Not a review of the book by Sasha Filipenko "The Former Son"

This is not a review of Sasha Filipenko's book "The Former Son". These are my emotions from what I read. I will not recommend this book to you, since I have long preferred not to give any advice. But I want to interest you in it. So that you have your own impression, your emotions and your experiences, if you decide to read it. And this text cannot but cause anxiety, I guarantee you that.

The book was published in 2014. I first read it a few years ago, living at home in Belarus. It was 2021 or 2022 and then this book brought me down to earth. For which I am grateful to her. For me, it was therapeutic at that moment, it helped me experience the emotions that gathered inside. It seems that these emotions are inside the Belarusian DNA, especially if you were born at the turn of the century. Therefore, this text will be close to many people. 

I reread it at the end of February and again I could not let go of the feeling of fatality of what I had written. If you read it, you will understand what it is about. 

It is not about romanticism, although it has a place there. It is about debunking illusions, about understanding yourself as an integral unit within a large number. About the fact that without acceptance and comprehension of the past, the path to the future is blocked (by us). And about faith, not religious, but human. Faith that literally lifts you to your feet. Faith, without which moving forward is meaningless. And also about humility and addiction. Everything resonates with reality very strongly, which gives a feeling of merging with the characters. Brings you home, to a time when the grass was really greener. And dreams seemed soon to come true. 

If you were born in the 90s, you will definitely find yourself in it, you will reflect, remember, close the book to dig into your memory and remember the details, you will worry about the hero, because the hero is yourself. You've been to the same places, you remember the same events, you know what it's like.

I had about the same connection with the hero when I read Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" as a teenager. But Filipenko's hero is certainly closer. His name is Francis. He is ours and thinks like us, he understands you, and you share his feelings.

Here is the well-known tragedy, the funeral of the "people's poet" (who wrote prose), the closure of the humanitarian university, the terrorist attack in the subway and what thousands of Belarusians are going through now, each alone, even if not literally. 

And it seems that everything repeats itself again, the whole scenario, the circle of life.  

Will we be able to deceive this paradigm and get out of it?
The hero shows us that the main thing is to save yourself. After all, by saving yourself, you save others.