Book review: "A few quick words of love", by Dina Rubina

My mom gave me to read this book - a collection of short stories, for one story about a dog. It made her laugh that the writer describes exactly the same "symptoms" of dog-instincts that my wife and I always complain about in our puppy (for example, digging into stuff). So, I took the book, and as it's really easy going, I finished it wholly in a couple of days.

The book is in Russian, written by an immigrant from Russia, currently living in Jerusalem. Most of her stories are either about people in Russia - painters, writers, artists (that's the circle Rubina lived in, I guess - she's a writer, her husband is a painter), or people who came from Russia to Israel (just as she did, and as my family did...). Many stories are biographic in nature, she tells about her husband, her daughter, her friends, her dog. Some of it directly, some through some imaginary people.

The stories range from very short (5 pages), to quite long (70 pages), but all are very readable. The author's style is somewhat cynical, but retains a good sense of humor throughout and is generally very easy to read.

Many stories really tell about love (well, ALL stories have something about it), weird stories... reading about these people makes you think about life. Old loves, new and young loves, cheating, death of loved ones, death of self and implication on the loved ones - it's all there.

So, if you know Russian (I'm not sure this book was translated to other languages, though other books of Rubina surely were), and have a way to get it (again, no idea whether it's sold out of Israel, but a good chance that it is), read it. It is well written, easy and quick to read and will raise some thoughts in your head, thoughts out of the scope of a book review.