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Nina Berberova's THE TATTERED CLOAK AND OTHER STORIES is a collection by arguably one
of the best of the Russian writers from the early part of the last century. The experience
of Russian emigres in Paris is a classic story of displacement and future shock, after the
ravages of war and a bad economy sent families rushing towards the heart of the Western
world. Berberova could very well be telling her own story, hidden amongst the tales of
lowly blue-collar workers and the "shabby genteel" of the aristocracy that
doesn't know what to make of the brave new world that is building its foundations.
"The world is going to hell, but among it all a blessed light is burning quietly for
me --- not from the star, which went out a long time ago, but from a new source, like a
fog filled with the trembling light of stars." In gentle phrases and with the light
touch of a truly enlightened heart, Berberova gives us an across-the-board look at how the
world was changing and affecting all of her fellow Russians during the difficult times of
the '30s and '40s. Given what our nation has lived through since that time, American
readers will certainly empathize with the hardships of these people that were searching
for ways to stay alive and perhaps even eke out a little enjoyment for themselves. It is
in their heartache, their search for a new life, that Berberova enacts her timeless
compassion, and each story brings us closer to the heart of the immigrant experience from
the easy perspective of seven decades of historical progression.
Berberova came to the U. S. in 1951 with $75 in her pocket. An instructor at Yale and
later at Princeton, she was honored as a Chevalier of the French Order of Arts and Letters
before she died. Like her countryman, Chekov, Berberova employs the direct and
intellectual perceptions of a natural writer with the heart of a renegade, and in so
doing, THE TATTERED CLOAK can find a home amongst the immigrant classics of our generation
and those that came before us.
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
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