The basic premise is a man trying to get to the local orphanage in a city under siege, to bring his nephew safely home. Pasha is a single, middle aged wishy-washy eastern Ukrainian man, a high school Ukrainian teacher void of passion, opinion, depth, or drive. And the thing is, Pasha represents Everyman. And the dumbing down of Everyman everywhere by commercialism, consumerism, and technology, is ultimately going to be the death of us all: avoiding the news, not understanding the issues, chortling away at memes instead of contributing to saving democracy, the environment, humanity at large.

Serhiy Zhadan is being compared to James Joyce and Jack Kerouac and García Márquez and Vladimir Nabokov, but those are writers I struggled to get through in varying degrees and in comparison I just can not believe the sheer readability of Zhadan's writing. It's consuming, permeating, visceral. I felt like I'd experienced the journey myself, but then as well there's Ukraine and Russia dominating the news real time today. To think that this aggression and struggle has been going on for so many years is mind boggling - The Orphanage was first published in 2017, and this extraordinarily timely english translation in 2021.

I'm so glad I read this for book club, for the opportunity to discuss with others, to share my absolute respect for Zhadan and his translators (so brilliant having one be a poet) and hopefully get answers to my questions: who is Peter? was Sasha epileptic? is there any hope for civilization? why is the smell of doom described as "wet dog"?