3 1/2 stars, really, mostly because of their uneven translations. Each of Leskov’s stories in this ‘New York Review of Books’ volume has a different translator, and their diverse interpretations of Leskov’s “skaz”—or colloquial, slangy—style are all over the map. My personal favorite is “The Steel Flea,” in which the Tula craftsman Lefty pits his engineering skills against those of the British. The incredibly clever wordplay must have bedeviled the translator, but William Edgerton did a beautiful job of creating words that conveyed the thoughts of a kind of man better with his hands than with his words. Once it was wound up, with a key that could only be seen under a “nitroscope,” the tiny robot “did a straight ‘dansez’ and two fairiations” (258). When confronted with the nearly invisible steel flea from Tula, the Englishmen showed off what they had to rival Russian engineering: “There were nautical whether-meters, gamblehair coats for the infantry, and waterproof reincoats for the cavalry” (255). As translated by Donald Rayfield, “The Enchanted Wanderer” becomes less a picaresque tale of a horse connoisseur in mid-nineteenth century Russia, and more of a fireside slog through the wanderings of a blowhard. But I loved the way “The Sealed Angel” shared the process of icon creation and their significance to worshippers. And ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’ was downright shocking as it detailed the downfall of a bored and childless merchant’s wife. (Don’t miss the film.) So glad I read these colorful tales by a lesser-known Russian writer.