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ellimister's review against another edition
2.0
Still not sure what all the excitement was about. It’s possible I missed something in my reading but this collection of chronological short stories didn’t appeal to me. I almost stopped several times. After finishing it, I wish I would have so I could have moved on to the next book sooner.
nghia's review against another edition
2.0
I found this fictionalised history of Soviet economics circa 1960-1970, the rise and fall of the heyday of central planning, to be disappointing. It tries to do both: telling history via fictional vignettes and mostly fails at both. It doesn't help that it develops glacially slowly -- the first 80 pages are, in the book's own words, pointless and skippable.
The fictional parts are weighted by the lack of continuity -- there are essentially no recurring characters in any of the vignettes -- and the lack of any emotional weight in most of them. They have contrived conversations where characters try to explain technical details to other people. The chapter "Shadow Prices, 1960" is a prime example of this. Instead of just having a straight-forward non-fiction explanation of something, we are instead treated to a fictional academic conference where the professor explains, in implausibly simplistic terms & analogies to his highly technical audience, for the benefit of the readers.
And on the "history side", so much is carried in the introductions to each chapter -- which break the fictional form and just related history in a straightforward way, that you wonder why other parts got buried in fictional vignettes? The footnotes are nearly necessary in order to understand the history. You end up reading so much regular old non-fiction to understand things...I'm not sure how much benefit the attempts at fiction really bring to the table.
It doesn't help that this is a fairly heavily fictionalized version of things. So the footnotes will frequently say things like "I am probably anticipating the shamelessness of managerial behaviour in the later 1970s and 1980s by making Arkhipov, Mitrenko, and Kosoy be willing to countenance an actual act of sabotage." In other words, he has completely twisted history to fit his fictional narrative.
So I felt this was neither fish nor foul. It wasn't good fiction and it wasn't good history. So what is it good for?
As an aside, I found almost the entirety of the chapter "Prisoner's Dilemma, 1963" almost laughable in its naivete. I can only assume that the author has never worked middle management or a sales job in any capitalist company where this kind of goal setting negotiation/lying is standard practice. (You sandbag your estimates to HQ, they tell you achieve 120% of your estimates next quarter, you settle at 110% of your estimates, both sides feel they won and both sides know the game is being played.) Instead of shedding any light on the realities of Soviet planning it just made me feel the author has no idea how any large organization (whatever its economic system) works. The Soviet managers complain that:
But what happens to your career in the West if you miss your quarterly sales quota by a few percentage points? If a VP misses the quarterly revenue targets by a few percentage points? If a CEO missing their earnings by a few pennies? For an already slow book a throwaway chapter like this made it even harder to persevere.
That was the flourish, just for fun -- The real tale has now begun!
The fictional parts are weighted by the lack of continuity -- there are essentially no recurring characters in any of the vignettes -- and the lack of any emotional weight in most of them. They have contrived conversations where characters try to explain technical details to other people. The chapter "Shadow Prices, 1960" is a prime example of this. Instead of just having a straight-forward non-fiction explanation of something, we are instead treated to a fictional academic conference where the professor explains, in implausibly simplistic terms & analogies to his highly technical audience, for the benefit of the readers.
And on the "history side", so much is carried in the introductions to each chapter -- which break the fictional form and just related history in a straightforward way, that you wonder why other parts got buried in fictional vignettes? The footnotes are nearly necessary in order to understand the history. You end up reading so much regular old non-fiction to understand things...I'm not sure how much benefit the attempts at fiction really bring to the table.
It doesn't help that this is a fairly heavily fictionalized version of things. So the footnotes will frequently say things like "I am probably anticipating the shamelessness of managerial behaviour in the later 1970s and 1980s by making Arkhipov, Mitrenko, and Kosoy be willing to countenance an actual act of sabotage." In other words, he has completely twisted history to fit his fictional narrative.
So I felt this was neither fish nor foul. It wasn't good fiction and it wasn't good history. So what is it good for?
As an aside, I found almost the entirety of the chapter "Prisoner's Dilemma, 1963" almost laughable in its naivete. I can only assume that the author has never worked middle management or a sales job in any capitalist company where this kind of goal setting negotiation/lying is standard practice. (You sandbag your estimates to HQ, they tell you achieve 120% of your estimates next quarter, you settle at 110% of your estimates, both sides feel they won and both sides know the game is being played.) Instead of shedding any light on the realities of Soviet planning it just made me feel the author has no idea how any large organization (whatever its economic system) works. The Soviet managers complain that:
Maddening, that was the word for it: maddening that the path to career death was separated by only a few percentage points of plan fulfillment from the other one. [...] the difference to a manager between hitting 99% of the plan target and hitting 103% was not an extra 4% on th salary, but more like an extra 40%.
But what happens to your career in the West if you miss your quarterly sales quota by a few percentage points? If a VP misses the quarterly revenue targets by a few percentage points? If a CEO missing their earnings by a few pennies? For an already slow book a throwaway chapter like this made it even harder to persevere.
roban's review against another edition
I can’t stop thinking about this book. I did not expect a story about the doomed effort to mathematically optimize a command economy with linear programming to resonate so strongly with my daily life, but as Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski argue in The People’s Republic of Walmart, a corporation _is_ essentially a command economy.
the_dave_harmon's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.25
this is an interesting book thats well worth reading. its part history, part fiction, but its not exactly historical fiction either.
the fictional aspect was good. there were good characters and it was well written narrative. but it was too discontinuous. we would leave a character and go off on a bunch of other stuff and maybe we never come back to that character or maybe we do but its been such a long time that its hard to connect.
the non-fictional aspect was also really good and showed a side of soviet history that we dont see much of. it did however leave me feeling like they left a big "but why?" question hanging out there, specifically why did their growth rates decline and stall?
the fictional aspect was good. there were good characters and it was well written narrative. but it was too discontinuous. we would leave a character and go off on a bunch of other stuff and maybe we never come back to that character or maybe we do but its been such a long time that its hard to connect.
the non-fictional aspect was also really good and showed a side of soviet history that we dont see much of. it did however leave me feeling like they left a big "but why?" question hanging out there, specifically why did their growth rates decline and stall?
vlucet's review against another edition
5.0
Loved it! Only regret is to have gotten it on the kobo, wish I had had the physical book to more easily read the end notes. Made me want to know more about economic planning and its potential/pitfalls.
canislatrans's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a fascinating look at the economics of the Soviet Union in its heyday of the 1950s and 60s. Written as historical fiction, it mixes real-life personages with imagined and composite characters in slice-of-life vignettes. These serve to illustrate the hopes and trials of the Soviet economic system at that time -- and of the people that were cogs in that machine.
There's a bit of discussion on some technical economics, but nothing too painfully in-depth. (I had the good fortune to be able to talk over some of the ideas with a current student of mathematical economics, so these was far from painful for me -- but your mileage may vary!) There are extensive endnotes giving more details on the background and sources of many of the incidents and ideas strung through Red Plenty.
I'm a little afraid I've made this book sound dry, and it's anything but. The stories are really quite good, and the characters quite real, and their lives at times inspiring, or heartbreaking.
There's a bit of discussion on some technical economics, but nothing too painfully in-depth. (I had the good fortune to be able to talk over some of the ideas with a current student of mathematical economics, so these was far from painful for me -- but your mileage may vary!) There are extensive endnotes giving more details on the background and sources of many of the incidents and ideas strung through Red Plenty.
I'm a little afraid I've made this book sound dry, and it's anything but. The stories are really quite good, and the characters quite real, and their lives at times inspiring, or heartbreaking.
alexgmcm's review against another edition
2.0
Writing it in the form of a novel seems a bizarre choice and ultimately the book never seemed to answer what it purported to investigate:
We know that the USSR had believed they could surpass the USA - so what went wrong? Why did Cybernetics, a planned economy etc. all fail?
The closest thing to answers were brief mentions of a lack of investment in the Soviet computing industry (they chose instead to copy IBM machines) and a lack of confidence in letting computers control pricing instead of committees.
It's a shame I had hoped for a more in-depth exploration and explanation of the issues. Some of the writing is good though and I learned some interesting stuff about the USSR.
We know that the USSR had believed they could surpass the USA - so what went wrong? Why did Cybernetics, a planned economy etc. all fail?
The closest thing to answers were brief mentions of a lack of investment in the Soviet computing industry (they chose instead to copy IBM machines) and a lack of confidence in letting computers control pricing instead of committees.
It's a shame I had hoped for a more in-depth exploration and explanation of the issues. Some of the writing is good though and I learned some interesting stuff about the USSR.
graventy's review against another edition
2.0
A very well-written book, but I found myself increasingly put off by the blurring of the fiction and non-fiction divide. Spufford does a very good job of sourcing the non-fiction and admitting the fiction, so it's not like he's covering up anything. I just came to the book hungry to experience life behind the Iron Curtain, so to speak, and left frustrated and disappointed by the truthiness of it all.
I felt like he handled one of his female characters poorly too.
I felt like he handled one of his female characters poorly too.
jensteerswell's review against another edition
5.0
What I liked about it: Everything. This is the first time in living memory that I read the footnotes at the end of every chapter in a book.
There is no linear narrative in this book. Each chapter is a portrait of some aspect of Soviet life in the 1950s through the 1970s, a time of optimism and social mobility for the young and educated, thanks to advances in science and technology, which were at least in part real. Some of the characters and incidents are real, some are lightly fictionalised versions of real events. All are great. To give one example, we'll take the case of Marina, who is given two chapters, the first when she's an ambitious student, and the second when she's a somewhat disillusioned married woman expecting her first child. When she goes into labour, she's taken to Moscow's best maternity hospital, where she's given an enema and forced to walk up the stairs to a ward with 7 other women struggling to deliver their babies, all without anaesthetic, because the Soviets told women that labour pains were a capitalist plot and that the secret to overcoming them was to not think about them. This happens as her contractions are 2 minutes apart. Every chapter is as filled with fun facts about everyday life in the time of Red Plenty as this one, even down to the excellent footnotes.
What I didn't like about it: There are some times when the chapter puts us inside the head of an obscure (to westerners, at least) Soviet official or scientist and you have to go back to the extensive list of characters at the beginning of the book to look that person up, which was not easy to do considering I read the digital edition on my phone, which is not the smartest of smartphones.
omnibrowbooks.blogspot.com
There is no linear narrative in this book. Each chapter is a portrait of some aspect of Soviet life in the 1950s through the 1970s, a time of optimism and social mobility for the young and educated, thanks to advances in science and technology, which were at least in part real. Some of the characters and incidents are real, some are lightly fictionalised versions of real events. All are great. To give one example, we'll take the case of Marina, who is given two chapters, the first when she's an ambitious student, and the second when she's a somewhat disillusioned married woman expecting her first child. When she goes into labour, she's taken to Moscow's best maternity hospital, where she's given an enema and forced to walk up the stairs to a ward with 7 other women struggling to deliver their babies, all without anaesthetic, because the Soviets told women that labour pains were a capitalist plot and that the secret to overcoming them was to not think about them. This happens as her contractions are 2 minutes apart. Every chapter is as filled with fun facts about everyday life in the time of Red Plenty as this one, even down to the excellent footnotes.
What I didn't like about it: There are some times when the chapter puts us inside the head of an obscure (to westerners, at least) Soviet official or scientist and you have to go back to the extensive list of characters at the beginning of the book to look that person up, which was not easy to do considering I read the digital edition on my phone, which is not the smartest of smartphones.
omnibrowbooks.blogspot.com
happy_hiker's review against another edition
2.0
I got about 3/4 of the way through this book with a bit of struggle. I could not stay awake. This was chosen for a book club. I read enough to be able to contribute a bit to the discussion. It is clearly a well-researched book and will appeal to the right reader - just not for me.