Where I come from, life is unfit to be lived. Given the strong winds and poor public transport, whatever you plan to do turns into an immensely arduous undertaking. At the age of fourteen you are already incredibly weary, and you don't get a proper break until you're fourty-five. Very often people go out shopping and don't come back, or else they write a novel and on page 2,000, they suddenly realize how confusingly out of hand the whole thing has got and start all over again from the beginning. It is a timeless life, one of the gtreat achievements of which is the chance to die in one's own bed.

From Russian Disco by Wladimir Kaminer (Ebury Press; August 1, 2002)