SOURCE: Jones, Tobin H. Review of Le testament français, by Andreï Makine. French Review 70, no. 1 (October 1996): 147-48.

In the following review, Jones states that Le testament français centers on the protagonist's search for his cultural and social identity.

Russian-born Andreï Makine's fourth novel and recipient of the Prix Goncourt (1995), Le testament français, invites comparisons. It explores interstices between the literary dimensions of the fictional memoir and eulogy, among radically different historical periods and cultural contexts, and between the social ideologies of the France of the Belle Epoque and Third Republic and the Russia of the Tsars and the Stalinist and post-Stalinist eras. Beyond the wealth of comparative perspectives lie exceptional artistic effect and rich psychological insights—of self-discovery and of a sensitive awakening to the brutal and the beautiful in living truly hard times.

Echoes of Proust are unmistakable, but they do not subvert the...