Another great book by Anthony Burgess. Why is he only known for A Clockwork Orange? Yes, yes, that book is brilliant. But I'm batting 1.000 for 3 books so far. And I'll keep coming up to the Burgess plate as long as they are this good.
Spoilers below:
Paul Hussey (Gussey, по-русски!) is bringing several dozen hi-tech dresses into Leningrad to sell, with the intent of giving most of the money to his best friend's (his very best friend's) wife. The Soviets have other ideas, though, as one would expect in the early 1960s.
His wife is ill when the book opens, and except for one fun night with a bunch of drunk westerners, she's out of the picture, hospitalized. Sadly for Paul, it is in the USSR that he discovers not only his wife's indiscretions but also realizes he's not too sure about his own sexuality. (Thankfully, that's not a big part of this book.)
He doesn't sell the dresses, but still leaves the USSR without them, regretting not giving one Russian mother the white one for her daughter's wedding. And his shadows, agents/comrades Karamzin and Zverkov, prime examples of the species, are done so well I wonder if Burgess had spent time in the Soviet Union and been pulled into secondary.
The Russia of Burgess's book is a Russia I recognize. The food, the drink, the government agents. The Russians. Paul's teeth play a major role and the departure scene, Leningrad to Helsinki on the Alexander Radishchev, is one of the funniest I've read that isn't in a Wodehouse or Sharp.
Spoilers above.
Like I said, Burgess is genius. I have yet in my Kindle Tremor of Intent and The Doctor is Sick. Unsure which of those, when I'm ready to read him again, will be next. And I must complement the publisher and whomever designed the cover: Respectable English gentleman with sputnik (spoot-nick, not spyut-nick) as his head. Nicely done.
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