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paulap's review
slow-paced
3.0
This combines a lot of elements in Kazakhstan in the late 1980s. The Russian influence and the fall of the USSR, the identity of the new country, and most important, the environmental disaster that was the disappearance of the Aral Sea, and how that affected the local communities, in particular for the fishermen. It dealt with very interesting topics, and the writing was good, also had snippets of poems, newspapers, etc. But it is also very dense and there are a lot of characters, so take that into account.
hidrnick's review
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
filaughn's review
I listened to this on audio CD from the library because that was the only edition they had. It is very good in the bit I completed but I really need to read this one in print. Will try it again that way when I can.
spb3's review against another edition
5.0
The Dead Wander in the Desert, Rollan Seisenbayev (John Farndon and Olga Nakston)
You can listen to my interview with the translator here: https://www.hourofhistory.com/the-dead-wander-in-the-desert-with-john-farndon-hoh-podcast-ep-95/
When I first heard about the Seisenbayev’s novel appearing in English I was captivated by the cover art. I imagine most people my age have seen a similar photograph of a boat in the waterless desert that was once the Aral Sea. I have had guests on the Hour of History Podcast talk about other natural disasters such as the disappearance of the Louisiana coastline and the nuclear fallout of the Chernobyl disaster, but never on the Aral Sea.
Reading literature in translation can be hit or miss, which is why I was intrigued by the collaborative approach employed by Farndon and Nakston. Farndon tells the story of Seisenbayev’s shaman telling him to find Farndon for this particular translation in my podcast. I think it ended up as a huge success.
This book is one you must spend time with. It is not something to be quickly raided, but rather carefully read - a great autumn read. It has poetry, long dialogues, and diversions through the vast plain that we now call Kazahkstan - a refreshing introduction to a fascinating country people don’t know a whole lot about.
As it continued, I felt like I was sitting and listening intently to Seisenbayev tell tales of Kazakhstan long into the night. The story challenges us with political, environmental, and religious questions such as this: “If the officials of Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia had sat at the same table and debated intelligently, they could’ve come to a decision and saved the sea. But now what? Each republic uses the wealth of the earth as if it’s their own property. We are not thinking about our children, not thinking about tomorrow. Everything is today, everything is now, now, now… and as many gold medals for your chest as possible!” Such passages resonate far beyond Kazakhstan.
All in all, it is a compelling book that can be taken as an entertaining novel, an introduction to central Asia, an exploration of Kazakhstan, or a unique look at central Asian Islam. It is poetry, politics, and the environment and much more which results in a really pleasant experience for the reader.
Thanks to Amazon Crossing for providing a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
You can listen to my interview with the translator here: https://www.hourofhistory.com/the-dead-wander-in-the-desert-with-john-farndon-hoh-podcast-ep-95/
When I first heard about the Seisenbayev’s novel appearing in English I was captivated by the cover art. I imagine most people my age have seen a similar photograph of a boat in the waterless desert that was once the Aral Sea. I have had guests on the Hour of History Podcast talk about other natural disasters such as the disappearance of the Louisiana coastline and the nuclear fallout of the Chernobyl disaster, but never on the Aral Sea.
Reading literature in translation can be hit or miss, which is why I was intrigued by the collaborative approach employed by Farndon and Nakston. Farndon tells the story of Seisenbayev’s shaman telling him to find Farndon for this particular translation in my podcast. I think it ended up as a huge success.
This book is one you must spend time with. It is not something to be quickly raided, but rather carefully read - a great autumn read. It has poetry, long dialogues, and diversions through the vast plain that we now call Kazahkstan - a refreshing introduction to a fascinating country people don’t know a whole lot about.
As it continued, I felt like I was sitting and listening intently to Seisenbayev tell tales of Kazakhstan long into the night. The story challenges us with political, environmental, and religious questions such as this: “If the officials of Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia had sat at the same table and debated intelligently, they could’ve come to a decision and saved the sea. But now what? Each republic uses the wealth of the earth as if it’s their own property. We are not thinking about our children, not thinking about tomorrow. Everything is today, everything is now, now, now… and as many gold medals for your chest as possible!” Such passages resonate far beyond Kazakhstan.
All in all, it is a compelling book that can be taken as an entertaining novel, an introduction to central Asia, an exploration of Kazakhstan, or a unique look at central Asian Islam. It is poetry, politics, and the environment and much more which results in a really pleasant experience for the reader.
Thanks to Amazon Crossing for providing a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
mirificmoxie's review against another edition
4.0
4 Stars
*A elaborate and winding tale of devastation and survival*
ARC provided by AmazonCrossing via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Whenever I come close to thinking I’m an informed person, I come across something that reminds me I’m not. In this case, it was the situation Aral Sea. Although The Dead Wander in the Desert is a fictional story, it illuminates a true plight ignored by much of the world. It’s a real-life tragedy created by mankind.
This story was originally published in 1986 in Russian by Rollan Seisenbayev (who according to the publisher; I couldn’t find much information to verify) is “Kazakhstan’s most celebrated and honored author.” Now this story has finally been translated into English. I am always on the lookout for new authors, and I love reading stories from other countries. Let’s be honest; the publishing industry is too focused on the U.S. and U.K.. So I was excited when I stumbled across The Dead Wander in the Desert.
Admittedly, this is not a mainstream book. The writing is influenced by traditional Kazakh oral storytelling. While beautifully written, this book is not straightforward or fast-paced. There are multiple points of view, flashbacks, and points where the narrative seems to meander away from the central story. Some words are translated or defined but others are not, so that may intimidate some readers. I’ll include a content warning for Colonialism, oppression, misogyny, and animal sacrifice.
The story is beautiful though. It explores the human condition and the environmental impact made by humans. It raises important questions. While not a light or easy read, The Dead Wander in the Desert is a compelling tale.
RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 2 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars
*A elaborate and winding tale of devastation and survival*
ARC provided by AmazonCrossing via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Whenever I come close to thinking I’m an informed person, I come across something that reminds me I’m not. In this case, it was the situation Aral Sea. Although The Dead Wander in the Desert is a fictional story, it illuminates a true plight ignored by much of the world. It’s a real-life tragedy created by mankind.
This story was originally published in 1986 in Russian by Rollan Seisenbayev (who according to the publisher; I couldn’t find much information to verify) is “Kazakhstan’s most celebrated and honored author.” Now this story has finally been translated into English. I am always on the lookout for new authors, and I love reading stories from other countries. Let’s be honest; the publishing industry is too focused on the U.S. and U.K.. So I was excited when I stumbled across The Dead Wander in the Desert.
Admittedly, this is not a mainstream book. The writing is influenced by traditional Kazakh oral storytelling. While beautifully written, this book is not straightforward or fast-paced. There are multiple points of view, flashbacks, and points where the narrative seems to meander away from the central story. Some words are translated or defined but others are not, so that may intimidate some readers. I’ll include a content warning for Colonialism, oppression, misogyny, and animal sacrifice.
The story is beautiful though. It explores the human condition and the environmental impact made by humans. It raises important questions. While not a light or easy read, The Dead Wander in the Desert is a compelling tale.
RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 2 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars
roisinsreading's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
jayeless's review
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Obviously I picked this book up because I thought I might like it, but I've been completely blown away by how much I liked it. Rarely has a slow and meandering book like this been such a page-turner for me (indeed, perhaps this is the first time it's ever happened). Even though the story is full of sorrow and hopelessness, I found it addictive and enlightening about a country I knew little about, Kazakhstan.
In the main, this is a story about the man-made ecological disaster that is the disappearance of the Aral Sea. The Soviets decided to divert the grand rivers that fed this vast salt-water lake into irrigation canals, to water rice and cotton crops. The shoreline receded, exposing tons of intensely salty sand that blew away in the fierce winds, ruining the farmland that was barely viable in the first place. It would be bad enough if that were the only environmental disaster facing the region, but it's not: the salty sand is also full of highly toxic waste dumped into those rivers over decades when they still flowed; the nuclear weapon test facility in the east of Kazakhstan has left much of the land saturated with nuclear pollution, causing sky-high rates of birth defects, infant mortality and cancers; and the pesticides and fertilisers smothered over the cotton crops to make them grow at all leech their own toxicity into the environment. This book reads like an account of the apocalypse: the ocean's fish dying, the people all living with varying degrees of poison in their system, domesticated animals going wild and running off with feral packs, vicious sandstorms battering the fools still living around the sea…
The ongoing theme of this book is "man" thinking he knows better than nature, and as such destroying everything. The book does have religious overtones to it, with one of the main characters, Nasyr, being a mullah who prays continually to God to save Sinemorye, and wondering in despair whether it is God who has forsaken humanity, or humanity who has forsaken God. But you don't need to be religious to appreciate this book (I certainly am not); if you respect nature, and shudder in horror at how governments and corporations around the world wreak immense environmental destruction that would take nature thousands of years to recover from even if the damage wasn't being continually compounded on, this book will make an impact on you regardless.
The other running theme that I found interesting was the criticism of the Soviet authorities. Nasyr's son, Kakharman, begins the book as a low-ranking bureaucrat whose overriding goal is to convince the head honchos in Moscow to stop destroying the Aral Sea. There are other characters, too, like the scientist Slavikov and his son Igor, who share this goal. But the party apparatus is so stuffed full of careerists that would rather destroy entire ecosystems than admit to any mistakes, that this effort is basically futile. The book also talks about, or at least mentions, many of the horrific things that happened under Stalin's rule, like the Holodomor (where millions died in a man-made famine) and the Great Purge (where a similarly huge number were executed or sent to gulags, and since the authorities considered "criminality" to be hereditary, even children were mistreated in orphanages as "enemies of the state"). There are a number of flashbacks into the lives of minor characters to explore their lives during these times, and these passages are raw and moving. Despite a single brief section where America is described as like so amazing, they would never harm the environment! (bahaha, yeah ok) the criticism largely does not come from a place of, "and this is why the FREE MARKET and American imperialism are so great!" like Western criticisms of the USSR mostly do – instead it is with sympathy for the ordinary person, and especially the colonised person, as Kazakhs were by Russians. It's a very well-written book.
There are some reasons why you may not enjoy this book – it is quite long and mostly humourless, and it's not exactly a book where the animals are having a good time (although, as someone who hates animal cruelty and suffering in books, I wasn't "triggered" by this one – there's no real cruelty, although Kazakh society is definitely not vegetarian, and it's all of nature suffering here, not only the animals). The Kindle version seems bugged, and thinks the entire last 25% of the book is page 483, so be prepared for a book with a real length of ~600 pages or so. But man, what an entrancing 600 pages.
In the main, this is a story about the man-made ecological disaster that is the disappearance of the Aral Sea. The Soviets decided to divert the grand rivers that fed this vast salt-water lake into irrigation canals, to water rice and cotton crops. The shoreline receded, exposing tons of intensely salty sand that blew away in the fierce winds, ruining the farmland that was barely viable in the first place. It would be bad enough if that were the only environmental disaster facing the region, but it's not: the salty sand is also full of highly toxic waste dumped into those rivers over decades when they still flowed; the nuclear weapon test facility in the east of Kazakhstan has left much of the land saturated with nuclear pollution, causing sky-high rates of birth defects, infant mortality and cancers; and the pesticides and fertilisers smothered over the cotton crops to make them grow at all leech their own toxicity into the environment. This book reads like an account of the apocalypse: the ocean's fish dying, the people all living with varying degrees of poison in their system, domesticated animals going wild and running off with feral packs, vicious sandstorms battering the fools still living around the sea…
The ongoing theme of this book is "man" thinking he knows better than nature, and as such destroying everything. The book does have religious overtones to it, with one of the main characters, Nasyr, being a mullah who prays continually to God to save Sinemorye, and wondering in despair whether it is God who has forsaken humanity, or humanity who has forsaken God. But you don't need to be religious to appreciate this book (I certainly am not); if you respect nature, and shudder in horror at how governments and corporations around the world wreak immense environmental destruction that would take nature thousands of years to recover from even if the damage wasn't being continually compounded on, this book will make an impact on you regardless.
The other running theme that I found interesting was the criticism of the Soviet authorities. Nasyr's son, Kakharman, begins the book as a low-ranking bureaucrat whose overriding goal is to convince the head honchos in Moscow to stop destroying the Aral Sea. There are other characters, too, like the scientist Slavikov and his son Igor, who share this goal. But the party apparatus is so stuffed full of careerists that would rather destroy entire ecosystems than admit to any mistakes, that this effort is basically futile. The book also talks about, or at least mentions, many of the horrific things that happened under Stalin's rule, like the Holodomor (where millions died in a man-made famine) and the Great Purge (where a similarly huge number were executed or sent to gulags, and since the authorities considered "criminality" to be hereditary, even children were mistreated in orphanages as "enemies of the state"). There are a number of flashbacks into the lives of minor characters to explore their lives during these times, and these passages are raw and moving. Despite a single brief section where America is described as like so amazing, they would never harm the environment! (bahaha, yeah ok) the criticism largely does not come from a place of, "and this is why the FREE MARKET and American imperialism are so great!" like Western criticisms of the USSR mostly do – instead it is with sympathy for the ordinary person, and especially the colonised person, as Kazakhs were by Russians. It's a very well-written book.
There are some reasons why you may not enjoy this book – it is quite long and mostly humourless, and it's not exactly a book where the animals are having a good time (although, as someone who hates animal cruelty and suffering in books, I wasn't "triggered" by this one – there's no real cruelty, although Kazakh society is definitely not vegetarian, and it's all of nature suffering here, not only the animals). The Kindle version seems bugged, and thinks the entire last 25% of the book is page 483, so be prepared for a book with a real length of ~600 pages or so. But man, what an entrancing 600 pages.
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