A review by humdrum_ts
October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville

informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

 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.