Abstract:
From out the angst and antagonisms of the everyday arises the literary epiphanies of Mishka Zakharin’s black bile… the inculcations and inanities, the wit, the wisdom, and the woes of the very primordial engorged spleen of his soul… The Spleen of Fiery Dragons is a collection of Zakharin’s usual contradicting extremes—from bleakest despair of past misgivings, to brightest optimism for the future, or just random creativity and chaos in the moment, he epitomizes what Pushkin so eloquently described: “We still, alas, cannot forestall it—This dreadful ailment’s heavy toll; The spleen is what the English call it, We call it simply Russian Soul.”