When the protagonist of the novel wakes up in a hospital, he is suffering from complete memory

loss — he cannot remember his name or age, identify his occupation, where he is, or what brought him here.

The only information that the doctor shares with his patient before urging him to write down every detail or image that comes into his mind is the young man’s name: Innokenty Platonov. He begins to register his memories as they appear, along with his current circumstances and experiences, with the diligence and vigor of an awakening consciousness. Platonov’s diary is a true page-turner, fascinating readers with chaotic, kaleidoscopic images, faces, phrases, and events, weaving the life story of a young man in Russia in the early 20th century.

The story that emerges is at the same time tender and sad, sensual and funny — and, above all, tragic.

Childhood recollections surface first: happy summer holidays at a dacha on the outskirts of St Petersburg, playing “aviators” with his cousin Seva, the warm yellow glow of the porch of the country house, a late-summer watermelon brought by his father, greeting his father on the platform each Friday evening during the holiday season as the train arrives from the city — and the day in 1917 when his father does not get off the train, because he was brutally murdered by a mob of drunken sailors at the train station. At the age of 21, Platonov moves with his mother to a communal flat in the city center, where he meets their new neighbors (former owners of the whole apartment), professor Sergei Voronin, and his daughter Anastassia, 15, who will become Innokenty’s love. Another neighbor is Nikolay Zaretsky, a worker in a sausage factory, whose denunciation of professor Voronin leads to Anastassia’s father’s arrest and quick execution. Zaretsky is soon discovered dead, and Innokenty Platonov is charged with this murder, as well as plotting against the state, and sentenced to a term in the Solovki prison camp.

But how can Innokenty remember his life in the early 20th century if the pills he takes in the hospital are dated 1999? Will Platonov succeed in adapting to a new reality and find a home in the strange world of the end of the 20th century? But the overriding question is: what force has brought him to life and tries to kill him again in 1999, after the miraculous resurrection from his death in the Solovki camp?

With a meticulous grasp of the details of everyday life and a brilliant ability to convey a whole spectrum of colors, scents and sounds, the narrator draws a vivid, panoramic picture of life in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. The tragedy that besets the nation, and the social turmoil ripping apart the very fabric of the country, take on “flesh and blood” through the depiction of the personal history of a few residents of a single St. Petersburg communal apartment.

Vodolazkin demonstrates masterly control of the novel’s narrative structure. The brilliant storytelling, elegance of style, and the pervasive tenderness and sadness are reminiscent of Russian literature of the 1920s, recalling in particular Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard.