What I am reading

This is another truly great novel by Lidija Čukovskaja.
The story takes place in a convalescent home for writers and artsy people a little bit outside of Moscow in 1949. So the Great Purge is over, but the USSR is still under Stalin’s rule, antisemitism is thriving, you still have to watch out what you are saying in front of other people and the Khrushchev Thaw is still a few years away.

Like many other novels taking place in a sanatorium, Čukovskaja portraits a handful of people who went there in order to be cured of whatever sickness they might struggle with, but also to find some peace and quiet to work and to battle their own demons. In the case of the protagonist, this means trying to deal with the loss of her husband who should have returned from the Gulag two years ago, although she doesn’t even know, if he made it that far or if he was simply shot right after his interrogation twelve years ago.

The writing is once again amazing. Just breathtaking. Čukovskaja has a very clear and simple prose, through which she conveys an enormous array of emotion. In only two or three words she can create a complex imagery that would take Tolstoj probably up to ten or fifteen to develop. Needless to say, many parts of her writing really go under your skin, even more so because she is often quite straight forward and does not sugarcoat anything.
I tremendously enjoyed Going Under, although I have to admit, that The deserted House had a bigger impact on me.