Marra’s Masterful Mixtape, The Tsar Of Love And Techno
Short story collections may be on the rise, but Anthony Marra’s The Tsar of Love and Techno is, even among their ranks, a special case. As in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad and Katie Crouch’s Girls in Trucks, the stories of Tsar are all connected; they overlap in unique ways. Spanning a century, the book takes us back and forth in time, from the U.S.S.R. to Siberia to Chechnya to St. Petersburg. The people involved are, if not a community, a group that has unconsciously stepped in and out of each others’ families and lives for generations.
The Tsar of Love and Techno
Hardcover $25.00
The Tsar of Love and Techno
Hardcover $25.00
A book with characters that overlap and intersect without realizing it could be frustrating. But Marra works the format to its natural advantage, making empathy blossom in your heart for every character involved. The Tsar of Love and Techno is set up like a mixtape: Side A, followed by an intermission, and then Side B. It’s a book you learn to read as you read it. It’s such a joy to experience, even when full of sorrow, that you pick up what it’s putting down with ease and eagerness.
Side A introduces Marra’s fictional world and swirling constellation of characters. The Soviet state is a constant presence in their lives, even after its demise. In “The Leopard,” an artistic censor constantly compromises and represses his own humanity in order to survive, but cannot stop his heart leaking through. Throughout the book, art forms including photography, paintings, dance, and music bear the weight of the characters’ remorse and regret, their hopes and dreams, when they themselves cannot. This is particularly bittersweet considering Side A’s voices are so choked by grief, Soviet rule, and war.
The book’s “intermission,” “The Tsar of Love and Techno,” represents a turning point. The voice of a young man named Alexei marks the transition between the oppressively bleak past and the complex promises of the future. His description of the past is solemn; his aphorisms in the present are invigorating, if sweetly naïve. And he’s nothing but optimistic about his own future, spinning tales of what could happen in the next few seconds—and yet his loneliness is palpable.
Though Side B isn’t exactly optimistic in contrast to Side A, the voices begin to untwist from oppression, rising with rebellious emotion. “Wolf of White Forest” recalls the violent past of the main character of “A Prisoner of Caucasus.” “Palace of the People” reminds you of the ways ethical lines can blur.
Side B is also when we begin recognizing characters in their repeat appearances, though the accretion of references and the building of a larger world happens so gracefully you never become overburdened with a sense of what you know and the characters don’t. Marra writes with a sincerity and sense of dramatic irony that keep his book’s most tragic moments from festering in readers’ minds. Even so, I could barely read “The End” because I was too busy sobbing.
In “The Tsar of Love and Techno,” Alexei recalls when he and his brother Kolya pretended Kolya was to be sent up into space as the last vestige of humanity:
“You will have the last human thought,” I whispered.
“You will be that thought,” he said.
“You will have the last word.”
“Your name will be that word.”
Even while Marra’s characters desperately avoid vulnerability, they find themselves unable to negate their own humanity. The Tsar of Love and Techno is about families that love fiercely, even if that love threatens to cut them, even when it requires sacrifice.
A book with characters that overlap and intersect without realizing it could be frustrating. But Marra works the format to its natural advantage, making empathy blossom in your heart for every character involved. The Tsar of Love and Techno is set up like a mixtape: Side A, followed by an intermission, and then Side B. It’s a book you learn to read as you read it. It’s such a joy to experience, even when full of sorrow, that you pick up what it’s putting down with ease and eagerness.
Side A introduces Marra’s fictional world and swirling constellation of characters. The Soviet state is a constant presence in their lives, even after its demise. In “The Leopard,” an artistic censor constantly compromises and represses his own humanity in order to survive, but cannot stop his heart leaking through. Throughout the book, art forms including photography, paintings, dance, and music bear the weight of the characters’ remorse and regret, their hopes and dreams, when they themselves cannot. This is particularly bittersweet considering Side A’s voices are so choked by grief, Soviet rule, and war.
The book’s “intermission,” “The Tsar of Love and Techno,” represents a turning point. The voice of a young man named Alexei marks the transition between the oppressively bleak past and the complex promises of the future. His description of the past is solemn; his aphorisms in the present are invigorating, if sweetly naïve. And he’s nothing but optimistic about his own future, spinning tales of what could happen in the next few seconds—and yet his loneliness is palpable.
Though Side B isn’t exactly optimistic in contrast to Side A, the voices begin to untwist from oppression, rising with rebellious emotion. “Wolf of White Forest” recalls the violent past of the main character of “A Prisoner of Caucasus.” “Palace of the People” reminds you of the ways ethical lines can blur.
Side B is also when we begin recognizing characters in their repeat appearances, though the accretion of references and the building of a larger world happens so gracefully you never become overburdened with a sense of what you know and the characters don’t. Marra writes with a sincerity and sense of dramatic irony that keep his book’s most tragic moments from festering in readers’ minds. Even so, I could barely read “The End” because I was too busy sobbing.
In “The Tsar of Love and Techno,” Alexei recalls when he and his brother Kolya pretended Kolya was to be sent up into space as the last vestige of humanity:
“You will have the last human thought,” I whispered.
“You will be that thought,” he said.
“You will have the last word.”
“Your name will be that word.”
Even while Marra’s characters desperately avoid vulnerability, they find themselves unable to negate their own humanity. The Tsar of Love and Techno is about families that love fiercely, even if that love threatens to cut them, even when it requires sacrifice.