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Lädt ... My Life at First Try: A Novelvon Mark Budman
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This semi-autobiographical debut novel chronicles the life of Alex, born in Siberia in 1950, and his dreams of becoming a writer and of meeting Annie, his distant American cousin. As a child, Alex observes a group of foreign tourists do something that non-drunk Soviet adults seldom do: they laugh. Alex yearns to become one of them--a free and happy foreigner. Those aspirations quickly fade as Alex begins to encounter the absurdities and constraints of living in a society where conformity is institutionalized. Hilarious and sometimes sobering, the book's short chapters chronicle making it through the army, mastering the English language, sex, and meeting the girl of his dreams. In 1980, Alex and his young family finally get the chance to move to America. There he realizes that he is finally a foreigner--not the happy foreigner of his dream, but an alien. Ultimately, Alex finds his own place in the world, despite the fact that having the right "to vote for an elephant or an ass" does not necessarily guarantee self-fulfillment. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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The main character and narrator, Alex, tells a series of entertaining stories about his life growing up in the Soviet Union and later his reactions to the reality of contemporary America as they differ from the dreams foreigners have.
This structure at first does not seem to allow much depth, especially emotional depth, and thus the characters seem somehow distant. It could be argued this is a nice reflection of the communist society that is the setting, and yet there is a fresh beauty to the language that makes you want to read on, to finish the book and to find out how it ends. The juxtapositions are both entertaining an thought provoking, and an admirable way to build a story, as in :
"In the conference hall, I climb the podium, armed with a collapsible pointer. It could also be used as a weapon to strike an attacking dog. It's ninety degrees outside, but indoors it's chilly like a morgue" (p.146).
In all this novel gave me hope that novels can still be beautiful and relevant and that the genre has a future that is more than academic. ( )