Julia Voznesenskaya (1940–2015)

While in a hospital in Leningrad ten women are put into quarantine. From various backgrounds with very different lives the only thing they have in common is the fact that they have just given birth. One of them is reading Boccaccio's Decameron and the women agree to tell stories to pass the time. Each day a different theme is suggested and what follows is a collection of tales happy and sad, of love and hate, of life and death.

Voznesenskaya has created a cast of wonderful characters as each day goes by we learn more about these women and life in the Soviet Union in the 1980's. Though very different the women find connections and sympathy for the other's lives. In the end they are all women and all have a story to tell and the way Voznesenskaya does this makes for a very enjoyable read.… (més)

A group of women who have just given birth are quarantined for ten days in a Leningrad maternity ward. They are a diverse group, and include a high party official, a street person, a dissident, a shipyard worker, a scientist, a play director, an engineer, a musician, a stewardess, and a secretary. In the beginning, they are strangers. Most are suspicious and fearful of the party official, and some look down on and are judgmental about the street person. All are curious about the dissident.

To pass time, they decide to tell stories to each other. On the first night, they tell stories of first love. Over the following nights, the topics they choose are stories of seduction and abandonment, sex in farcical places, bitches, infidelity and jealousy, rapists and their victims, money, revenge, noble deeds, and happiness. The stories they tell range from the comedic to the tragic, from the sentimental to the cynical, from the ironic to the resigned.

Over the course of the ten days the women come to know and, for the most part, respect and admire each other. We observe as they begin to warm to each other, and despite their disparate circumstances become friends, even if only for this brief interlude.

What I liked about this book is that it isn't political, yet it gives an insider's view of what it was like to live in the Soviet Union in the 1980's, with the lack of housing (see, sex in farcical places), food and consumer goods; the rampant alcoholism; the sexism, abuse, and violence against women. The party official and the dissident provide the only overt political commentary, and it is gentle indeed. For the time being, their political differences are overridden by their shared circumstances.

For example, in the discussion of noble deeds, one woman described how she loved bananas, which were almost never available. On one rare day she found and was able to purchase some bananas, but chose to give them to a friend whose children had heard of bananas (having read Kipling's Jungle Book), but had never seen or tasted them. All of the women agreed that this was a noble deed, and one of the women said, "'You see what a happy life women have in this country...? We manage to get something special and it makes us happy for three days. And you're always grumbling at the government. Do you think women in the West have any concept of the joys of life? Can they understand the delight of the girl who has managed to get a bra in her own size...? Of course not! I think they have a poor life. It lacks substance.'"

In a way I would describe this book as "Russian chick-lit". I really enjoyed viewing life in the Soviet Union through the lens of these women.… (més)