It would be difficult to imagine a more poverty stricken area than the deserts of Central Russia in the late 1930s. As Platonov's writing makes clear, the people owned practically nothing. Meals of boiled grass were common. But even during the blackest times, we see people making the choice to go on, not to die. The reader can feel embedded in the life of a nomadic tribe on the verge of extinction, far from the centers of power and money.
This book is actually a collection of stories. One entitled "The Return" is now considered Platonov's masterpiece. Yet the authorities did not approve of him. I would say he is still rather unknown, despite being perhaps Russia's best writer of prose.
