Alexander Zholkovsky—famous Russian-American philologist— in his book "Vain Perfections" analyzes his life using the same methods he previously applied to studying other people’s works. The same relentless kindness, self-love and self-torment, the sparkle and the risk. Boris Pasternak, Ernest Hemingway, Dmitry Shostakovich, Lev Gumilyov, Alexander Kushner, Sergey Gandlevsky, Mikhail Gasparov, Yuri Shcheglov, and many others are the author’s interlocutors and the heroes of his memories—earnest, cynical, and always impeccably expressed. This prose is engrossing, unpredictable, and, in the words of his offhand opponent Akhmatova, just shameless enough to come close to poetry. (D. Bykov)