Collected Works. Volume 4 (1999-2000). I Planned to Escape. The Geometry of Love

The fourth volume of the anniversary collection of works, which will consist of fifteen volumes. From the author of the novel "The Gypsum Trumpeter" and the cycle "Sovdetstvo". The family saga "I Planned to Escape…", completed by the author in 1999,... became a kind of culmination of diverse quests and, according to some literary scholars, one of the peaks of domestic novel writing in the 20th century. Yuri Polyakov, narrating the story of an ordinary couple, the Bashmakovs, immerses us in the complex, changing, and subtle world of relationships between a man and a woman, bound by habitual love and family ties, which they sometimes perceive as shackles. The author believes that the main thing is not to confuse a crisis with a collapse. The family drama unfolds against the backdrop of significant historical events – the last years of the existence and dissolution of the great country called the USSR. Since its writing, this book has gone through about twenty editions and continues to be in demand among discerning readers who appreciate a sharp plot, subtle psychology, intelligent irony, appropriate eroticism, and a refined aphoristic style. Keeping in mind the writer's gender openness, one critic exclaimed: "Polyakov has exposed us, men, with all our insides!" The bestseller "I Planned to Escape…" has been adapted for film, translated into many languages, and in China was recognized as the best foreign novel of 2004.