Frozen cryogenically at the time of Stalin's purges and awakened in 1999 to the ministrations of a German psychiatrist in a Saint Petersburg hospital, Innokenty Platonov soars across the 20th century as something of a Russian "Forrest Gump." Which is to say that The Aviator is a tongue-in-cheek historical romp and sadder than anything, a devastatingly poignant reflection on the individual and his time.  A career medievalist at Petersburg's esteemed Pushkin House, Vodolazkin is also the author of Laurus (winner of the 2013 Russian Big Book Award), another historically complex, transcendentally fine piece of fiction, also brightly translated by Liza Hayden.