- Published: 1 October 2013
- ISBN: 9780099577256
- Imprint: Vintage Classics
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 288
- RRP: $29.99
Happy Moscow
- Published: 1 October 2013
- ISBN: 9780099577256
- Imprint: Vintage Classics
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 288
- RRP: $29.99
Andrey Platonov is the most exciting Russian writer to be rediscovered since the end of the Soviet Union. Happy Moscow shows Platonov as a master of language, weaving out of official names, political speeches, ideological exhortations and popular philosophical hopes a reality equal to the gut feel of Soviet life in the 1930s… This is just what it felt like to be swept away by the Soviet ideal of a new humanity
Independent
A full-blown masterpiece, worthy not only of consideration alongside its author’s better-known works, but of comparison with modernist fiction’s greatest achievements
New Left Review
Happy Moscow is worth reading on countless scores. On the violence, often not physical, which a totalitarian system wreaks on the lives of those who exist within it, it is a vital counterpart to those works which deal with the more tangible horrors of the USSR, and a reminder of the unique, paradoxical power of literature to expose the mismatch between rhetoric and reality
Spectator
In the Thirties Stalin proclaimed Moscow a paradise. This savage satire shows the truth through the eyes of the ebullient Moscow Chestnova. In Platonov’s hands she becomes a parody of a superwoman who leaves a career in aeronautics for lovers and life. Around her is a fascinating cast of characters and, even in translation, Platonov’s prose is extraordinary
The Times
In Platonov's prose, it is impossible to find a single dull or inelegant sentence... For Platonov's work testifies to the only political responsibility owed by any writer to any reader: to describe the world as faithfully, and as compellingly, as possible. Platonov deserves to be published; he rewards being read
The Times
I squint back on our century and I see six writers I think it will be remembered for.They are Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, William Faulkner, Andrey Platonov and Samuel Beckett…They are summits in the literary landscape of our century
Joseph Brodsky
Andrei Platonov was an eloquent and brave voice in the Soviet era... the best Russian writer of the 20th century
Frank Westerman, Independent