This book is another interesting pov on life in relation to Russia, centered on this idea of a "wily man":
This struck me as the great plea of Dovlatov's writing: to complicate the pose of easy moralizing and to recognize all the incredible and tragicomic ways people make do in whatever system they're stuck with. These compromises and adaptations make us all a little bit complicit, but, for that, entirely human. And this humanity offers a refuge of freedom, however limited or imperfect, in a world that may offer little of it.
Neutrality itself is a position: refusing to apportion blame for violence means letting one side or the other off the hook.
“I don’t have the ability to constantly live a lie. This starts to eat at me. But neither do I have the courage or guts to be a hero all the time. That’s how I ended up in this hole.”
Tbh my sustained interest in reading about Russia life is at least partly because I'm not ready to read about the corresponding history in China. Tho that did happen when I read Three Body Problem (great book, excited to read the other 2 in the trilogy). It's a weird contrast between hearing about the cultural revolution in abstract from older adults (hence being aware of what went on) and reading about a fictional event happening to a character in the book (based on real events).
Another sci-fi I've finished (or rather finished half of) is Shadow & Claw. I've not had this much difficulty reading fiction since like...ever. The difficulty is apparently intentional and I am stubborn enough to challenge it again after I get through more of my other holds.
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