Word: thrall
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...successful novels have spawned a curious mass-market samizdat that differs sharply from the writings of dissidents. The newest underground hit is At the Last Frontier, a trashy historical novel by Valentin Pikul about Grigori Rasputin, the sexy, self-styled holy man who held the Russian imperial family in thrall. Originally published in the magazine Our Contemporary, which has a circulation of 300,000, the novel caused a sensation as much for its scenes of debauchery as for its virulent antiSemitism. Unfavorable reviews, which criticized the book for its non-Marxist attitudes and hostile treatment of Jews, merely piqued readers...
...resolution, no escapes other than the temporary ones offered by a nightly dose of beer drinking and western fantasy. That mechanical animal is a peculiarly apt metaphor for their way of life: it endlessly repeats itself until, like all mechanized fantasies, it must madden anyone caught in its thrall. Nor can the contraption be broken - any more than most people can be broken of the habits, routines and saving dreams of their cramped lives...