The Russian Mind

"Hingley looks at the whole context of Russia – history, literature, what society is like. He knows Russia very well, but he does this as an Englishman knowing Russia very well, and is good at observing how different Russians are. Russia has these curious incongruities – from extreme dullness to hyperactivity. Hingley relishes the bizarre – in life and literature – and gives us stories from the literature. One of Gogol’s begins with a civil servant looking in his mirror one morning to find his nose has disappeared. Just talking about it is tempting me to pick the whole thing up and read it again. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter It’s a good question. In a sense they are curious in that they went on with communism after the Russians had given it up – so it was local, in that it wasn’t imposed by Russia. But there is something in common between all communist countries. I remember when I was in Bulgaria during the takeover, and one of President Kolarov’s entourage asked, ‘Could you get me Orwell’s book?’. That meant his first book, Animal Farm . When I gave it to this party veteran and he read it, he said Orwell must have come from a Communist country. But of course Orwell didn’t – so it was possible to understand communism without having been there."