yeah, he is a little hard(er) to read. He did, however, teach English
lit somewhere.

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especially after artsy and prissy GoST. I kind of like a direct in
your face brutality of his prose (like a kick on the nose :-)

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I am about 2-3ds done with EtB. It goes pretty well. The current short
story is "Strike" about a self-important union functionary in direction
of a long drawn-out strike mixed with his, err, mixed sexual
orientation. At first it appeared a little more didactic than the
previous stores but then you just sort of catch the different, more
sketchy style of the narrative and things go smoothly.

Oh, yeah, the union officials have just paid local goons to blow up
trucks the scabs used to break the picket line. And they are fighting
for a 30-hour workweek, sweet.

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There is yet another detailed (similar to the one I quoted)
description of a beating.  The last novella reads like "the city of
god" only for adults and with fewer guns blazing.