Envy by Yuri Olesha

Envy is a satirical look at Soviet society in 1927, and it was published almost at the same time that Stalin crushed his opposition and expelled Trotsky from the Party, and then Stalin fired the editor of the Soviet literary magazine Red Virgin Soil in which Envy first appeared. This book was weird, and fortunately, quite short. It opens with one of the two main characters, the obese and ridiculous Andrei Babichev in the bathroom. A fool himself, the narrator Nikolai Kavalerov declared that he was Babichev’s jester. One would have to have a much greater interest in Soviet life of that particular era and the literature which it spawned to be thrilled with this book. While it does portray a slice of life in Moscow at the time, for a casual reader, it does not get my recommendation.