Too pedestrian a translation? Too weak a reader? Too complex a story for the writer? Whatever the reason(s), Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexiyevich tastes like a cake with insufficiently-mixed ingredients. It's a collection of commentary from 1991-2012, after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. Much deep bitterness, some happy humor, many likely lies. A sampler:

• "A communist is someone who's read Marx, an anticommunist is someone who's understood him." (chapter "On Ivanushka the Fool and the Magic Goldfish")
• "You can get a lot done with a bayonet, but sitting on one is uncomfortable." (chapter "On How We Grew Up Among Victims and Executioners")
• "I'm a drinking man. Why do I drink? I don't like my life." (chapter "On the Choice We Must Make between Great History and Banal Existence")
• "In five years, everything can change in Russia, but in two hundred — nothing." (chapter "On the Darkness of the Evil One")

Alexiyevich makes mosaics with lovely stones but — unlike Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn — they don't seem to form a coherent image when one steps back. Or in Category Theory symbolism, A → B , maybe the problem is within the A, or the B , or the arrow → ...

(cf Great Writers (2003-01-02), Arkhipelag Gulag (2008-08-04), ...) - ^z - 2020-05-17