The novel illustrates St. Catherine of Siena’s famous quote, “The path to Heaven is Heaven.” St. Catherine did not say whether the path felt like Heaven at the time, but she was certain that it was, in all essentials, Heaven. In other words, Heaven bleeds backwards into our lives, until every moment is colored with its otherworldly hues. That is the feat Vodolazkin accomplishes in this novel.

Francis Bacon was the talisman of Renaissance science, producing an inductive philosophy which he advanced with all the zeal of a religious convert. But as far as he was concerned, promoting such methods required no actual conversion from the Christian beliefs which prevailed in his day.

Eurasianism, with its glorification of the Mongol Golden Horde and eastward orientation, tends to divorce Russia from its European heritage, a divorce that is incompatible with any drawing closer to Ukraine.

Geography and natural resources will motivate political conflict, but identity and national construction will determine what social cleavages can be exploited by local and foreign agents in that conflict.