Dreams of My Russian Summers: A Novel

By Andreï Makine

Every summer, young Andrei visits his grandmother, Charlotte Lemmonier, whom he loves dearly. In a dusty village overlooking the vast Russian steppes, she captivates her grandson and the other children of the village with wondrous taleswatching Proust play tennis in Neuilly, Tsar Nicholas II’s visit to Paris, French president Felix Faure dying in the arms of his mistress. But from his mysterious grandmother, Andrei also learns of a Russia he has never known: a country of famine and misery, brutal injustice, and the hopeless chaos of war.

Enthralled, he weaves her stories into his own secret universe of memory and dream. She creates for him a vivid portrait of the France of her childhood, a distant Atlantis far more elegant, carefree, and stimulating than Russia in the 1970s and 80s. Her warm, artful memories of her homeland and of books captivate Andrei. Absorbed in this vision, he becomes an outsider in his own country, and eventually a restless traveler around Europe. Dreams of My Russian Summers is an epic full of passion and tenderness, pain and heartbreak, mesmerizing in every way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Release date: May 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781628721164

Andreï Makine

Andreï Makine is an internationally best-selling author. He is the winner of the Goncourt Prize and the Medicis Prize, the two highest literary awards in France, for his novel Dreams of My Russian Summers, which was also a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. Makine was born in Siberia in 1957 and raised in the Soviet Union. Granted asylum in France in 1987, Makine was personally given French citizenship by President Jacques Chirac. He now lives in Paris. Arcade Publishing has published ten of Makine’s acclaimed novels in English.

Reviews for Dreams of My Russian Summers

[niquetteb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A long novel about a kid and his relationship with his grandmother and their lives. Often hard to follow, perhaps just a cultural difference through translating the Russian man's French into English...

[mtbearded1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

71 of 75 for 2015. The reading guide for this novel compares it to work by Nabokov and other great Russian authors, although I can't really see that. The book, written originally in French and presented here as an English translation, tells the story of a young man growing up in Soviet era Russia, spending his summers with his grandmother, a native of Paris. As someone who grew up in all the tension of the Cold War, I am fascinated by stories that tell of the life of my counterparts on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Essentially a Bildungsroman, the story of Andrei and his grandmother's history, the novel takes us through many years of growth, including the period when his "difference," that French background he has from his grandmother, stands in the way of his acceptance as a good soviet youth. The book has four separate, but interrelated time lines: the narrator's summers with Charlotte, his grandmother; the narrator's school years when he lives with his parents, then his aunt after his parents' deaths; Charlotte's youth in early 20th Century Paris; and the narrator's life after he leaves Russia for the West, primarily set in Paris. The first three weave their strands through most of the book. The fourth is presented almost as an addendum: and then I grew up. This is not one of my "light and frivolous" reads. Lots of detail here, and for me at least, a slow read, but worthwhile.

[stef7sa-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful novel, very evocative and poetic, with a moving and surprising end. Should be read in your mother tongue if the translation is good.

[jamesmscott-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Semi-autobiographical novel hinging on the life of the narrator's grandmother, Charlotte. From the balcony of her small cottage (or izba in Russian), the grandson hears her stylized memories of life in Paris during the Belle Époque period. The writing is elegant, as if from the period, but is delivered as if in a reverie. It comes across as so oblique that I simply could not find a sustained connection to the story. References to tyranny, great societal change, the Great War, are all glancing - unfortunate because the era of early 20th C Russia is a fascinating one. A bit too much emphasis on style, not enough on engagement.

[jane27_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

this book got rave reviews - mixed feelings - a patch in the middle was a bit circular and aimless - will read some more of his though. some beautiful passages

[epictale · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charlotte Lemmonier, the book's main character, is an exquisitely special and complex person, and to know her would have been a highlight in anyone's life. So it was a treat for me to read this apparently semi-autobiographical book about her, and the author's relationship to her as a beloved grandson and the ways in which she affected his life. The book sketched a set of dreamlike images of a time and place that I knew nothing about. In particular, for example, I was blown away by the author's vivid account of the proud, honor-bound urban street battle of the "samovars" of post-WWI and the subsequent mysterious disappearance of these supposed heroes. How logical that such events would have happened, even if I never could have imagined them in a thousand years on my own; and (fortunately) how completely alien they are to the contemporary zeitgeist.However incompletely I comprehended it, I appreciated the author's lucid glimpse into the not-so-long-ago (and, possibly, still extant?) culture of the Russians and his depiction of its many (but by no means all) differences with the westernized First World.

[gary10_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Slow starting but ultimately very satisfying story of a man born in Siberia who escapes to Paris in 1987--story based on his French grandmother who is trapped in Siberia. Very well written.

[clara53_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An absolute beauty of a book. A small jewel. It touched my heart profoundly, both by the amazing talent of the writer and by the fact that I found a lot I could relate to in his story. Also, my kudos to the translator - which I am sure I will confirm when I eventually realize my ambition and read the book in French, its original language.

[akeela_8 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a coming-of-age, biographical novel. Makine was born in Siberia and now resides in France.As a child, the protagonist spent his summer holidays in the steppes with his French grandmother, Charlotte, who regaled him with stories that held him spellbound during the long Siberian nights on the balcony. She is an engaging storyteller and her stories take on a life of their own – so much so that they become an ineluctable part of his life.When Charlotte left France as a young woman decades before, the only thing she had with her was a suitcase filled with old photographs and newspaper clippings. These, along with her almost tangible memories, form the keystone of her endless stories and anecdotes. He becomes completely enthralled with Parisian life – at the expense of real life. He was, “imprisoned in the fantasy of the past, from whence (he) cast absent-minded glances at real life.”This book, while celebrating his grandmother and the depth and wonder she brought to his life, also brought to light the struggle he experienced in finding and coming to terms with real life as opposed to the wonderful dreams and anecdotes that were so much a part of his daily existence.This book made me want to reminisce about the good old days with my grandmother. I wanted to go and dig out old photographs of yesteryear, of my grandparents in another era, posing in studios in elegant attire for a deft photographer stooped over a tripod under a black cloth :)