Scan barcode
A review by bluestarfish
And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
4.0
I had heard of the word "Cossack" but I would have been hard pressed to say anything more about the matter before I read this book. I did go in not really knowing anything about the story or the author, or really about the Don either.
We get the Don Cossacks in peace, war, and revolutionary times as the world is changing in dramatic ways. For a world and time and people I know virtually nothing about this book managed to convey incredible life and vividness of character and location that absolutely grabbed me. A small detail or unpredictable action from a character would just make the scene come alive in ways that I don't often experience in novels. I'm not sure I always followed all the intricacies of the politics (and there's a lot of it) but I still followed the story lead on by the people. The smells of the steppes and the trenches are brought to your nose, the colour and the wind are there. And of course the grandfatherly Don flowing through time and lives.
(I have to say I am so, so grateful to feminism and what it has done for the lives of women. A lot of what the women go through is hard to read.)
We get the Don Cossacks in peace, war, and revolutionary times as the world is changing in dramatic ways. For a world and time and people I know virtually nothing about this book managed to convey incredible life and vividness of character and location that absolutely grabbed me. A small detail or unpredictable action from a character would just make the scene come alive in ways that I don't often experience in novels. I'm not sure I always followed all the intricacies of the politics (and there's a lot of it) but I still followed the story lead on by the people. The smells of the steppes and the trenches are brought to your nose, the colour and the wind are there. And of course the grandfatherly Don flowing through time and lives.
(I have to say I am so, so grateful to feminism and what it has done for the lives of women. A lot of what the women go through is hard to read.)