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The First Circle (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)

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Gleb Vikentyevich Nerzhin (vih-kehn- TEE-yeh-vihch NEHR-zhihn), a thirty-one-year- old zek mathematician who turns to history and writes secretly and frantically. He is the most autobiographical of thezeks. He is a friend of Rubin, and the virgin Simochka has a crush on him, but the affair is interrupted by an unexpected visit from his wife, Nadya, who has had to live a lie for five years about her husband and now needs to disown him to save her job and her dissertation, though she loves him more than physical life. They both sense that he has...

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