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BereniceFleming t1_j21qzz2 wrote

The Tartar Steppe is one of my favorite books and I am so happy to see a post about it here!

I love its "complicated simplicity", its themes that completely resonate with my thoughts and life mood, its atmosphere of "magical realism without magical realism", its sense of disturbance and calm at the same moment. This book is like a lullaby that makes you anxious and sad. It's an amazing read.

I recommend all my friends to read The Tartar Steppe and every time I am pleasantly surprised that people emphasize very different things as the main point of the story.

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Protozoo_epilettico OP t1_j21s6du wrote

Yes, it's the whole atmosphere that's perfect for me. There's a clod of absurdity, silliness even, that the reader can feel but not the characters and it permeates the whole book. The first time I've read it I had the feeling that there was something wrong under all of it and I kept reading waiting for it to unravel, when I arrived at the last chapters and finished the book it dawned on me that I was a victim of the fortress as well, if you know what I mean.

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