Résumé: This is a book for anyone who wishes to escape from today's world - the world of September 11, of violence and ugliness - into another world, one of gentleness and discreet culture. In other words, you step into what our world used to be like. In Makine's autobiographical novel we move from Tsarist Russia to Stalinist Russia to Paris at the turn of the 20th Century, seeing it mostly through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy.
Makine's style is that of 19th century Russian and French novelists. This book is a delight!
Makine is without doubt a future Nobel Prize Winner!