Masha Regina

By Vadim Levental

Masha dreams of becoming one of the great European auteurs. But first she must escape the drudgery of her daily existence: a father who drinks, a dull and empty city, the fear of getting stuck in a life she doesn’t want. So as soon as she is old enough she heads to the big city to claim her spot alongside the great filmmakers of the day. But she is unprepared for the sacrifices she must make to succeed. Lovers come and go the college teacher, the cameraman, the renowned German actor but Masha must decide whether she is prepared to forsake her happiness for her art: how far is she willing to go?

Part philosophical treatise, part bildungsroman, Masha Regina is at once disturbing, intellectually challenging and unfailingly entertaining, and marks the arrival of an exciting new voice in Russian and international literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Release date: Mar 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781780748627

Reviews for Masha Regina

[almigwin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of an ordinary Russian girl who wants to grow up to make films. Her escape from her family, independent life in St. Petersburg, and early love affair with her literature teacher set the stage for her future career as an auteur. She becomes well known in Europe as an art film creator. The book is written beautifully, but in a strange style, with the time frame jumping back and forth, and the narrator speaking from the end of the story about the beginning. The heroine is inordinately strong and self aware for an adolescent. Her success in remediating her lack of preparation for the school in St. Petersburg required her to study almost all night for three months. Her lack of sleep did not interfere with her daily school work. I thought this was utterly impossible. I loved the writing style but lost interest in the book at the end of her first love affair. It was not believable enough for me to continue watching her career blossom and her love affairs fail. The descriptions of St. Petersburg and comparisons with Gogol stories seemed thrown in to add internationsl literary sophistication to a rather sordid teacher/student liaison. As a beautiful 17 year old whose beauty was stated but not described, she failed to convince me of her beauty or her intellectual power. The descriptions of her drawings rang true, as did the love of her literature teacher for her, but her responses seemed impossibly detached. Relaxed, somewhat bored sophistication in a 17 year old's first love affair with a kindly professor just didn't ring true. Her unrequited love at first sight for a student cameraman/filmmaker was not believable, either. It was all too contrived. I think it would make a good film. The whole book is very visual and the scene shifting would work better as a film, in my opinion.

[vaniamk13 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Written in an extremely impressionistic style, Masha Regina chronicles the (unlikely) meteoric rise of a twenty-something Russian woman from the sticks to becoming an over-night sensation as a director of numerous Russian avant-garde films. Using inspiration from her quotidian life and loves in St. Petersburg we get myriad glimpses of the artistic creative process and the influences, thoughts and conflicts therein. Masha Regina is certainly original and often fascinating and funny, but the steady flow of fragmented stream-of-conscious thoughts and dialogue tired at times. It often seemed more like reading a movie script than a novel. Perhaps more focus was needed or perhaps (doubtful) it had something to do with the translation. Then again, my review is based on having read the book once, and due to the complex multi-level narrative running throughout the novel I suspect it might improve greatly with multiple readings.

[jessicadelellis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this book for free through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers. So this was an interesting book. I'm not sure that I "got" it, however, it was really well written and translated. The style is different than what I typically read and I liked that. It made the book unique, which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 3. That extra star was for being original and fresh. Overall, this is an innovative piece of Russian literature.

[eggsnhm · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is another book I just could not get through. I've been trying to read it for nearly 2 months, and I just cannot get into it. I found the characters to be all-too self-involved and far from sympathetic; I just couldn't make myself care at all about any of the characters. Even though I was an English major who wound up teaching writing & literature at a univeristy, I found that reading this book felt like homework for a particularly dull Russian Lit class.

[felliot-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.Passionate, talented, headstrong and ambitious, Masha Regina takes the European film scene by storm, escaping her small provincial town to become one of the most daring, avant-garde auteurs of her generation. Taking inspiration from her erotic encounters as well as the artists and poets she encounters on the streets of St. Petersburg, Masha courageously puts herself on the line by transforming her own experiences into art. But as memories of her childhood start to surface, she is forced to confront past demons - the betrayals, the cruelties. What personal price must Masha pay for staying true to her artistic vision? (from the publisher)Unlike almost any other country of origin, when one hears that a book is a Russian novel, one immediately thinks of the great novels that came out of that country in the 20th century. And like so many of those novels, Russia itself is one of the most important characters in Vadim Levental's debut novel. The book explores not just what it means to be an artist today, but what it means to be a Russian artist. Masha Regina (both the book and the character) asks more questions than it/she answers. This is not an easy book to read, but it is well worth reading. The story is told by a narrator that is never introduced nor explained. This omniscient observer jumps around in time and place and assumes that the reader has already seen Masha's films before hearing this tale of her life. The narrator also assumes that while the reader may not know the men and women that make up Masha's life story, that they are familiar with the type of people that she will meet. When I finish reading a really good book, my reaction typically falls along the line of "wow, that was great", or "I can't wait to read what this author does next". With this book my first thought was more like "I think I need to read this one again". The power of this book is not in its story line or its characters (both of which are wonderful) but in the gaps between the questions it asks and the answers it gives. There is a depth and a richness in this book that rarely is shown in an author's first work. While I do want to read more from Levental, I hope it his next book does not come out too soon because I want to take the time to think about Masha Regina (again, both the book and the character) and revisit her world as it appears in this book.