The Line Book

Several years ago, I read Bulgakov's The Master and the Margarita, and then went on a massive Netflix-but-for-books binge of every classic Russian author I could get my hands on. I couldn't get enough. After a few months of this, I felt almost nostalgic for a time and place that I never lived in; a time and place that didn't seem like somewhere the characters themselves wanted to live in.

I've read most of the major works from Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekov, Gogol, Turgenev, all of those guys -- to me, they are all great, without exception. The worst part about these authors is that they are all dead, and will no longer be producing new novels, barring some kind of miraculous discovery of unreleased material buried in a wine cellar somewhere.

I've read some modern Russian fiction, and had mixed results. Maybe it's just the the changing of the times, but nothing has really grabbed me in the way those old classic cinder blocks have. Until now, that is.

The Line is about exactly that: a line. Rumor gets out that a kiosk will be selling concert tickets for a new piece from the celebrated composer Selinsky (a stand-in for the real life composer Igor Stravinsky), and people start to wait in line. However, there's no timeline for when the tickets will actually go on sale, and people keep showing up day after day in the hopes that they can grab a piece of history, and have their lives transformed by the expected transcendent brilliance of the long-exiled Russian composer. A year goes by without any tickets going on sale, and the line has turned into a kind of community, with many characters becoming involved in various aspects of one particular family's life.

This novel perfectly captures the same feeling that the older Russian masters conveyed so well: a desperate yearning for some sign that life will get better. Grushin uses color to evoke this feeling particularly well, painting a picture with somber greys, resulting in a dreamlike haze -- there is snow, and cold, and long stretches of darkness only broken by flickering streetlamps, with everyone hoping and praying to be carried into some kind of light.

The language is simple and oftentimes beautiful. The story moves slowly, but even when my mind wandered a bit, it seemed to be wandering in the world of the book. I could see how some might have a little trouble with the pace of actual story developments, but the rewards here are ones of feeling.

Grushin is definitely an author I'll be keeping my eye on (and apparently her first book is even better). If you ever ate up any of the old Russian classics, I can't imagine you wouldn't find something to enjoy here. Highly recommended.