Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
Sometimes you read a book and you are astounded by the
humanity of it. The Tsar of Love and
Techno is Anthony Marra’s second published novel. I say that because I can’t believe he has
only really written this and Constellation of Vital Phenomena. He’s too good for just two.
As in Constellation of Vital Phenomena, we are again
in Chechnya and in this new book, Tsar of Love and Techno, we
begin in deep tunnels with a man whose job it is to censor photos and
paintings. Take out faces of believed
dissidents. But as he does this, one day
he decides to take out one face, and put
another somewhere in. It’s the face of his
brother. He inserts the face of his brother, whose very image was ordered
destroyed. Eventually, as many people are
in 1930’s Russia, he is coerced to confess a collaboration with one of the
subjects of his censorship.
Slowly we are taken through the lives of nine people who are
quietly dissident in small controllable ways, some more successfully than
others. Lives in Siberia and Russia who are connected to each other. And always there is the painting of a
landscape, a thread that runs through and ties these nine together.
We don’t often know what life is like, how it is endured, in
secretive countries. But Mr. Marra tells
us.
What’s amazing is the humanity in Marra’s books. If you don’t feel for the people by page 10
you must put the book down because you
will never get it.
I was given this book to ready by Blogging for Books in
exchange for my opinion.
One word - excellent.
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