Omdat het tweede deel van deze trilogie me nogal zwaar viel, leek het me verstandig om maar direct te beginnen aan het derde deel. Anders zou het zo maar kunnen gebeuren dat ik deze trilogie niet zou uitlezen. Het grootste struikelblok van het tweede deel was, dat de hoofdpersonages op zo’n onuitstaanbare manier een potje van hun persoonlijke leven maakten en tegelijkertijd de schone schijn wilden ophouden. Hoe vergaat het ze in dit deel?

Lees verder op deze pagina van mijn boekenblog. ( )

At first sight, this book (all 3 volumes of it, this one included) is simply a novel about human relationships, and more than any other books it fits my tag "human drama", but for me it's a masterpiece in its own way. Great philosophical ruminations at the level of ordinary human lives. The 3rd volume brought me to tears at the end. The format is an unusual one: a Rock, a Wind, and a Blackbird "residing" in "Eternity" follow a life of a Moscow family from 1958 to 2008, like watching a movie. They discuss what they see and make very insightful comments. If this book is translated into English, I can only hope it is an adequate translation (some parts might be hard to translate - they are too "Russian").

The subtitles of the 3 volumes come from the proverb: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" (arguably not Samuel Johnson's words, as commonly believed - there is now some research on that point). The title for all the volumes is "A Glimpse from Eternity", but the subtitles of the volumes 1, 2, and 3 are subsequently "Good Intentions", " The Path", and "Damnation" (this is my own translation of the titles and subtitles from Russian, for lack of any translated editions yet) - I substituted "path" for the "road" and "damnation" for "hell" in the proverb. So the author seems to be saying to us: there are good intentions on the road (path) to hell (damnation). I hope it doesn't sound religious, because it is not, the book is about people's lives, and how they deal with their problems and feelings. ( )