Bridges and the FSB

The holiday weekend has proved fecund. I completed The Invisible Bridge as well as Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin. Julie Orringer's epic proved quite uneven, growing sentimental during the war and losing its grace and tempo. My expectations were rudely injured during the final 150 pages.

Sorokin Week was thus inaugurated, I enjoyed the novel, finding its neo-medieval future plausible and, rather terrifying, as the House of Ruric is restored in Mother Rus and walls are established to protect against contamination from a dying Europe, overrun with Muslims, it appears.