The Russian satirist's first novel in a dozen years centers on a Aglaya Stepanovna Revkina, a Stalin fanatic who just doesn't know what to do with herself during the relatively more open reigns of his predecessors. Ultimately, the novel spans 50 years of Russian history, ending in the chaos after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
Not Voinovich's very best, but a welcome addition to a brilliantly subversive and hugely entertaining body of work. [15 May 2004, p.469]
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Favorable
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Library Journal Heather Wright
Highly recommended. [15 Apr 2004, p.127]
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Favorable
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Christian Science Monitor Ron Charles
But don't let the heavy lifting intimidate you, comrades. There are riches to mine here, and warnings worth heeding.
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Favorable
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Publishers Weekly
In spite of the somewhat unsatisfactory finale, Voinovich's novel is otherwise a fine study of the peculiar buffoonery of Soviet life. [24 May 2004, p.41]
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle Tom Nolan
It is, told in Voinovich's resourceful and acidic prose, at once surreal and plausible, cruel and hilarious, grotesque and heartbreaking, symbolic and real.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Ken Kalfus
Voinovich has sharpened his satire, and ''Monumental Propaganda'' is a novel that slashes and rips.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Anne Applebaum
Monumental Propaganda is written as a satire, and its wacky characters and ludicrous plot lines contain all of the elements of what should be a classic comic novel. But in the end -- like the work of Jonathan Swift or George Orwell -- the novel is dark rather than laugh-out-loud funny.
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Favorable
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The New Republic Jaroslaw Anders
Always engaging and often hilarious.
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Mixed
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New York Review Of Books Gary Shteyngart
Monumental Propaganda suffers in comparison to The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin. This may be, in part, because the Soviet era provided far more powerful material for a satirist of Voinovich's background.
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Mixed
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The Nation Boris Fishman
Repeatedly, it's Voinovich's belly-busting comic genius that saves the story.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Michiko Kakutani
While "Monumental Propaganda" becomes, halfway through, a big mess of a novel, it should serve -- for readers unfamiliar with "Private Ivan Chonkin" and "Moscow 2042" -- as a useful introduction to this gifted satirist's more major works.
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Unfavorable
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Chicago Tribune Andrew Wachtel
The weakness of this novel is not that Voinovich has become any less adept at describing and dismantling the hypocrisy of Homo sovieticus: Many individual scenes here are close to the level of his best work. The problem is that it is simply not possible to write a successful satire against something that does not exist.
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Unfavorable
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Los Angeles Times Natasha S. Randall
Voinovich commits a cardinal sin of satire: making explicit what is implicit in his mockery. [13 Oct 2004]
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