Come and Look

Abstract

Right now, they say, it isn't the age of the short story. Everyone is reading novels, novellas, or at the very least, "practical," "strict" prose. That's not surprising. Run your mind over the works published in the first half of this year—The Disappearance [Ischeznovenie] and An Attempt on Mirages [Pokushenie na mirazhi], The Liubavins [Liubaviny] and Peasant Men and Women [Muzhiki i baby], White Robes [Belye odezhdy] and Aurochs [Zubr], Children of the Arbat [Deti Arbata] and Vas'ka, A Golden Cloud Spent the Night [Nochevala tuchka zolotaia] and No One Can Take Away the Path We've Traversed [Nikto puti proidennogo u nas ne otberet], The Foundation Pit [Kotlovan] and Heart of a Dog [Sobach'e serdtse]. And what about Sergei Zalygin's and Nikolai Shmelev's sketches in New World [Novyi mir] or that of Anatolii Strelianyi in Banner [Znamia]? What about the final volume of II 'ia Erenburg's epic memoir, People, Years, Life [Liudi, gody, zhizn'], published in Little Flame [Ogonek]?