Add a star if you are a writer and another if you understand parables and symbolic references to 1920s Stalinist Soviet Union. The inventive surrealism reminds me of Gogol. ( )

I thought it was one of the more inventive collection of short stories I've read in a long time. He's an extremely clever writer who manages to make the surreal seem like an everyday occurrence that warrants little more than casual observation. The genius of the stories is in their simplicity. The writing style is so clear and not muddled with a lot of obvious "psychological over thinking" as to become laborious. I couldn't put it down and can't wait to read the other collections that are slowly coming out of his work. ( )

Objectively this is just as strong a collection as NYRB's Memories of the Future, published 3 years later and which shares two of this volumes seven translations ["Quadraturin", "The Bookmark"]. If I had to suggest one collection out of the two, however, it wouldn't be this one: it's a little bit harder to find, and it could have used one last pass by the proofreader for the handful of typos, repeated words, and misplaced endnotes that leapt out at me

Addendum, 2013/12/17: the 5 stories previously unique to this volume can now be found in Autobiography of a Corpse. ( )