About the book: year / "The novel “Without a Path-Trace” is broader than purely military themes: Gutsko, apparently, is gradually immersed in everyday life, and it is precisely this that excites , stresses and at the same time inspires him the most. Critics, who no longer make allowances for age, reproach Gutsko for the fact that the novel turned out to be overly autobiographical: the same hero, the “Russian Georgian”, familiar from “There, by the Rivers of Babylon,” is shown not against the catastrophic background of an incomprehensible war, but in context of childhood, growing up, moving to a foreign city. Military service is only one of the milestones here, and, trying to thoroughly describe them all, the author somewhat drowns in the material... The novel has a strong and very emotional ending, when the hero realizes his routine life as a betrayal. He betrayed everything - the ideals he once believed in, the country in which he lives, the self he could have become.».