One Person

The novel “One Person” is among the first literary responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Makushinsky’s magical prose invites the reader to go along with the narrator in search of oneself, of one’s youth, one’s first love and first friendship.

Coronavirus becomes a metaphor for the end of a vast historical era. Perhaps that’s why the narrator turns to its beginning— to Flemish painting, where an individual, unique person first appears. Just like van Eyck, he creates a portrait of a separate, special person.

The rhythm of the narration is like a roller coaster: the slow immersion into the hero’s inner world suddenly shifts to a rapid narrative in which medieval Europe, pre-perestroika Moscow, Yaroslavl, the Caucasus, and Belgium—frozen by the approaching pandemic—flash by for the reader.