Allow me to be a voice of dissent in the rumble.
I thought this story was terribly, hauntingly beautiful. The opening passage of the two lovers, modest and so sweetly falling into love filled me with apprehension unlike recent horror stories have; this being old school Russian, and this also being Pseudopod, I knew that these two were doomed and I knew it was going to break my heart to listen to it happen. I appreciated the slow, languid pace the story took, and it was paired perfectly with narrator, who made me feel like I was floating on this cold, quiet river taking me somewhere I didn't really want to go, but felt compelled to go anyways.
Listening to this actually reminded me more of poetry than prose, to be honest, which is where I think the trouble in following the actual story spawned from. It flowed almost too well, and it was easy to drift away. At least, until the final act. The writing with Nemovetsky descend deeper and deeper into helplessness was so different from the writing where he was in control, it was like a punch to the gut. The writing wasn't quite beautiful anymore; it was harsh, staccato, and made me uncomfortable. Frankly, I felt awful listening to it, which was the most perfect feeling from this situation. Straight up, I think this story and the narrator are one of my favorites from this year. (Although, I did not like the accent switch. It was waaaaaaay jarring, and took me straight out of the story for a bit. Understand why she went that way, but think a better decision would've been to stick with the Russian all the way through. How did southern Americans get to Russia? We'll never know!)
Alisdair made me cry. He swept in like a smooth voiced eagle, taking me away from my Russian literature sad place. Thank you, sir, you do amazing work.