The Tsar of Love and Techno

The Tsar of Love and Techno is easily my favorite read in more than five years. It's profound, touching, and oh so incredibly clever. This is a book that I hope to get around to again someday.

First, a bit of clarification. This book is billed as a collection of stories. Why this is the case, I do not know. It's not uncommon for publishers to sell a collection with the thinnest thread joining them as a novel. Why? Novels sell better. So why would a publisher push what could easily be called a novel as a collection? I have no idea. These “stories” are all very much linked. The connection between them gives a more complete picture than many novels do. More than that, I don't think these stories could stand on their own, and that alone should be a big indicator that this is not a collection of stories. Why does it matter? Because when you first go into The Tsar of Love and Techno, you're going to want to look at the big picture. Knowing that everything in this “collection” is connected to an overarching story is important to appreciating it fully. So I will be referring to this book as a novel.

Why did I love this novel so much? Because it has nearly everything I want in a story. It's cerebral and emotional. The way Marra brings together all the threads is ambitious. As is evident from this book as well as his debut, he's a clever author with a strong understanding of how all the fragments of a story can be seamlessly pieced together. And yet, Marra knows how to tug on the emotional heartstrings. The stories of these characters seeking peace, acceptance, forgiveness, family... they're all so wonderfully heartbreaking.

What else? Well, the characters are wonderfully drawn. They're authentic in their construction and they grow in ways that are believable and captivating. The history and the landscapes are richly detailed, but in a way that doesn't cause the story to get bogged down. Marra's style is lyrical, gritty when it needs to be, full of pain, but not devoid of hope.

You know, Marra kind of reminds me of David Mitchell meets Colum McCann. Does anyone else see this? I don't like putting too much stock in comparisons, but I'll put that out there anyway.

If I had one critique of Marra in general, it's that for whatever reason his stories don't quite stick with me the way that they should for being so impressive. I don't even know why this is, and it could be a flaw of my own. Despite enjoying every passage of this novel, I walk away retaining only the broadest sense of the story. This does mean however, that I'm actually eager to read it again, hopeful that I'll pick up more on a second read. (And I'm not generally a re-reader.)

Personally, I thought The Tsar of Love and Techno was superior to a A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, a novel that is adored by so many. Marra's debut was intense, reflective, vivid, and beautiful, just like this one, but I found the added layers that spanned time and space to be enriching and entertaining. Despite not being a re-reader, I do hope I'll be able to return to both of these novels. And hopefully, Marra's future is paved with many more.