is one more, unfortunately, story that is a one trick pony. The Poles are crude and in the way, the woman is as hysterical as she is torn between two loves, and as sickly as she is hysterical, the French set the trends, and the Russians are backwards in their efforts to filter into European sensibilities. Everything is a confession. Nobody is honest in a group of three. Everyone is only honest toward the end, such as Mr. Astley in this case, the other side of the love triangle with Polina. Throwing in The General and the madams, I couldn't exactly tell how many love triangles there were supposed to be, which may have been as intended. .
2066375
the russian words are not written with the russian alphabet, the cyrilic. it's like studying chinese with western alphabet, makes no sense. :(
3571834
Since this was a recently published book, I expected a book about todays Russia.  Yet, it was written mid 90s and its flashback story refers to the soviet era 14 years earlier.  So, a little dated, yet interesting from a historical standpoint.
543265
There were notes from the editor that were not needed and the story was really long winded.  The book did not seem like it was taken from diaries but rather past memories.  I found it interesting to hear a Russians take on their experiences during WWII.  It seemed like too much time was spent on other times and thoughts about her family.  Would also have liked to have heard about her trying to locate her lost family or find what happened to them.  It seems like it was just assumed how most died.
1494977
Now I have read Chekhov and Gogol; Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky... who remained but Turgenev?

Here, I was told, I would find one of the greatest books of the 19th Century, and both the first Nihilist and the first Bolshevik.  Well...  I did enjoy the book, but the style is not my preference, and so it should be no surprise that it will not go on my "best of" list.  Maybe I would like it better, were I not reading Henry Miller as well?

If one likes the formalism of the 19th Century, one will find a very good book here, though, to me, it felt somewhat inconsistent.  Too often, in the first chapters did I see the author's strings as he tried to construct his story.  These vanish by the middle of the work, but are cumbersome while they last.

Perhaps I would not have noticed, were I not particularly preoccupied with the issue at the moment.  Every book I read, it seems, suffers some flaw brought on by whatever point of writing I am hyper-focusing on at the moment.

In the end, Turgenev examines a theme dear to my own heart, and for that, he gets points, as he does for his (mostly) well-drawn characters (or, as well drawn as the form allows).  I also liked the length of the work, and his reasonable (among some of his contemporaries) use of chapter breaks.

Overall, I don't think I will be reading more of the author's works any time soon.  If I feel the need to return to 19th Century Russia, I will do so through the eyes of Chekhov or Gogol.

A note on translation:  So much with these books depends on a good translation.  I could not help but feel, several times, that I was not getting my money's worth.  I feel there was probably more here, at times, than I was being allowed to see, because the translator was not equal to the task.
2418767
I really wanted to like this book and was hoping to gain some insights into how to create and develop my own blog from the guy that actually did it.  But the book was less about the nuts and bolts of blogging, and more like a cheerleading session of  "You can do it".  Yes, "You can change the world by using the internet and blogging".  But then there were 274 pages of long stories more about political strategy than blogging.  You really get the idea that Markos loves political campaigns and goes into very very long details about many of them.  I actually found myself bored reading this book and was looking forward to it's end.  I wish I could tell you I got a lot of good ideas out of this book and am now more inspired, but I'm not.
4664478
The most interesting feature of this book, is that is was published in 1988, when Gorbachev was still in power, and Yeltsin only the man who had just been removed out of his office by Gorbachev. It's a wonderful frozen  piece of time.
On the whole this book has all the characteristics of a  pre-glasnost biography, and as such it is far from "intimate",  even though the subtitle claims to be just that. There are gaps in the  chronology, and especially in the depth of the life description. And  because of that, the book lacks tension and fascination, that an intimate  biography of the head of state of a complex, and foreign, Russian society  could have. Gorbachev is depicted as a fairly decent man, who becomes  secretary general because of his qualities and the some what ill defined  possibility of a power game. At one points there is the suggestion that  perhaps to get into the top job Gorbachev had to do some less than  commendable things, but that remains vague, and second guessing, much as  the rest of the book, unfortunately.
2307324
I checked this book out from the library, and I must say that this book's portrayal about Vladimir Putin and his family life is outrageous and not true.  There's not a lick of truth to anything this author has to say about how Vladimir relates to his family.  I suspect that Vladimir's enemies wrote this book.

See my review for Vladimir's memoir First Person for more on this.  As I read the book I felt I read a carefully calculated presentation with an agenda, and that agenda is not to tell the truth, but to defame the character of Vladimir Putin.

I did not feel I was reading a biography, but a piece of propaganda.  The book insulted my intelligence.
1462642
I was expecting this to be an early Soviet counterpart of the Hugh Ferriss works "The Metropolis of Tomorrow" or "The Power of Buildings" (both of which I enjoy greatly) but "The Russian Avant-Garde: Art and Architecture" is not an equivalent to either.  I was thinking this to be a "picture book" of early Soviet architecture concepts and projects, more graphic than written, but this is the reverse.  The book begins with architectural reforms introduced/imposed by Peter the Great, then skips forward to the turn of the 20th century devoting a lot of page space to the thinking behind the early Russian Constructivist school, discussing and describing the process that dictated (or at least guided) design practice.  I was not expecting theory, and was pleased to find it.

There are pictures of a few completed projects, both pre- and post-revolution, a collection of architectural flights of fancy similar to what is depicted on the cover, a small collection of art work (mostly prints and painted works) from the same period, but ultimately this book is more devoted to the printed word than reproduced figure; more brain food than eye candy.
4688315
I enjoyed this book enough that I can easily give it four stars (minus one for atrociously laughable usage of Russian or Russian-esque common and proper names). Great pacing, good story, loved the character development, even Mal grew on me somewhat, despite me definitely not being his fan before. And Nikolai... I really had hoped for more 'page time' with him even though all the scenes he'd been in were drenched in awesome.
But the 'Russian aspect'... don't even get me started on that. It has to do with Russia about as much as Shrek has to do with ballerina. Just a smattering of few Russian sounding words here and there, and not one of them actually meaning what it means.

A couple of minor spoilers ahead, though they are strictly linguistically-related (read at your own risk).

I'm not going to mention the infamous "Ana Kuya" or any of the other already thoroughly described blunders but.. A fleet commander called "Hello" (Privyet)? King of Slaughter (come again, what did you call my sweetie Nikolai)??? (yes, that's exactly what "Korol rezni" translates to, not King of Scars). Mother of God, how hard it would be to find someone who actually knows Russian to check at least the proper names? I can promise you any Russian speaker who reads this will be either facepalming in mute disbelief or ROTFLing for all the wrong reasons (I did both).
Perhaps Leigh Bardugo should write a book on 'How not to do research for writing fiction' or some such (As a compensation for my permanently scarred mind, I demand a spin-off with Nikolai as the protagonist).
3408172
I hate to say it but the Pevear/Volokhonsky edition rings hollow.  They seem much better when sticking with 19th century classics like&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Anna-Karenina/dp/0143035002/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Anna Karenina </a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Brothers-Karamazov/dp/0374528373/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Brothers Karamazov</a>.  It may be, as Pevear writes in his forward, that they stuck closer to the original text, but the result is a clunky translation that at times reads like it was done with google.  The writing is flat the sentence structure is awkward making any first time reader wonder what is so great about this book.  I found myself going back to the original Hawyard/Harari&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/translation/dp/0679774386/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">translation</a>&nbsp;which has a much nicer flow.

The story itself is odd in the way it is laid out by Pasternak.  It seemed he was aiming at something far greater than a romance, or that his love was with Russia itself.  The actual story of Yury and Lara comprises less than 4 chapters.  The bulk of the narrative is about Yury trying to make sense of the tumultuous revolution taking place in his homeland, from the early years of the 1905 strikes to the eventual victory by the Red Army in the civil war that stretched to 1922.  These chapters are the most visceral, as Pasternak places Yury on the battle front, tending to the wounded, growing more and more cynical with the great many casualties he has to attend to.  He finishes the story off with an epilogue as told by his long-time friend Misha, and a strange epitaph in the poems Zhivago had penned during the course of the narrative.

While Pasternak pretty much keeps to an historic timeline, his thoughts are more impressionistic, especially in the way he relates the battles in the provinces as the country becomes split by the White and Red Armies.  Yury can't bring himself to choose between the opposing forces, and this very much underscores his relationships with Tonya, his wife, and Lara, his lover.  The first seeming to represent tradition, albeit not without its allusions to the modern writers of the day, and the second a democratic love in which he idealizes Lara as the perfect modern woman, above all the petty conceits of the bourgeoisie, yet not deluded by the false promises of the Bolsheviks.

I suppose some readers will have difficulties with all the tangents this story takes, especially if you were thinking that the great love story between Yury and Lara would dominate the narrative.  Actually, it is a very awkward love story as Pasternak never really allows his two characters to grow together.  They come together because of circumstances and their love is never fully realized.  I had to wonder if Pasternak was uncomfortable with the romance he created, as he seemed much more at home describing Yury's and Tonya's plight first in Moscow and then at Varykino.  His best writing was that of the military camps Zhivago found himself in.

Overall, I give the book 4 stars and this translation 3 stars.  The book was made into a fantastic&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/mini-series/dp/B0012BWC5M/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">mini-series</a>&nbsp;by Aleksandr Proshkin in 2006 that takes in the full scope of the novel, whereas&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Sir-David-Lean/dp/B002WC88A8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Sir David Lean</a>&nbsp;focused primarily on Yury and Lara.  Don't even bother with the 2002 British mini-series.
2871076
It's OK but he rambles a lot.  There is a lot of interesting things.  Had he not had his mind so screwed up he could have made a great statesman.  Too bad his mentality was off.
1504064
This DVD set is best at giving a general history of the Russian Tsars, and would be a great introduction for someone new to this place and time in history. However, as someone who already knows quite a bit about Russian history, not many new things are presented here, and I've even noticed a few errors, such as the creators using a picture of Ivan the Terrible holding his dead son to represent the victim of a completely different Tsar. And being the History Channel, you can expect the theatrical music and tone to bias you toward feeling one way or another about a certain person or event, as opposed to giving you the facts and leaving it at that.

One of the most disappointing things, however, was the lack of speakers, specifically ones from Russia. All but two or three (in the five episodes on the set) are from the US or UK, and most of those are from less than known Universities. It feels like they were simply there to give the narrator a break at times, since most information is given from the voice over. The reenactments were also disappointing, because many scenes were used over and over, becoming repetitive very fast. The three episodes on the second disc (Which were specifically based around Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Rasputin) didn't have much more information than the two episode series on the first disc. In fact, the only one where anything new or different was presented was the Rasputin episode, and that's only because he wasn't a Tsar.

Despite these numerous flaws, this set is good for what it is, and stays focused on the topics presented. I wouldn't necessarily recommend purchasing it because you could easily find all the information online or in a book, just without the mostly mediocre reenactments.