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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-paced
The consensus of ***1/2 seems about right; extra half-star for generous and compelling glossary and bibliography.
An excellent and lively telling of both the February and October revolutions in 1917, with a particularly good look at the intra-Bolshevik and intra-left factionalism that helped determine the final outcome. Miéville's novelistic chops are on full display here and are a welcome means of capturing the dynamism and contingency of that pregnant moment in world history. There are moments when the specific actors get lost amidst each other, but the final moments of Kerensky's Provisional Government are told with aplomb. Great narrative of these heady days.
Earlier this year, I read “Doctor Zhivago” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1417971994), which I have to say is an absolute masterpiece. But as I read it, I couldn’t help but feel like I didn’t know as much as I should have liked about the story’s setting. Canadian history classes don’t really go into details about the Russian Revolution: we are told that the Bolsheviks assassinated the tsar and his family and that life in Russia was very difficult and dangerous for the following seventy-five years (not that it looks especially easier now, but let’s save that conversation for later) – and that’s pretty much it. I was itching to understand the circumstances of Pasternak’s story better when I remembered that in a fit of fangirl-madness, I’d gotten a copy of China Mieville’s nonfiction book about that exact topic, and that it had been sitting on my non-fiction shelf for a while… No time like the present, especially since my pile of Russian literature is rather imposing.
Yes, I confess that I’ll get any book my beloved China publishes, but his choice of topic for a nonfiction book is very interesting: he meant this as a non-intimidating narrative of the Russian Revolution, for people who (like me, I guess), had a very superficial understanding of these events and who were curious enough to want to read more about it - but not masochistic enough to dive into the more ponderous political science works that are out there. It’s also not a surprising choice: he’s never made a secret of his political leanings, and did write a PhD about Marxism and international law, so I felt confident he’d know what he was talking about with “October”.
I wondered how balanced an account of the Revolution this would be, given Mieville’s personal politics, but I also felt very curious to know how would one of the most significant events of the 20h century sound, as told by a genius of New Weird? As it turns out, pretty damn good! Mieville is an out-of-this-world storyteller, and he uses his well-honed skills to take the reader through 1917 the way no dry academic text on the subject could hope to do. He sets the stage by giving the reader a good piece of historical context, then describes, month by month, the tumultuous year that redefined Russia.
I’m not sure how this book fares against other works on the topic, but I learnt a lot! The inefficiency of the tsar and his government, added to the pressure cooker of the Great War pushing at Russia’s borders certainly makes an uprising seems unavoidable, but I confess I had no idea how divided and politically fickle the whole thing was: so many factions, all pushing against each other constantly, often in less than honest ways, to gain power.
This book is a surprisingly gripping narrative that doesn’t read like non-fiction at all. If all history books were written like this, I bet kids would pay more attention in class, and we wouldn’t need syrupy historical fiction cluttering our shelves! My only complaint (but this is in no way Mieville’s fault) is that there are so many people involved in this convoluted and messy bit of history that it can be a bit hard to keep everyone and their allegiances straight; I would have loved a diagram! The narrative also stops at the end of Red October: I would have loved another hundred pages about the immediate aftermath!
Very informative, but not overwhelming: definitely recommended if you are curious about the topic. 3 and a half stars, rounded up.
Yes, I confess that I’ll get any book my beloved China publishes, but his choice of topic for a nonfiction book is very interesting: he meant this as a non-intimidating narrative of the Russian Revolution, for people who (like me, I guess), had a very superficial understanding of these events and who were curious enough to want to read more about it - but not masochistic enough to dive into the more ponderous political science works that are out there. It’s also not a surprising choice: he’s never made a secret of his political leanings, and did write a PhD about Marxism and international law, so I felt confident he’d know what he was talking about with “October”.
I wondered how balanced an account of the Revolution this would be, given Mieville’s personal politics, but I also felt very curious to know how would one of the most significant events of the 20h century sound, as told by a genius of New Weird? As it turns out, pretty damn good! Mieville is an out-of-this-world storyteller, and he uses his well-honed skills to take the reader through 1917 the way no dry academic text on the subject could hope to do. He sets the stage by giving the reader a good piece of historical context, then describes, month by month, the tumultuous year that redefined Russia.
I’m not sure how this book fares against other works on the topic, but I learnt a lot! The inefficiency of the tsar and his government, added to the pressure cooker of the Great War pushing at Russia’s borders certainly makes an uprising seems unavoidable, but I confess I had no idea how divided and politically fickle the whole thing was: so many factions, all pushing against each other constantly, often in less than honest ways, to gain power.
This book is a surprisingly gripping narrative that doesn’t read like non-fiction at all. If all history books were written like this, I bet kids would pay more attention in class, and we wouldn’t need syrupy historical fiction cluttering our shelves! My only complaint (but this is in no way Mieville’s fault) is that there are so many people involved in this convoluted and messy bit of history that it can be a bit hard to keep everyone and their allegiances straight; I would have loved a diagram! The narrative also stops at the end of Red October: I would have loved another hundred pages about the immediate aftermath!
Very informative, but not overwhelming: definitely recommended if you are curious about the topic. 3 and a half stars, rounded up.
Quite enjoyed it, even though it is very much just an extremely involved history lesson. Who likes the Russian revolution? China Miéville likes the Russian revolution. He's not terribly fond of what came after, however.
I really enjoyed this book when I began, but I regret to say that I got way too bogged down in the details of the history of an event I was previously only dimly familiar with, and struggled to keep reading. Mieville is a very good author, and he presented this history of the Russian Revolution as entertainingly as you probably can with so much detail included. But I grew tired of it.
I also think I was expecting more energy in the story, and more emphasis on the individual characters like Lenin and Kerensky. More pressingly, I was hoping for some actual analysis of the revolution, where it went right, where it went wrong, and such musings by Mieville were largely absent. Instead, this was mostly a chronological accounting of the events leading up to the Bolshevik takeover, with little judgment or analysis interspersed.
I'm glad I read it, and I certainly know more about the Russian Revolution than I ever did before, but I'm also glad to be done.
I also think I was expecting more energy in the story, and more emphasis on the individual characters like Lenin and Kerensky. More pressingly, I was hoping for some actual analysis of the revolution, where it went right, where it went wrong, and such musings by Mieville were largely absent. Instead, this was mostly a chronological accounting of the events leading up to the Bolshevik takeover, with little judgment or analysis interspersed.
I'm glad I read it, and I certainly know more about the Russian Revolution than I ever did before, but I'm also glad to be done.
Marvelously written account of the revolutionary events in 1917 Russia.
Felt like this was almost fantastic but not quite. Given the author it sometimes just clunked along. The bits that worked drag you fully into events. Useful bibliography
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
I normally don’t write reviews of nonfiction here, but October is a special case. If, as Hayden White says, history has been thoroughly compromised by narrative, it stands to reason that novelists should get a crack at it eventually. And few are a better fit for this subject material than China Mieville. The best parts of his Perdido Street Station were…well, the bits with the giant interdimensional spider, but the second-best parts were the scenes of a city on the brink, wracked by clashes between strikers and police. From the start, Mieville is transparent with his goals (October is meant as an entertaining introductory text written from the perspective of a passionate leftist) and his limitations (he is not a historian by trade and does not read Russian, though his bibliography is around as thorough as it can be in light of that.) And with those in mind, October is a great success. The Russian Revolution is well-trodden historical ground (both in general and also for me personally), and yet Mieville has turned the Bolsheviks into the protagonists of a revolutionary thriller, his powers of story such that tension is breathed into the most foregone conclusions. If this is not the best introduction to the topic, it's certainly the most enjoyable read. It’s all the more impressive that he mostly manages this without descending into apologia, the conclusion candidly acknowledging that it all pretty much went to shit soon after. Does that sorry outcome disqualify us from celebrating brief moments of possibility and hope? Mieville says no, and his argument is compelling.
This was a beautifully written narrative of the year leading up to one of the most mythologized points in modern history—I loved it :)