Children of the Arbat Anatoli Rybakov, Century Hutchinson, £12.95 Reviewed by JANE WELLS
ANATOLI Rybakov wass a
Russian Jew, born in 1911, exiled to Siberia in 1932 for 'assisting in counter revolutionary activity';
released in 1935 but forced to travel from village to village looking for work since he was banned from settling in the big cities. He enlisted to fight with the Red Army in the second world war in 1941. His first novel, published in 1950, won the Stalin prize for literature.
'housewives'. Again we have recipes, but they are more about how to make a stick of celery satisfy your hunger when you actually want a pound of spuds. our weight. They have a crusade about 'fat Fergie'. Week in, week out, pictures about 'fat Fergie', who, according to Bella is not only fat but also ugly. She is not new-born brat in Britain with various nannies while she hops off to wear hideous dresses and shake the hands of the Australian 'let yourself" get fat, you will become ugly and irresponsible mothers too. Then, as night follows day, your hubby will disappear with his secretary who (at this moment at least) is not fat! Subtlety is not Bella's strong
Another 'must' for the traditional woman's magazine is the handy hints section, written by keen and generous readers. woman spends her time and energy sending in this little tibit: 'If you hang a load of conkers in your wardrobe you will never be troubled by moths again. What?? How did the unnamed shattering fact?
Rybakov's twelfth book, is an uncompromisingly anti-stalinist young friends from Moscow's intellectual and artistic district, the Arbat, leaving school in 1934.
The semi-autobiographical
Communist, who falls victim to one of Stalin's early purges. Its descriptions of this period of
Stalin's terror are unequivocal.
For more than twenty years
Rybakov's manuscript lay on the shelf, its publication thwarted by the authorities. Rybakov, has consistently turned down offers insisting instead that his book should be made available first to
Russian readers. 'My people and my country need this novel...
Life would not be the same without the problem page. Even in the traditional magazines, sex male lover, male brother-in-law, male doctor, and so on and so forth. They have even begun to tackle what to do if you find out husband is gay or a transvestite. Everything except sex between women. Either lesbians do not have problems, or lesbianism is still too risky to be discussed or even recognised.
You don't get all this rubbish in magazines like Spare Rib or Everywoman; but as most of us will admit (though often only in private) they are a touch turgid and can be a little too 'worthy' in the way they deal with aspects of laugh about in most women's lives - the Tories have seen to that. But there is a huge gap in the market. An entertaining feminist magazine may not be able to match the circulation of allow women who are actively involved in politics to relax and have a good read!
If there are any rich feminists magazine, I volunteer to be the "agony sister". consequences of Stalinism in the psychology of our people we cannot move forward. If we say we wish to live honestly and truthfully, then we must be truthful about the past. We cannot bring up our children on
Not until glasnost did it finally
Children of the Arhat is no dry, pedantic political tract. The first extracts were serialised were soon fetching fifty times their cover price is a tribute to its readability as well as its politics.
Rybakov examines a broad sweep of everyday and political
Soviét life. How you get a job in the Soviet Union - and how you get a good job. How families