Limonov

Starred review from June 23, 2014
This deft, timely translation of French writer and filmmaker Carrère’s sparkling 2011 biography of Edward Limonov is an enthralling portrait of a man and his times. The subtitle is no exaggeration: Limonov, a prolific and celebrated author, cofounder of Russia’s National Bolshevik Party, onetime coleader of the Drugaya Rossiya opposition movement, and current head of Strategy-31 (which organizes protests in Russia aimed at securing the right to peacefully assemble), has led an extraordinary life. Carrère suggests that Limonov’s haphazard turns—from budding poet, disillusioned émigré, New York City butler, and Parisian literary rock star to Russian countercultural maverick, Putin opponent, and political prisoner—have been prompted by his drive for adventure and fame. Though his behavior is frequently reprehensible (including his lasting flirtation with authoritarian and fascist figures), Carrère’s Limonov never dissolves in a mess of unfathomable contradictions. Instead, he emerges as a mirror through which the vortex of culture and politics in the late-Soviet and New Russian eras is reflected. In this astute, witty account, Limonov has found his ideal biographer. There are few more enjoyable descriptions of Russia today.

July 15, 2014
The life of a controversial Russian writer and adventurer.Journalist, novelist, screenwriter and director Carrere (My Life as a Russian Novel, 2010, etc.) was amazed when he heard some of Russia's liberal intellectuals warmly praise Edward Limonov (b. 1943), infamous for his right-wing views and incendiary fascist remarks. That paradox inspired the investigation that resulted in this book, winner of the Prix Renaudot when it was published in France in 2011. Combining biography, political history and memoir, Carrere places Limonov's "romantic, dangerous life" in the context of what he calls his own "bourgeois bohemian" experiences. Limonov, "a Russian Jack London," has been wildly impetuous: A rebel, thug and poet, he left his native Ukraine when he was 24; moved to Moscow, where he eked out a living sewing pants; married a beautiful model with whom, in 1974, he immigrated to New York, imagining a "radiant future" as a writer. Despondent after his wife left him, he became a homeless tramp; then, in a sharp twist of fate, he got a job as butler to a multimillionaire, through whom he met a literary agent who placed his first book-autobiographical fiction-with a French publisher. Paris was next, where the literati treated him like "a bit of a star." But he was restless. Learning of conflict in the Balkans, he decided to fight with the Serbs. When Carrere interviewed him in Moscow in 2007, he was leading a "national assembly of opposition forces." Limonov has been opposed to political leaders (most recently, "cold and cunning" Putin), to the adulation bestowed upon such writers as Joseph Brodsky, Pasternak and Yevtushenko, and to glasnost, which led his countrymen to believe that they had been duped by "a gang of criminals." Limonov prefers his Russia "powerful and morose."A searching portrait of an arrogant, heroic and willful man-a mix of Jean Genet, Don Quixote and King Lear.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 15, 2014

The subtitle almost says it all. Ostensibly a biography of a Russian radical, poet, revolutionary, and possible "scumbag," this book reads like a Cormac McCarthy novel written by Hunter S. Thompson and John le Carre. One may be tempted to wonder if the Eduard Limonov (b. 1943) presented by Carrere (The Adversary) bears about as much resemblance to the actual as the figures in Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 do to George McGovern, et al. The story of Limonov's life covers much of the Soviet era, beginning in the 1940s and hurtling past the break up of the Soviet Union into the clashes in Ukraine and Chechnya. In the 1990s, Limonov, a novelist of vaguely pornographic autobiographical books and occasional poetry, was linked with Radovan Karadzi during the Bosnian war. In 2001 he was tried as a terrorist for attempting to destabilize Kazakhstan. Though Limonov's literary value is never made clear here, Carrere's is. Great at bringing a kind of nihilistic surrealism to his descriptions of major historic events such as the brief Russian coup of August 1991, Carrere is possessed by that same demon that drove Thompson's frenzied prose. VERDICT The author's aggressively gonzo style often totters between the exhilarating and the overwhelming, but the joy of getting lost in it can be intoxicating. Not an essential book but may be of interest to contemporary Russian studies collections. [See Prepub Alert, 4/27/14.]--Herman Sutter, St. Agnes Acad., Houston

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014
This bravura memoir-biography records a collision between French journalist, novelist, and filmmaker Carr're and his subject, the Russian writer, rogue, and rabble-rouser Eduard Limonov. Not only is Limonov's story of audacious escapades, perpetual reinvention, phenomenal discipline, uncanny comebacks, literary daring, and political recklessness gripping and provocative, but Carr're's telling reads like a picaresque novel. Carr're asserts that he spoke with some 30 people, but his primary sources were Limonov's own searing autobiographical writings, and he interjects intriguing tales from his own life, including his interactions with Limonov. Born in Ukraine in 1943, Limonov has always been ambitious and ruthless, training himself to be tough and preemptive. A romantic and a contrarian, he was an underground poet and tailor in Moscow; a punk 'migr', butler, and sexual outlaw in New York; a cult figure in Paris, and, back in Moscow, a neofascist agitator. It was in prison, Carr're avows, that Limonov, who remains vital and controversial, achieved his dream and became a truly great man. In telling Limonov's astounding story, Carr're also offers a vigorous and invaluable anatomy of postwar Russia.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)