Scholars have long noted the deeply rooted veneration of the power of the word both the expressive and communicative capacities of language in Russian literature and culture. In her ambitious book "Silence and the Rest, " Sofya Khagi illuminates a consistent counternarrative, showing how, throughout its entire history, Russian poetry can be read as an argument for what she calls verbal skepticism. Although she deals with many poets from a two-century tradition, Khagi gives special emphasis to Osip Mandelstam, Joseph Brodsky, and Timur Kibirov, offering readings that add new layers of...