Burn

The heroes of the phantasmagorical novel "Burn" by Vasily Aksenov - a writer, a scientist, a doctor, a musician, and a sculptor - bear different names; the only thing they share is the patronymic Apollinarievich. Each lives their own life, yet similar events happen to them, all are entangled in a web of authorial associations, jokes, drunken dialogues, and risky love stories.

The action takes place in Moscow and Leningrad, in Crimea of the sixties-seventies and in the "capital of the Kolyma region" Magadan of the forties-fifties - or suddenly shifts to Africa, America, or the Moon. The novel is written with an astonishing freedom of thought typical of the seventies when it was created - truly scorching prose. Perhaps this is where the title of the novel comes from - "Burn".


That night at the theater, on the balcony of the night, they performed "The Barber of Seville" and Underdone!
I crawled up the green curtains to write my love in the suggestion book, love for Rossini. Sweet Rossini, young Italian, your country, your nightly gleams, your fountains, girls, and flutes have deceptively not been fully bestowed upon me!
I was clearly cheated with the overture; I was not given the clarinet part, I am missing Rossini in Russia, and any control will confirm this!
Dearest Herzen, do not wake Russia! Child of love, do not try in vain! Let her be awakened by an Italian, a wandering rogue in torn lace!
Vasily Aksenov