SOURCE: "On Soviet Dissidence as Both Sides Falter," in The New York Times, July 26, 1989, p. C21.

In the following review, Hoffman faults Say Cheese! for its tendency to utilize jokes and satire only humorous to Russian readers, but asserts that the book provides an insightful look into Russia and its political regime.

Among Soviet writers, moral dissidence has a long and honorable tradition. Vassily Aksyonov is one of the few, however, who have managed to match their oppositional message with an equally liberated style. In the Soviet Union, Mr. Aksyonov was celebrated as one of the most provocative voices—free-wheeling, satirical, formally daring—of the postwar generation. In 1980, he was forced to emigrate, after he instigated a bold effort to create the first uncensored magazine, Metropol, and after his novel The Burn was published in the West. In the United States, where he now lives, The Burn met...