I read this book in the wrong order as it precedes Akunin's Black City, which I recently completed. And it does set the stage for the latter book, with Fandorin now unhappily married to a woman he meets in this one. This book is set in Moscow during the final years of the tsarist regime, before the outbreak of the first world war, and one can sense the impending demise of that regime. Theatre directors are all cultural revolutionaries of a sort, the tsarist police force is useless in the face of ordinary criminals and revolutionaries, and the hero of these books, Erast Fandorin already seems rather weary of the whole business. Still, worth reading as the series itself is a remarkable achievement -- and I do wonder if we've seen the last of Fandorin. ( )

I am indebted to a Sydney author called Assaph Mehr at Goodreads, for some crucial information about the antecedents of All the World’s a Stage by Boris Akunin. In his review of this book, and of the whole series so far, Assaph explains that

Each novel is written as a different type of mystery. Akunin set out to rectify the low-brow reputation of the mystery genre in post-USSR Russia by writing worthy literature and exploring the wide gamut of sub-genres. Each novel is therefore excellently written as a different type of detective case. While there is continuity in the protagonist’s life between the novels, each is very different in themes and tones.

So this explains why a crime novel is shortlisted for the new EBRD Literature Prize for Translation!

A Russian reviewer called Anna Stargazer also had this to say:

It’s too bad how foreign language translations did not work for this one. All non-Russian readers seem to say that they couldn’t differentiate between the characters. If one reads in Russian, it’s impossible not to: every character’s stage name means something obvious, and you just can’t help seeing every one of them with your mind’s eye. (Masa’s stage alias “Gazonov*”, for one, is hilarious – but the hilariousness is entirely untranslatable even if there are footnotes and whatnot.)
Also, the book is written in a beautiful Russian language. (Akunin’s writing style is always–well–good, but this work seems to have received some special treatment. New editor, perhaps?)

Well, forewarned is forearmed, and so I Googled quite a few of the names in order to try and appreciate what Anna calls the novel’s hilariousness. Google Translate told me that Gazanov means ‘lawn’ or ‘grass’ – and ‘grass’ in English can mean a police informer, which is what the sleuth’s offsider Masa is supposed to be when he infiltrates the cast, though whether this euphemism works the same way in Russian I do not know, and Anna Stargazer doesn’t say. But this approach did make reading the book more laborious, not something every reader is going to want to bother with, and I gave up on it in due course. (And got by just fine, as far as differentiating the characters was concerned).

Nevertheless, a little research did reveal some interesting aspects of Akunin’s style. He obviously researches the era of his novels carefully, and readers who know their Russian history and literature will enjoy his allusions. This paragraph is an example. The sleuth, Erast Petrovich Fandorin, is in Moscow, and there has been a murder in a theatre, and he is intrigued, hoping to be asked to help solve the case:

Many aspects of this event appeared phantasmagorical. Firstly, the bloody drama had unfolded not just anywhere, but in a theatre, before the eyes of a large audience. Secondly, the show had been an extremely jolly one – an adaptation of Pushkin’s Tale of Tsar Saltan. Thirdly, the audience had included a real tsar, not of the fairytale kind, whom the killer had left untouched. Fourthly, the theatre had been so well guarded that no one could possibly have infiltrated it, not even Pushkin’s hero Gvidon when he transformed himself into a mosquito. Viewers had only been admitted on the basis of individual passes issued by the Department for the Defence of Public Security – the Okhrana. Fifthly, and most fantastically of all, the terrorist had actually been in possession of such a pass, and not a counterfeit, but the genuine article. Sixthly, the killer had not only managed to enter the theatre, but also to carry in a firearm … (Kindle Locations 125-132).

I started off discovering that Pushkin’s Tale of Tsar Saltan involves three sisters, one of whom gets to be a tsarina and the other two get to be jealous. So they chuck the tsarina and her baby into the sea but they are rescued by an enchanted swan. The baby Gvidon grows up and with the help of the enchanted swan [ah-ha!] changes into a mosquito, flies back to the palace and stings his aunt in the eye.

The other point to note is that this crime takes place in pre-revolutionary Russia because there is a Tsar present in the audience – and the narrator points out that it’s odd that the murderer wasn’t after him. That’s odd because Russia was full of revolutionary fervour at the time and it was not all that long ago that there had been multiple assassination attempts on the life of Alexander II. And that is why the theatre was subject to the security procedures put in place by the Okhrana – the much feared secret police force in Tsarist Russia.

Based on actual events in 1911, the murder victim is Pyotr Stolypin. Wikipedia tells me that the pro-monarchy Stolypin was a statesman who tried to stave off revolutionary fervour through major reforms including agrarian reform. The Tsar put a stop to the judicial enquiry into the assassination and a Leftist revolutionary called Bogrov was too promptly hanged, giving rise to rumours that those who were against Stolypin’s reforms were behind the assassination.
Readers who know all this (or like me, discover it thanks to Google) will not be surprised when Fandorin doesn’t get to investigate Stolypin’s murder, but becomes involved in a classic melodrama-mystery instead.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/17/all-the-worlds-a-stage-erast-fandorin-myster... ( )

What makes this book so unique is the last 50 pages!... Exquisitely written in different genre, connected with and yet separate from the rest of the book, they make you marvel at Akunin's versatility.... In the main part of the book, protagonist Erast Fandorin, the quintessential gentleman/detective/erudite, returns as a mature 55-year-old man (well, in 1911, 55 was close to elderly...) and ponders over the passing of time and how to soundly find the best way to age, while solving mysteries and falling in love. For someone not acquainted with Boris Akunin and his hero, the book might appear slightly melodramatic. And after all, it's about theater. But Akunin is such a master of his craft that it's anything but melodrama. Through Fandorin, he delivers succinct and very clever evaluations of Russian and world politics, and what a perfect analysis of a maniacal personality he gives us here, among so many other things. ( )

Possibly, the best Fandorin book yet. ( )