Kangaroo

Fiction. "KANGAROO is a novel of the most devastating, the most terrifying hilarity. It belongs in the genre of satire; however, its net effect is neither revulsion at the system nor comic relief, but pure metaphysical terror. This effect has less to do with the author's rather apocalyptical worldview as such than with the quality of his ear. Aleshkovsky, whose reputation in Russia as a songwriter is extremely high (in fact, some of his songs are part of national folklore), hears the language like a prodigy. The hero of KANGAROO is a pickpocket whose career spans the entire history of Soviet Russia, and the novel is an epic yarn spun out in the foulest of language, for which either 'slang' of 'argot' fails as definition' (Joseph Brodsky). "The stunning impact of a CANDIDE, a SCHWEIK, a 1984...Alehkovsky's special power is that he has a devastating sense of humor... Here, for the first time I know of, a Russian has stripped away the sonorities of Soviet history to highlight its absurdity from an ordinary, human point of view" (New York Times). 5/18/99