I do not know anything about Virginia Deloffre, if not it is a doctor in Paris and Lena is his first novel. Lena was born in Siberia, she was an orphan adopted by a distant relative Varia, which also hosts home a Moscow teacher, Dimitri, sent there by the Administration to "conduct a systematic exploration, which would guide the subsequent choice of areas drilling "and who for over twenty years remained there. Lena married a pilot of the air force, but accustomed to the great outdoors, solitude and dreams, she would not they settle in the Air Base; suddenly, his life is punctuated by the departure and return of her husband for a few days between their apartment community and its base camp, a life of habits and repetitions, the reassuring and create some stability. We are in the late 80s, her husband Vasya, he dreams only of one thing, participate in the conquest of space and walk in the footsteps of Yuri Gagarin, by the way he was selected with ' others for a new secret space project. The structure of the novel alternates the letters sent by Lena to her adoptive parents, Varia and Dimitri, where she tells them his life and returns Vasya and their lives both during these short leaves. Virginia Deloffre seems very familiar Russian history and the conquest of space, making us the benefit of his knowledge through numerous details that enrich the story, but beyond a knowledge that could be as bookish, we guess some clarifications and remarks that the author knows what she's talking and she's definitely gone to the scene. The novel is obviously not dedicated to the history and ethnology of the Russian people, it exposes two world views that diverge, those dreams of the future as Vasya and those who know simply that they have as Lena. But nothing is ever frozen, history is on, perestroika, glasnost, Gorbachev's resignation, the collapse of the USSR, will end the space project. Vasya and Lena will be found, one with less grandiose dreams and the other with plans for the future that will make him say "I have dreams too" .. For a first novel, I must say I am impressed. Writing casting, rhythm perfectly modeled on the words and the characters of the characters, especially the Lena who delights in the routine, a Slavic saudade 'The only criticism I had at the beginning of the novel, the dialogue is awful, Varia is expressed when it looks like a sketch of Vamps! I almost closed the book, which was a big mistake, because it is an excellent first novel. "Does it ever leaves the tundra? Often he had wondered what trace Lena had left his filiation with the Lords of winter. Telling her that her mother had stopped one day in the village of Salekhard to marry a Russian, but had always regretted his life before the tent? Perhaps she had kept forever in the eyes of those nostalgic images himself, simple way, could not forget. What she sang him? The hiss of the lasso in the bright air, the sky lighting up in the dark night of winter when the northern lights are lit and light ballet 'or the procession of walking on the sparkling snow sleds, and white vastness of space law abolishing the period ahead 'Is it for this reason that Lena time does not seem to flow? Is this that made this little weird? "
