![]() ![]() ![]() Bear with me while I try to sort out my reactions. Last year I wrote about my experiences with the early work of Mikhail Shishkin, particularly praising his first published story, “Урок каллиграфии” (“Calligraphy Lesson”), and saying of his first novel, Всех ожидает одна ночь (One night awaits us all), “It was perfectly pleasant reading, but I kept asking myself ‘Why is he telling me all this?’” Last April I was cryptic about his second novel, Взятие Измаила (The taking of Izmail): “I find I don’t have anything coherent to say about it except that it’s long and difficult and I’ll doubtless need to reread it to get anything useful from it.” Now that I’ve finished his third, Венерин волос (translated by Marian Schwartz as Maidenhair), I’m starting to feel that that first story will always be my favorite Shishkin I don’t seem to connect well with his novels. ![]()
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