Pasternak

7 hrs. 40 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Mikhail Elizarov

Narrator Alexander Zachinyaev

Description

An intellectual thriller and an Orthodox action story with elements of Dostoevsky-style depth and Tarantino-esque chaos.

Mikhail Elizarov is the author of the novels “Earth,” “The Librarian” (the Russian Booker Prize), and “Mультики” (shortlist for the National Bestseller), as well as the short story collections “Nails” (shortlist for the Andrei Bely Prize) and “We went out for a smoke for 17 years” (prize chosen by readers for the “NOS” award).

The novel “Pasternak” consists of battles and philosophical debates; it’s called an intellectual thriller, an Orthodox action story with elements of Dostoevsky’s and Tarantino’s styles. Here, the poet Pasternak appears as a gigantic demon—spawned by evil—and his struggle is waged not with words, but with weapons.

“L’nov sees a telephone pole thrust askew into the ground. Wires, like steel cables, hold it in place; that’s why he resembles the cross of a cathedral cupola. On the crossbar sits an enormous creature. It flaps wings of torn, ragged form—an inner membrane, the color of moon-pale whiteness, covered in inscriptions. A gigantic horse skull also bears distorted human features of a dead poet. Its eyes burn with a pale, putrid glow. Black slime streams from the wings, but doesn’t drip onto the ground; it remains inside the creature’s essence—so it seems not as demonic flesh oozes, but as wind trembles tarry silk of a corpse’s mantle over bird-like shoulders.

L’nov tries to read the inscriptions on the wings, and hears a priest’s voice: ‘Don’t read dactyl on these pter…!’”