Vladimir Makanin, was the great Russian chronicler of post-Soviet society, the new Russia that is seeking to expand and bringing new terror to the world today. With taut psychological depth, wry humor, caricature, and surreal fantasy, Makanin explores the roots of that society, including inside his own head. The hero of Baize-Covered Table undergoes a searching bureaucratic 'investigation', that staple of the old Soviet and even...