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A review by shanth
Red Plenty by Francis Spufford
5.0
How can you not like a novel which begins : ``This is not a novel. It has too much to explain, to be one of those. But it is not a history either, for it does its explaining in the form of a story; only the story is the story of an idea, first of all, and only afterwards, glimpsed through the chinks of the idea’s fate, the story of the people involved. The idea is the hero.''
Of course, as some others have pointed out this is hardly reason to not call it a novel, after all, there have always been novels about ideas, but let's not quibble about taxonomy. What this book is, is a well researched, wonderfully footnoted, novel about the period in Soviet history when some scientists earnestly believed that the communist dream of central planning and efficient optimising of the economy by the government could finally be achieved in reality thanks to advances in mathematics, cybernetics and economics. Spufford shows us how the human element enters this optimisation problem, at various levels in the form of the bosses in the Central Committee, striking low-paid workers, small-time factory managers worried about fulfilling quotas, and a whole lot of others. And if all this still doesn't get you interested, there's a chapter about lung cancer written from a molecular biology point of view, with enzymes and free radicals as the principal protagonists.
Of course, as some others have pointed out this is hardly reason to not call it a novel, after all, there have always been novels about ideas, but let's not quibble about taxonomy. What this book is, is a well researched, wonderfully footnoted, novel about the period in Soviet history when some scientists earnestly believed that the communist dream of central planning and efficient optimising of the economy by the government could finally be achieved in reality thanks to advances in mathematics, cybernetics and economics. Spufford shows us how the human element enters this optimisation problem, at various levels in the form of the bosses in the Central Committee, striking low-paid workers, small-time factory managers worried about fulfilling quotas, and a whole lot of others. And if all this still doesn't get you interested, there's a chapter about lung cancer written from a molecular biology point of view, with enzymes and free radicals as the principal protagonists.