The Naked Year

Super interesting read! I'm not very familiar with Russian literature, but this one was eye opening into the cultural differences and mindsets of Russia at the time that it was written. Brings you on a journey through the trials of a divided Russia, while the people tried their best to establish within themselves a sense of self and culture.

Fine

This extraordinary book is one that everyone interested in modernist literature should read. The subject is the Civil War in Russia as experienced in the provincial town of Ordinin, in the steppes of Russia, during the year of 1919. The Civil War in Russia was a bloody struggle between the Bolsheviks (Reds), Whites (former tsarist army officers), Blacks (anarchists) and Greens (peasant armies). The town is taken and retaken violently, and the book shows the experiences of individuals from many different social groups, from merchants and nobles to peasants and townspeople.But that is just the sociological background of the book. The experience of the book itself is something radiant. A sense of nature as profound and always existing outside the passions of men and women punctuates the narrative. The book is divided up into a series of episodes in which different individuals, families, and work or military groups live in Ordinin or surroundings in 1919. The writing is modernist, jumping between points of view and the narrative is not that of a 19th century novel. It is far more exhilarating. You should read it rather than read about it, though.The translation reads smoothly, although the translator's afterward is not very illuminating. For example, he seems to think that certain characters with the same names are actually the same people. I really don't think that's the case, as part of Pilynak's point is that the Russian people will go on, despite the war. For that reason he has several characters with the same name but with quite different characteristics. In any case, there is also a bibliography of work on Pilnyak.Read this book!