Andrei Makine

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Andrei Makine

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1BookAddict Erste Nachricht
Aug. 5, 2006, 5:52 pm

I have recently discovered a new Russian author that I want to share. Andrei Makine, current author, is fabulous. Anyone else read his novels? He has proven to me that the long line of great Russian authors will live on.

2GlebtheDancer Erste Nachricht
Bearbeitet: Okt. 9, 2006, 11:13 am

Hi BookAddict,
In the last year I read two of Makine's books. I started with his novella The Music of a Life, (released as 'A Life's Music' in the UK) which I thought was very good, but was then extremely disappointed by The Earth and Sky of Jacques Dorme. I was wondering if you read both and how you thought that they compared.

3katewhite
Jun. 2, 2009, 7:42 pm

I realize this thread is way old now, but I read Dreams of My Russian Summers this year and loved it. Any thoughts from anyone?

4Steve38
Jan. 10, 2011, 1:14 pm

Yes, this is an old thread but I've enjoyed reading several of Makine's books. But he has been resident in France for some time now and writes in French not Russian. His books have a continuing theme of nostalgia both for Russia and for times past even if those times are fairly recent as Makine is still young. His writing is more as an emigre and as an interpreter of Russia from the outside. In that respect I suppose he has parallels with Turgenev.

5Caroline_McElwee
Jun. 29, 2011, 12:01 pm

I read and loved The Crime of Olga Arbyelina

6rebeccanyc
Jun. 29, 2011, 12:13 pm

I read Dreams of My Russian Summers several years ago and was very disappointed by it, although I no longer remember why. I'm not sure if I even finished it, and it certainly deterred me from reading anything else by Makine.

7chrisharpe
Jun. 29, 2011, 12:17 pm

I read Dreams of My Russian Summers earlier this year and wouldn't recommend it either. I'm not sure what he was aiming at, but it didn't work for me. How do his other books compare?

8PaulDalton
Bearbeitet: Nov. 9, 2011, 1:56 am

I devoured The Woman Who Waited but was ambivalent about Le Testament Francais. It seemed to me that the book was first and foremost a paean to French culture. In that respect, the original French title of the book, which was kept for the English edition, is a better indicaton of the contents than the North American title. I can understand why it won the Prix Gouncourt, but for this non-French reader, it failed to live up to my expectations.

By the way, Makine writes beautifully. I'm going to try A Life's Music next and then the most recently translated book, The Life of an Unknown Man.

Makine's has an essentially optimistic and empathetic point of view about Russia and about the potential of human relationships for good, which may make him seem quaintly old-fashioned.

I don't think Andrei Makine is well-known in Russia. I wonder how many of his books, if any, have been translated to Russisan. None of my work colleagues in Yekaterinbrug or Petersburg had heard of him.

I found it interesting to compare this approach with that taken by another French author Emmanuel Carrere in My Life as a Russian Novel where the author / protagonist, a French film-maker who travels to Kotelnich, a non-descript post-Soviet small town in economic and cultural decline, officially to make a documentary about the 'new Russia' for French TV viewers, but really as a voyage of personal discovery to uncover the fate of his disappeared Russian grandfather.

9mozler
Nov. 8, 2011, 6:06 pm

My favorite titles by Makine are Confessions of a Fallen Standard Bearer and Once Upon the River Love both of which give the reader an intimate portrait of growing up in the Soviet Union.

10Bond_Girl
Bearbeitet: Nov. 27, 2011, 8:35 pm

I have his Le testament français (Dreams of My Russian Summers) in French, and his gorgeous descriptions of Russian summers with his French grandmother almost belong to another era, not to the relatively modern times. I enjoyed it for its nostalgia but not for the plot.

11avaland
Dez. 14, 2011, 9:51 pm

I read Dreams of My Russian Summers when it came out, and was kind of tepid about it. I think my expectations were high because they had comparisons to Pasternak (a fave of mine) all over the book. Judging from that book, I would not compare the two (except that both have written fiction set in Russia). I have not cared to attempt any others.

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