Shkola dlia durakov [A School for Fools] is a novel in five chapters. It is narrated in the first person by its schizophrenic adolescent hero known only as “student so-and-so”. The action is divided between the eponymous “School for Fools”, the family’s city apartment and, most vividly of all, the suburban dacha settlement where the student’s family own a summer house. The narration is in the form of an inner dialogue between the two halves of his personality (sometimes perfectly coherent, sometimes more stream-of-consciousness) as he describes his impressions in no discernible order, seamlessly mixing memory with speculation recounting conversations, …
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