From Publishers Weekly
If glasnost reflects a new Soviet openness, this self-published picture book, introduced by a sop piece from industrialist-diplomat Hammer, doesn't show it. In 1987 the Jonesesfather and sonand Wachtel, who collaborated on Classic Russian Idylls , gathered Soviet portraits and interviewsusually arranged by and invariably presided over by Zykov, the representative of Novosti (the Soviet agency that assists foreign press). Wachtel concedes that "certain kinds of people, particularly dissidents and members of the extensive . . . underworld" were therefore excluded, that "certain statements were disingenuous" and that Novosti sometimes showed them "unusual" and "unrepresentative" success stories. The result is predictably bland and simplistic. A provincial woman says, "All of the Soviet people want to be your friends . . . Mikhail Gorbachev wants peace, too. I know because I talked with his mother. She was treated at the clinic where I worksuch a nice lady." The photographs vary: several are striking, other hackneyed; sometimes blurred, frequently either overexposed or poorly reproduced. Despite the stated intention of conveying the personalities of individuals, subjects emerge as stock figures.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
