Futility: A Novel on Russian Themes

William Alexander Gerhardi was born into two cultures and spent his first novel mining that double inheritance for comedy. The result is a sparkling, mischievous portrait of Russians seen through English eyes, and Englishmen seen through Russian eyes, with each perspective exposing the prejudices and fascinations of the other. The novel follows an Englishman on a journey into Russia, but really it's an expedition into the gap between how we see ourselves and how others see us. Gerhardi's gift is rendering this cultural collision not as polemic but as farce that somehow deepens into genuine feeling. Edith Wharton, in her preface, praised his "true novelist's objectivity" - the rare ability to mock both sides equally while illuminating both. It's a book that treats the Russian soul as inexhaustibly strange and endlessly funny, from the vodka-soaked philosophies to the railway carriages full of doomed optimists. First published in 1922, it remains a delicious example of Anglo-Russian wit, for readers who like their comedy literate and their cultural satire served with a straight face.