Thirst [Kindle Edition]

This is a short book and I am not going to say anything about the story as I don't want to spoil it for you. Andrei Gelasimov is a very talented writer. There is not a single superfluous word in this book. Each word, phrase, sentence, paragraph is deliberate and serves a function. I tend to speed read but I could not with this one. It is a book to take slowly, savour and enjoy. It is simply a delightful and thought provoking book.

Konstantin is a veteran of the Russian-Chechnyan war who now spends his days living in his apartment drinking vodka, interspersed with days when he works to make more money to buy the vodka. The book opens with him trying to find room in his fridge for the almost endless bottles of vodka he has acquired to sink himself, once more, into oblivion.

Through flashbacks to the war, his childhood and his love of drawing we are drawn into his world, one where he is trying to find his place in it and return to the outside. Each character thirsts for something more than they have, hence the title, and each one is thirsty for more vodka (as Russian culture and vodka seem inextricably linked).

This is a short simply written novel which involves you in the daily lives of a few Russians, each one trying to find a place in their small world and acceptance of themselves. Overall I enjoyed this book and would be interested in reading more by this author.

Thirst is the story of horrifically-scarred Konstantin. Living alone in his apartment, his only day-to-day contact is his neighbour Olga and her son Nikita - Olga uses Konstantin to move things around her apartment and scare Nikita into bed at night. Konstantin, bitter and confused by his life, drinks heavily, bottle after bottle of Vodka lines his fridge, but when the private that saved his life from a burning-APC goes missing, his equally-injured comrades decides to mount a search party, will they find Seryoga before it's too late?

Thirst runs in three timescales; Konstantin's childhood, his service (specifically the events leading up to and after the fire) and finally, his subsequent life. We see Konstantin as a child being taught to draw by a great alcoholic artist who is permanently thirsty. We learn the events that have misshapen him (figuratively & literally) and consequently the bonds between his brothers-in-arms that still live in the present as we search for Seryoga. All of the ex-soldiers are badly wounded and bitter alcoholics, but Konstantin's rediscovery of his talent for drawing allows him to paint them as if they were whole. He literally fills in what is missing today, whether it's the children people never had, the limbs they've lost or the wife that couldn't bear to look at the scars.

All in all, very short - 113 pages of dialogue-based paragraphs - but interestingly concise and conveys a lot with very little. Truly ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations, but worth a look if you enjoy Russian literature.