The Tsar of Love and Techno

"The calcium in the collarbones I have kissed. The iron in the blood flushing those cheeks. We imprint our intimacies upon atoms born from an explosion so great it still marks the emptiness of space. A shimmer of photons bears the memory across the long dark amnesia. We will be carried too, mysterious particles that we are." 

Anthony Marra 

The Tsar of Love and Techno

Every once in a while we read something that speaks to us on such a profound level that we find that the words resonate through our soul and stick with us. This is what The Tsar of Love and Techno did for me. The language was so poetic, yet the phrasing so unusual, that I am still not sure what to think of it, as the words ring in my ears. The book was phenomenal; this book is one that I could read for the first time, again.

A collection of short stories set in Siberia and Chechnya, the characters are tied together by an obscure Russian painting of a field. In the 1930's, a censor is tasked with reworking the painting towards the goals of the Soviet Union. What he does instead echoes throughout the century, linking the stories of a legendary ballerina sent to the gulag's, her grand daughter, a gangster, a widower who last saw is wife in that field, and a soldier held in a well with a mix tape of unknown contents.

The resulting story, is....well... beyond anything I have ever aspired to have read. This is the best book I have read this year. The characters are touching, charming, and incredibly human; their flaws adding to their allure. The story is fantastic, epic in its twists and turns, its humor and its sorrow. The setting itself plays a character in tale, as all of the characters are trying to find where they fit in a country that is constantly changing and recreating, and trying to survive the wars, the governments, and the capitalism. It was fascinating to see how each of the different characters dealt with Russia at different points in time.

The language was beautiful. From the snarky:

"Dozy bronze Buddhas meditated on the bookshelf, I was wondering if artsy-fartsy types in Tibet fetishize crucifixes."    

to the serious and mildly heartbreaking:

"Why are children doomed to remain beautiful to their parents, even when they become so ugly to themselves?" 

The eloquence used to describe these circumstances and the way the characters are feeling is astounding, and amazingly soul wrenching. Even when talking about sex, Marra uses language that conveys love and yearning in such an amazing way, stating that

"they pressed together with a need that is never satisfied because we can't trade atoms no matter how hard we thrust. Our hearts may skip but our substance remains fixed. We're not gaseous no matter how we wish to cloud together inseparably." 

This book was beautiful. It was crass, dark, crud, sad, funny but above all it was a extraordinarily gorgeous book about the human condition, and the nature of connecting with people in a unstable world that is always changing.

I think that this is a book that everyone should read. I think that it is one of the best books I have ever read. Oh, and if you read it, Marra put the mix tape on Spotify, and it is awesome.