Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zinov'ev began his academic career as a philosopher, but political events of the 1960s in Russia led him instead to a different path: that of a belletrist. Forced to emigrate for his radical views and criticism of the existing regime, he returned to Russia after the onset of glasnost and perestroika. Disinclined to accept the new form of government, he continued on his course of criticism, this time of Mikhail Gorbachev and the folly of the president's "reforms." Zinov'ev generally resorts to biting satire, especially in his anti-utopian works. Once a staunch anti-Stalinist, he now views the past with a certain nostalgia that endears him to the more-chauvinistic elements in Russian society. Though difficult to decipher because of their complex structure and lexical peculiarities, his novels nevertheless reward those who persevere with a distinctive view of a disillusioned and often disgruntled Russian intellectual of the twentieth...