Truth and Bliss
27 hrs. 8 min.
Language
Russian
Author
Evgeny Shishkin
Author
Evgeny Shishkin
Narrator
Vyacheslav Gerasimov
Narrator
Vyacheslav Gerasimov
Description
This book is like a tender kiss… like a painful burn… It’s about love, about the family hearth, about war, about politics, about human passions. About the morals of the province and the temptations of the capital.
Yevgeny Shishkin’s novel spans half a century of Russian history—from the early 1960s, from Khrushchev’s “Thaw,” to today’s Putin Russia. The main characters of the book are a general, a monk, and an “eternal lover.” In their fate they pass through cruel and joyful youth, the army, local wars, and recruitment by the secret services. They go through the test of years of Russia’s rupture—the years 1991 and 1993. At the same time, they are waiting for an insanely happy—and deafeningly unhappy—love.
The paths for these characters are winding. General Voronchikhin is combative and as steadfast as a commander—yet at the same time he is meekly tender with his wife and his first love. The monk Konstantin walks a tormenting path of spiritual searching, which culminates in his “immortality.” The eternal lover Alexey remains faithful to the “theory of naturalness” and the ability to “live as one wills.”
The novel is sharply social: people from different social strata and nationalities. On the pages there is no gloss: general secretaries and ordinary soldiers, businessmen and fools-for-Christ, striptease dancers and business ladies, vivid popular types—a motley living fabric of our existence.
Yevgeny Shishkin’s novel spans half a century of Russian history—from the early 1960s, from Khrushchev’s “Thaw,” to today’s Putin Russia. The main characters of the book are a general, a monk, and an “eternal lover.” In their fate they pass through cruel and joyful youth, the army, local wars, and recruitment by the secret services. They go through the test of years of Russia’s rupture—the years 1991 and 1993. At the same time, they are waiting for an insanely happy—and deafeningly unhappy—love.
The paths for these characters are winding. General Voronchikhin is combative and as steadfast as a commander—yet at the same time he is meekly tender with his wife and his first love. The monk Konstantin walks a tormenting path of spiritual searching, which culminates in his “immortality.” The eternal lover Alexey remains faithful to the “theory of naturalness” and the ability to “live as one wills.”
The novel is sharply social: people from different social strata and nationalities. On the pages there is no gloss: general secretaries and ordinary soldiers, businessmen and fools-for-Christ, striptease dancers and business ladies, vivid popular types—a motley living fabric of our existence.
