Review by New York Times Review
RED FAMINE: Stalin's War on Ukraine, by Anne Applebaum. (Doubleday, $35.) In this richly detailed account of the 20th-century Soviet republic's great famine, the author shines a light on Stalinist crimes that still resonate today in the ongoing tension between Russia and Ukraine. THE RED-HAIRED WOMAN, by Orhan Pamuk. Translated by Ekin Oklap. (Knopf, $27.95.) In his latest novel, Pamuk traces the disastrous effects of a Turkish teenager's brief encounter with a married actress, elaborating on his fiction's familiar themes: the tensions between East and West, traditional habits and modern life, the secular and the sacred. THE FUTURE IS HISTORY: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, by Masha Gessen. (Riverhead, $28.) Gessen, a longtime critic of Vladimir Putin, tells the story of modern Russia through the eyes of seven individuals who found that politics was a force none of them could escape. RIOT DAYS, by Maria Alyokhina. (Metropolitan, paper, $17.) This fragmentary prison memoir by a member of Pussy Riot combines dark humor and protest as it describes the author's 18 months inside a Russian prison. Alyokhina shows that refusal to submit to injustice can be enough to reactivate the rule of law. THE MEANING OF BELIEF: Religion From an Atheist's Point of View, by Tim Crane. (Harvard University, $24.95.) This lucid and thoughtful examination by an atheist philosopher resists the notion that religion is simply bad science amplified by arbitrary injunctions. Unlike the more combative atheists who caricature belief, Crane strives to offer a more accurate picture of religion to his fellow unbelievers. THE RESURRECTION OF JOAN ASHBY, by Cherise Wolas. (Flatiron Books, $27.99.) The eponymous heroine of this ambitious debut novel starts a novel in secret, after setting aside a promising writing career to raise a family. FOR TWO THOUSAND YEARS, by Mihail Sebastian. Translated by Philip 0 Ceallaigh. (Other Press, paper, $16.95.) This classic Romanian novel, originally published in 1934, centers on the anti-Semitism that flourished just before the country's turn to fascism, pitting the local against the global. LENIN: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror, by Victor Sebestyen. (Pantheon, $35.) Sebestyen has managed to produce a first-rate thriller by detailing the cynicism and murderous ambition of the founder of the Soviet Union. STALIN: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941, by Stephen Kotkin. (Penguin Press, $40.) This second volume of a projected three-volume life assiduously delves into Stalin's personal life even as it places him within the trajectory of Soviet history. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The existential predicament of a Jewish Romanian man born into a deeply anti-Semitic society is brought to harrowing life in Sebastian's intelligent, tragic novel, which was first published in Sebastian's native Romania in 1934. The narrator, 20-year-old university student in Bucharest in the interwar years, is harassed and physically assaulted by anti-Semitic classmates. His entire life has been marked by such attacks, and although he passes his exams, this constant onslaught inculcates self-doubt. Under the influence of sympathetic professor Blidaru, he decides to study architecture, hoping to find in this field a "feeling of fulfillment, of calm," while friends turn to Marxism or Zionism for solutions to their impossible situation. But even as the narrator finds professional success, the effects of relentless anti-Semitism prove corrosive: "Being persecuted is not just a physical trial.... The reality of it slowly deforms you and attacks, above all, your sense of proportion." Sebastian documents the melancholy of a man attached to his homeland even it continually rejects him in this bold and brilliant novel. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
Sebastian was a prominent Jewish Romanian lawyer and writer in the first half of the last century forced by anti-Semitic legislation to end his public career. This novel, published in 1934 and ably translated for the first time into English, traces the path of its protagonist from his university days to a career as an architect, during which he moves between Bucharest and Paris. Anti-Semitism pervades his surroundings, particularly in Romania, where he frequently hears the cry "Death to the Yids." It's so pervasive, in fact, that he seems inured to it and is shocked to learn by novel's end that several longtime Romanian colleagues have been anti-Semites all along. One of the most compelling passages is an argument between the protagonist and a supposed friend about the nature of anti-Semitism and how a Jew confronts it. Verdict Laced throughout with debate regarding the place of the Jewish people and their culture in the world, among other issues, this work sits uneasily between philosophical speculation and narrative fiction. But it is an important historical document-prophetically, the protagonist cries out, "Has anybody had a greater need of a fatherland?"-and is -recommended for readers of historical and Jewish fiction.-Edward Cone, New York © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
