The Crime of Olga Arbyelina
by Andre? Makine
Book Summary Information
Author: Andre? MakineEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-09-15
ISBN: 1559704942
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Book Reviews of The Crime of Olga Arbyelina
Book Review: Almost 'Dancer in the Dark' set in Russian colony in France
Summary: 4 Stars
Set in the years just after the Second World War, this tells the story of Olga Arbelinya, a Russian emigrant who lives outside Paris with her haemophiliac son. One day she is found washed up and incoherent on the riverbank together with the body of a former Tsarist officer. In court she accuses herself of his murder, although she can hardly have caused his death. Who he is and how they got there form the starting point for the rest of Makine's novel, which describes her aristocratic childhood in pre-revolutionary Russia, her flight to France and the last, powerful love affair that causes her mind, and her normal life, to unravel. The beauty of Makine is that he makes no judgements: whether Arbelinya's 'crime' is a crime is left open to the reader. More importantly, although there is no shortage of tragedy in the story, he takes care not to lay it on too heavily. Events are described from Arbelinya's often confused perspective, and the line between reality and imagination is skilfully blurred.This distancing makes 'Olga Arbelinya's Crime' melancholy rather than harrowing reading. The literary equivalent of staring out of the window on a grey rainy day.
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