Native Speech

“Reading the main books of Russian literature is like revisiting one’s biography. Life experience accumulates alongside reading and thanks to it… We grow together with the books—they grow within us. And when the time comes for a rebellion against the attitude towards classics instilled in childhood,” wrote Petr Vayl and Alexander Genis in the preface to the very first edition of their “Native Speech.” The authors, who emigrated from the USSR, created a book abroad that soon became a true, albeit somewhat humorous, monument to the Soviet school literature textbook. We still remember how successfully these textbooks permanently extinguished any taste for reading in schoolchildren, instilling in them a lasting aversion to Russian classics. The authors of “Native Speech” attempted to rekindle the interest of unfortunate children (and their parents) in domestic fine literature. It seems the attempt was completely successful. The witty and engaging “anti-textbook” by Vayl and Genis has been helping graduates and applicants pass exams in Russian literature for many years.