I really liked the idea of Found Life, but it ended up being a little bit too experimental for my tastes. There were some well-written passages, but unfortunately, I found myself skimming through much of the book.

This collection was too experimental for me, but there were moments I appreciated.

Goralik has an incredible ability to illustrate humanity in all its quirks and contradictions. The short fiction pieces in this book are sparkling with life, and full of both dark and humorous moments. The genre-bending element also keeps you guessing through many of the selections. Recommended to anyone who is a fan of experimental fiction or talented modern authors.

Linor Gorlaik is a Ukraine-born Russian/Israeli writer who first came to notice around 2001 as a prolific LiveJournal poster, and soon established herself on the Russian language internet. She’s a writer, poet and artist who writes in many formats and styles – short stories, poems, drama, essays, random thoughts and observations. A scattered approach which may work on Twitter and blogs but isn’t so successful when gathered into book form. The snippets that make up this volume are sometimes amusing and often acutely insightful about human behaviour, but the randomness to be found here didn't work for me. Certainly it’s not a good idea to read the book from cover to cover in one go, which I tried at first, but even dipping in and out I found the unfocussed nature of the writing didn’t engage me. That’s not a judgement on the writing itself but on my personal reaction to it. Difficult to rate the collection because of that, but I would nevertheless recommend it to anyone interested in contemporary Russian writing.

…the wife comes home and the cat smells like someone else’s perfume.

The thing about this collection is the style is different from the norm. There are snippets of thoughts and conversations, and they’re heavy, so much that a sentence standing alone packs a punch and condenses an entire story but it can also be the problem for some readers. You feel a bit all over the place, like your stuck in a big city with a thousand voices coming at you. It can be dizzying and yet Linor Goralik has a keen eye for life and people’s many emotions. Her micro-prose is solid but I truly wonder how much more I would prefer a full length novel by this author. This line ticked me, “and Mashenka woke up (“Oh look, Mashenka’s hatched!).”

Some of the sentences simply set a scene in your head. “An eight year old deaf girl chatting to herself , using all ten fingers, on the steps of an escalator.” It’s talking pictures and scenes, and it’s moving fast. The reader is just an eye in the crowd, left to wonder about the strangers and stolen moments. “A cheap thirty-year old barrette in the elegant grey chignon of an expensively dressed lady.” Observations, and the thought ‘there is a story there.’ Just as we pass strangers wherever we go, tourists or not, all those strangers whose stories we will never know, it leads to a hunger, a curiosity of lives going on outside ourselves.

I liked it, but I’m the type of reader that wants more involvement. There is a distance I never bridged because everything flashes by. Dissecting the writing though, it certainly takes talent to move through so many souls, characters. There are great lines, and the writing really is beautiful but I think I have a hard time with this style personally. The author is said to be one of the first Russian writers that built her name through the internet, I find that interesting. It is a moody, light, heavy, cynical, hopeful, sad and humorous collection. It’s scattered humanity, in a sense.

There may be people out there that like the fast whip of many mini stories, it’s just too much for me. I know I repeat myself, but I wonder if she could tell a strong story and stick with just a few characters. I sometimes felt like there is a loss of focus. I’m curious what other readers will come away with. I want more solid stories in my reading, particularly about Russia.

Publication Date: November 28, 2017

Columbia University Press

After trying this publisher a few times and only getting unreadably academic, literary Soviet rejects, it was with a better mien that I found this a collection of a very current author's output. But it still isn't very readable. The woman's poetry is awful, and the 'theatre' script here leads to nothing, but at least other areas offered a glimmer of entertainment. I certainly liked her collections of overheard snap-shots, whether randomly gathered, or compiled on militaristic themes, but the fact that this writer can splurge with multiple genres, and have a great output at such a young age, proves the lack of editing. One of her books is 90-odd short stories, and barely one in ten passes muster. She can do a decent comic, as the section of her cartoons proves, but boy she needs a greater hand to rein in her profligacy. That’s a shame – selectively she's fine, with an arch eye to both Russia and its environs and to Israel, but this proves she should stick to the overheard-styled anecdote, to writing about children (even adult ones) and to the folk tale, for the rest offers next to nothing.