Compartment No 6
1st Edition
Published on 1. May 2014
978-1-84765-923-1 (ISBN)
Description
A sad young woman boards a train in Moscow. Bound for Mongolia, she's trying to leave a broken relationship as far behind her as she can. Wanting to be alone, she chooses an empty compartment - No 6. Her solitude is soon shattered by the arrival of a fellow passenger: Vadim Nikolayevich Ivanov, a grizzled, opinionated and foul-mouthed ex-soldier, 'a cauliflower-eared man in a black workingman's overcoat and a white ermine hat'. Vadim fills the compartment with his long and colourful stories, recounting his sexual conquests and violent fights in lurid detail.
At first, the young woman is not so much shocked as disgusted by him, and she stands up to him, throwing a boot at his head. But though Vadim may be crude, he isn't cruel, and he shares with her the sausage and black bread and tea he's brought for the journey, coaxing the girl out of her melancholy state. As their train cuts slowly across a wintery Russia, where 'everything is moving, snow, water, air, clouds, wind, towns, villages, people and ideas', a grudging kind of companionship grows between the two inhabitants of Compartment No 6 and the girl realises that if she works out how to listen, Vadim's stories may just contain lessons for her.
Compartment No 6 is a wickedly mischievous, darkly imaginative and completely unforgettable ride.
At first, the young woman is not so much shocked as disgusted by him, and she stands up to him, throwing a boot at his head. But though Vadim may be crude, he isn't cruel, and he shares with her the sausage and black bread and tea he's brought for the journey, coaxing the girl out of her melancholy state. As their train cuts slowly across a wintery Russia, where 'everything is moving, snow, water, air, clouds, wind, towns, villages, people and ideas', a grudging kind of companionship grows between the two inhabitants of Compartment No 6 and the girl realises that if she works out how to listen, Vadim's stories may just contain lessons for her.
Compartment No 6 is a wickedly mischievous, darkly imaginative and completely unforgettable ride.
Reviews / Votes
Wonderful, almost elegiac -- Paul Simon * Morning Star *All prices
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Profile Books Ltd
Product notice
Reflowable
ISBN-13
978-1-84765-923-1 (9781847659231)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Rosa Liksom
Compartment No 6
Book
05/2014
Serpent's Tail
€31.15
Article exhausted; check different version
Persons
Rosa Liksom was born 1958 in Lapland, Finland to a family of farmers and reindeer breeders. A renowned painter, cartoonist, children's writer and filmmaker, she is best known as a prize-winning writer whose books have been translated into more than 15 languages. After living in Kristiania, Copenhagen, where she wrote her first novel, as well as Norway, Iceland, Paris, Brezhnev-era Moscow and in squats and communes throughout Europe, she returned to Helsinki, Finland, in 1987. She won the 2011 Finlandia Prize for Compartment No. 6.
