36 pages • 1 hour read
Anthony MarraThe Tsar of Love and Techno
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Side B, Story 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Side B, Story 2 Summary: “Palace of the People”
In this story, we reencounter Vladimir (the nephew of Roman Markin, the censor artist from the opening story) and his son, Sergei. Their relationship is toxic, with only few moments of grace and tenderness between them. Vladimir is a criminal, and Sergei follows in his footsteps. Vladimir works with a man in a wheelchair, Kirill, who begs in St. Petersburg. After a summer working together, Sergei turns on Kirill and nearly beats him to death. Meanwhile, Vladimir is in jail, his life a sad epilogue to what could have been his father’s legacy. When Sergei meets Kirill again, Kirill shoots him in the knee.
Side B, Story 2 Analysis
This story, just as the previous story, casts a complicated light on parent-child relationships. While in “Wolf of White Forest” we see the daughters and mothers betrayed, here the father-son duo Vladimir and Sergei feed off each other’s criminal, menacing energy. Yet, given Vladimir’s family history, one can only assume that his actions come from pain and trauma.
The ironic tragedy is that Sergei is now Vladimir’s only legacy. Early in the story, for instance, as Sergei recalls his childhood and first introduction to the life of crime that will eventually dominate his own narrative, he remembers his father interrogating him to prepare him for his life of crime. Vladimir believes that criminal preparation is what his son needs more than an education. Sergei won’t move to another social level. Rather, Vladimir expects Sergei to follow in his footsteps, even if he does love him in a complicated, repressed manner. As Vladimir still works through his own demons for having manufactured a story about his uncle, Roma Markin from “The Leopard,” he is unable to provide moral guidance to Sergei.
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By Anthony Marra
