This was fun to read after Petropolis as Lena Finkle is a slightly modified Sasha Goldberg. They both start out with bad hair and a weight problem, both leave a lovable and talented but screwed-up boyfriend in Russia, both end up in Phoenix and married young to an even more screwed-up American, etc. But in each case, some of the details are different in well-chosen, obviously not random, ways. So the _Magic Barrel_ satisfied my curiosity for how the life of a slightly better-looking, brighter, more materially fortunate, but less emotionally stable Sasha could have turned out. There are a lot of subplots here, and some fall into my "I really didn't need to know that" category, but overall this is engaging reading.
To make _Magic Barrel_ even better, Ms. Ulinich could have teamed up with a competent illustrator. Yes, I've read that other reviewer's appreciation for the mixture of styles and the deliberate, theme-correlated, childishness of some of the drawings. But I don't buy it, because even the better drawings are awkward. I understand the concept of cartooning, but when the artist can't draw the same character in a consistent way, well, I don't think anyone would do that on purpose. Sasha Goldberg's artistic ineptitude made for an amusing storyline and the plot device that got her to America, fine, but the world doesn't need to see what a whole novel illustrated by Sasha would have looked like. Ms. Ulinich has already proven she can supply quality literary "content"; there would be no dishonor in outsourcing the art.
To make _Magic Barrel_ even better, Ms. Ulinich could have teamed up with a competent illustrator. Yes, I've read that other reviewer's appreciation for the mixture of styles and the deliberate, theme-correlated, childishness of some of the drawings. But I don't buy it, because even the better drawings are awkward. I understand the concept of cartooning, but when the artist can't draw the same character in a consistent way, well, I don't think anyone would do that on purpose. Sasha Goldberg's artistic ineptitude made for an amusing storyline and the plot device that got her to America, fine, but the world doesn't need to see what a whole novel illustrated by Sasha would have looked like. Ms. Ulinich has already proven she can supply quality literary "content"; there would be no dishonor in outsourcing the art.
