Confessions of a Fallen Standard-Bearer - Softcover

Makine, Andrei

3.89

227 ratings by Goodreads

9780142000014: Confessions of a Fallen Standard-Bearer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142000019 ISBN 13: 9780142000014

Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 2001

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Capturing the harsh realities of postwar Soviet life, a new novel by the author of Dreams of My Russian Summers follows the fortunes of two families, those of close friends Iakov Zinger and Peter Evdokimov, as they struggle to put together their shattered lives and dreams in the years following World War II. Reprint.

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Review:

Confessions of a Lapsed Standard Bearer, Makine's second novel, is a lyrical account of growing up in a small town outside Leningrad in the 1960s. Remarkably free of any overtly anti-Soviet polemic, Confessions sketches in loving detail the life-histories of two boys, Alyosha and Arkady, and their parents, spanning the siege of Leningrad during the Second World War to the invasion of Afghanistan in which Alyosha serves as a soldier. Written in the first-person by Alyosha in Paris as an extended letter to his friend Arkady either in Portland or Cleveland, the novel reads like an elegy for a lost world. Eschewing both nostalgia and sentimentality, the novel evokes a space of childhood resonant beyond the confines of history while utterly saturated with the triumphs and struggles of what it asserts as ordinary life in the Soviet Union.

The action culminates in an episode in which the two boys engage in spontaneous disobedience during the opening ceremony of their local new pioneers camp by continuing to play their musical instruments after the national flag has been raised: "we hardly felt we were present on that overheated parade-ground. The orgy of sound was too intense. Dazzled by the glittering, brassy cascade, deafened by the thunder that made every cell in our bodies vibrate, we were far away. Somewhere beyond the bounds of the forests and meadows that swayed in the hot air. Somewhere beyond the horizon." The responses to their actions are refreshingly banal, the motivation and consequences of them is what the book seeks to trace.

Geoffrey Strachan's translation rings true and in limpid and haunting prose, Makine evokes a tragic, hilarious and poignant place and time.--Neville Hoad

Review:

'In spite of the harsh background there is nothing depressing about Makine's work. He shows how tenderness and humour can alleviate human distress, his poetic use of language illuminating everything he writes' The Good Book Guide

It is easy to understand Makine's success. He writes lyrically, with an intensity that appeals to all our senses. He is adept at evoking both the everyday - men playing dominoes in the courtyard - and the extraordinary (Robert Chandler, Independent)

'Makine masterfully illuminates some very dark corners' Zulfikar Abbany, The Times

Wonderfully sharp, sensuous imagery and delicate delineation of feeling...a moving and gripping story (Derwent May, The Times)

''A beautiful piece of work, as good as Chekhov...a superb achievement...You will be lucky if you happen upon a better book than this'...Scarcely more than a novella, this story of a boy growing up in the Khrushchev years and later serving in Afghanistan, is truthful, nostalgic, and moving. Makine is as good as anyone writing today' Allan Massie, The Scotsman

A glory and a dream

Makine is a master word-painter and, even in translation, you can admire his precise brush-work...it has the panoramic sweep of the great Russian novels of the nineteenth century (David Robson, Sunday Telegraph)

'Perhaps his most exquisitely wrought work. It is one of those books that proceed almost sotto voce, as its author quietly lays his groundwork; then it grabs your mind and heart and never lets go...Mr Makine fashions a tale of remarkable strength and poignancy...He is a poet of the meaning that lies in the discrepancy between the 'ideological torrent' as Alyosha calls it, and the ordinary struggle of ordinary people to live ordinary lives...brillliant...Russia may be past for Mr Makine, but he continues to find ways of remembering it that produce novels striking in their depth and beauty' Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

A beautiful piece of work, as good as Chekhov...a superb achievement...You will be lucky if you happen upon a better book than this (Allan Massie, The Scotsman)

Stunning ... the lasting impression from this excellent novel is one of hope

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