Reviews

This is a psychological novel, written in 1916, just a year before the February revolution by [a:Volodymyr Vynnychenko|4803227|Volodymyr Vynnychenko|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1412692797p2/4803227.jpg], who in a year will become the first PM of independent Ukraine. This reminds me of [b:Superman: Red Son|154798|Superman Red Son|Mark Millar|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1298557533l/154798._SX50_.jpg|1950026] comics by [a:Mark Millar|12736|Mark Millar|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1266561940p2/12736.jpg], where Luther (arch-enemy of Superman, who is the good guy in this what-if story) created a government led by poets – we were there in 1917-8, with writers, historians and theater critics on major posts. It doesn’t end well.

redson

The English title is Notes of a Pug-Nosed Mephistopheles and it is a semi-autobiographic story of a former revolutionary (of 1905-7 revolution) turned average but well-off lawyer bachelor. He is a nihilist and cynic, trying to manipulate other people, seduce them to less than ideal behavior, from proposing a job to another former revolutionary, who just returned from Siberia, which asked to persuade a witness to give ‘correct’ statements to suggesting to another friend to kidnap friend’s own son to force his wife to sign a divorce. His another ‘demonic’ feature that put a Mephistopheles nickname on him is his romances with women – he is tall, good-looking and well-dressed and in questions of love he is honestly cynical: on one hand he stresses men’s sexual needs and that women’s virginity as a virtue put by society, but when one of his par amor gets pregnant it’s her problems. He stalks another woman, who initially avoids his advances…

The story is honest in opening far to a person's inner world, a soul of the protagonist, who can commit awful things just to make his own life less linked to others. Strong stuff, slightly reminding me of the late 19th French writers.

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