The Golden Calf

 I loved both The Golden Calf and The Twelve Chairs, by Ilf and Petrov. I would say for both books, what Sinclair said about The Golden Calf:

"....Upton Sinclair “assured us that he'd never laughed as hard ashe did while reading

The Little Golden Calf.

... he announced thathe practically had it memorized.”—
Letters of Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov (1935)
There is a sadness and regret as I write this, since I had to live through all that: Yes, Ilf and Petrov make it all sound very funny, but the humor is black. When you have to put up with the stupidity, bureaucracy, cleptocracy and tiranny it gets depressing and the laughter sounds hollow.
“A grand satirical novel... There is more of Russia in this book than in a dozen treatises written by foreigners.”

— New York Times(1932)
The problem with Russia is that under Putin some of the things in The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf are still true.

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