Idiots

36 hrs. 46 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Tamara Lisitskaya

Narrator Tatyana Nenarokomova

Description

A novel about Minsk, a bit about time—but mostly about the coming of age of a young girl, although she appears in three guises. The plot is simple, as is the whole of our show business. Three girl friends who sing in a school choir, with typical names and surnames: Ira Sidorova, Natasha Petrova, and Lena Ivanova. The reader meets the girls when they are ten years old, and the “choir fate” lands them on Belarusian television. 1985. In the background, the ominous word “Chernobyl” sounds—but it has nothing to do with the main heroines; it only marks some social event: you remember, something exploded somewhere around that time. And that’s enough. The girls have their whole life ahead. And they have to live it in a way that… well, you probably remember too. And if you don’t—ask your parents.

Spoiler

Each girl, besides a typical name, also represents a distinct character type: Irочка Sidorova—beautiful, pampered, tactless, and a spiteful little vixen—confident that the world exists only to satisfy her desires (“a pretty bitch”). Natasha Petrova—unassuming, harsh, with no great life prospects (“a gloomy loser”), who at the end will receive the main prize—ideal love. And finally, Lena Ivanova—a plump red-haired smart girl with a book in her hands, no matter which one (“a smart chubby girl”).

The girls are placed in similarly typical families: shop workers, owners of Soviet scarcity in the form of sausage and Hungarian delicacies—calculating, not very bright, but ambitious, who over time become “businesswomen”; a large working-class family at a motor plant where there’s always little money but plenty of love and care; a single mother—an educated woman with two higher degrees—who prefers to spend the money she saved on buying a volume of “unknown Brodsky” rather than an extra pair of tights for herself and her daughter. And the events unfold from the given setup, with episodes mapped onto each five-year period. The girls grow up, and for each of them there are trials—first love, need, illness, glory, death, even if imagined. But driven by a passion to live the way they want, they overcome the challenges that fall to them, helping each other at the most tense moments. In the end, each gets her deserved “prince,” a pair of children (except for Natasha Petrova, because if she has ideal love, then children are not so necessary), resolves the housing issue, and settles on a profession. That’s all.

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