Reserve

"Reserve" is a novella based on Dovlatov's personal experience, appearing as a series of anecdotal stories. However, at the center of its plot is the tormenting personal crisis of the "superfluous man." The main character, the unrecognized writer Boris Alihanov, takes a summer job at the A. S. Pushkin Museum-Reserve "Mikhailovskoe" in the Pskov region, but instead of the inspiring world of Russian classics, he discovers a pitiful semblance of theatrical scenery, where there is not a single authentic object. Here, even the museum staff, while speaking about Pushkin, use clichéd phrases like "the great poet and citizen," instead of engaging narratives about his work. Sensing the artificiality surrounding him, Alihanov, with his characteristic self-irony, ponders his own purpose and sarcastically reviews the state of Soviet literature and reality in general...