Solo

This new work by Dasgupta (Tokyo Cancelled) is two novels in one book. The first, Life, follows precocious Bulgarian chemist Ulrich, who cannot outrun his country's decline and so must suffer with it; the second, Daydreams, shows us a "better" world imagined by Ulrich in which talented and ambitious youth—Khatuna and Boris, mainly—can escape the uncertainty of a post-Communist culture. Essentially, this work is a meditation on regret. In Life, Ulrich makes it to Germany but is forced home by his mother's sorrowful letters. His talent is forgotten amid a landscape of factories. Then Daydreams clears the air. After reading the details of Ulrich's devastating decline, we are perhaps more willing to forgive Khatuna's tremendous violence and Boris's waywardness if it leads to success (relatively speaking). And it does.