Vladimir Makanin's novel has a risky and promising title. Even the sound of the hero’s “name” - Petrovich - evokes the memory of Lermontov’s officer, a brilliantly guessed type, whom other Russian writers did not pass by, placing their hero either on Oblomov’s sofa, then in the underground, or “at the bottom”. For the hero of Makanin’s novel, the underground (“dormitory”, “psychiatric hospital”) is also not only a way of life, but also a way of thinking. Petrovich is a homeless, lifeless writer who, even in the absence of censorship, is not trying to get published. What about “our time”? An anthill of people, a whirlpool of events: “new Russians” and “new beggars”, rallies, post-Soviet offices, crime - a panorama of a troubled life in which the hero defends his “I” with enviable tenacity.