Remarkable

Absolutely tremendous book. so wide ranging that probably impossible to agree with everything. However, I think this is a must.

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different to the usual accounts of the revolution

The narrative style will be familiar to those who enjoy russian literature, a cast of thousands with seemingly minor characters sometimes appearing later in a main role. Best of all is the detail, read something else if you are new to the subject, but for those who have an interest already this will be most rewarding, avoiding the usual linear retellings, well worn anecdotes and Stalin or Tsar fixation

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Perfect story perfectly ruined (for me)

I am only 3 chapters into the book, but the story is totally captivating, and I am looking forward to the rest of it. But I am also returning this audio version and buying the physical book instead. I am quite used to certain 'Anglicizing' of Russian proper names, but I was not remotely prepared to the total butchering of Russian toponyms, last names, and even first names (!) as delivered by this narrator. Half the names are barely recognizable (and I am familiar with virtually all characters), even stress is often on the wrong syllable. May not be such a big deal for some, as long as they can still follow the story.

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Well researched but lacks structure or narrative

This is an extremely well researched book about living during the Russian revolution, and it includes hundreds of overlapping stories, following citizens from the start of the Russian revolution on. But unless you are already well-versed with the subject matter, this book remains opaque and shapeless, as the narrator does not take very much time to outline events or explain the reasoning behind what is included, or to draw conclusions from the primary material collected here.

The author jumps from theory to theory – the main thesis being a reading of the Russian revolution as a modern millenarian cult – and while this starts strong, no simple narrative of the revolution is developed on which to hang these theories. Large events, like the details of the revolution itself, are skimmed over or in some places skipped altogether, in favour of detailed extracts from letters, plays, novels et cetera. The book has a funny structure in which about a third is a series of excerpts from poems, plays and novels of the time – interesting as a way of giving flavour to the events, but I think they would make much more sense in text, where you could skim over them, or at least easily distinguish between what is quotation and what the narrator.

There is so much reading of these extracts from primary material that it becomes easy to lose any sense of authorial intention at all – once, about 11 hours into the book, the author reaches the house of government itself, the narrative plunges into several hours of letters between various inhabitants complaining about one another, asking for holiday time or funds for new coats, et cetera – all of which is laudable research but there is no serious effort to shape it into an overall narrative, or to draw strong conclusions about what this primary material adds up to. It's more showing you first-hand what life is like in this situation than a description.

In short this felt more to me like a scholastic exercise than a non-fiction work for a lay reader. Unless you already know the main players and history of the revolution intimately, and are eager for substantial primary material about the day to day lives of those involved, you may not enjoy this book.

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9 people found this helpful