The People's Act of Love

James Meek brings together a number of forces in an isolated Siberian village during the last stages of the Russian Revolution: a young mother who has lost her husband; a sect of religious zealots and their otherworldly leader; a shaman from one of the forest tribes and his albino acolyte; a force of Czech soldiers, unable to return to their newly-established country; and an escaped political prisoner, driven, charismatic, and wrapped in mystery. Meek gradually introduces several even more unusual elements into this mixture [some of which are revealed by other reviewers on this site, which is a pity]. The result is an exciting and relatively short work of fiction that defies easy categorization; history, romance, mystery, horror, politics, and even comedy combine in a quite unusual way. I have to say, though, that it is not entirely a success. For one thing, it demands more knowledge of early Soviet history than can be expected of every reader: to understand, for example, the timeline of the defeat of the White Russians by the Reds, the history of the Russian prison camps, and the surprising presence of the Czech Legion thousands of miles from home. For another, I personally found that the presence of such diverse elements made the novel difficult to follow, or rather difficult to penetrate to the deeper levels that the author occasionally implies, as he raises questions about fanaticism, religion, and the suitability of means to ends. The cover reviews compare James Meek to Tolstoy, Lermontov, and Pasternak; this is true in that he writes well, and captures the Russian atmosphere memorably. But although Meek juggles them skilfully, themes of this scope really demand to be developed at a length more typical of his great Russian predecessors if the book is to rise above the level of a very good thriller and become a true novel as those authors would have understood the term.

Set in Siberia toward the end of the Bolshevik Revolution, this is one of the strangest but most intriguing books I've ever read. The primary subjects are: the rise of communism and some of the underlying reasons and a religious cult that practices castration on those who wish to become "angels" while still here on earth. And did I forget to mention cannibalism? Indeed those were tumultuous and confusing times as the social order defined by czarist Russia and its various institutions collapses. A glance at the author's credentials shows that he clearly knows his subject. But his approach is to tell the interweaving stories of several different people: the headstrong Anna Petrovna who becomes a war widow and mother at a tender age and moves to a Siberian village to escape her past; her charming but elusive husband; the enigmatic but equally charming Samarin, who escapes a prison camp north of the Arctic circle; and a cast of Czech soldiers that might inhabit any war comedy, e.g. MASH, Hogan's Heroes, etc. This is definitely NOT a love story, although there are elements of love within. Once the reader adjusts to that fact, it is an engrossing period piece that makes the case for communism (as preferable to what preceded it) by anecdote.

*The People's Act of Love* is an extremely meaty novel, written with care and elegance. Amazingly, for a novel that touches on (among other things) a sect of castrates, a premediated act of cannibalism, and the motivations of a revolutionary bomb-thrower, its tone is restrained, precise, lucid. It's this tone of normality (as one critic has called it) that makes the unbelievable events described in this novel so believable, and that keep the reader turning page after page, eager to dive into the author's world. What kind of world does Meek create, then? Most of the novel is set in a small town in the Siberian outback, as the Russian Revolution sweeps from Petrograd in the west to Vladivostok in the east. The revolution hasn't quite made it to this small town, which sits in a kind of political and spiritual limbo: the Czech Legion (having been contracted by the Tsar) is the presiding authority, even though at the moment the Tsar is gone; meanwhile the town's residents, who are involved in a secret mystical sect that demands castration from the men, keep their distance from the political events of the day. Disrupting this fragile equilibrium is the arrival of an escaped convict: the spell-binding and brilliant Samarin, a man who is equal parts fantasist, visionary, revolutionary, and murderer. With Samarin, Meek has created a gripping, indelible figure, one who magnetizes the whole of the novel: we shudder as we follow the trajectory of his mind, and yet we can't help but feel shivers of excitement, too, as he takes us where no sane person would ever hope to go. In all, a beautifully-written, beautifully-troubling novel.

"He's not a destroyer; he is destruction, leaving these good people who remain to build a better world on the ruins. What looks like an act of evil to a single person is the people's act of love to its future itself." Samarin pretending to speak of another, but really speaking of himself. James Meek has written a marvelous story-telling in this novel. It portrays the Russian revolution in such detail you would think you are in the world of 1917. So many characters woven into effortless story lines, so that the story grabs our attention. The characters are revealed in a central figure, and we are able at last to understand the drama and the truth. James Meek attended Edinburgh University and as a journalist for the "Guardian" and "Observer" reported from Russia for ten years. He has been able to show us the horrific sights and scenes of Siberia: cruelty, murder and cannibalism. And, yet the sun shining on the snow, the love of a man and a woman; the everyday life of those who live the best they can. Samarin, one of the main characters shows up in tiny, poor Yazyk, a Siberian community. His story is that of a political prisoner, a run-away from a horrible place in the Arctic. He has escaped with "Mohican" a guard at this prison. Mohican took Samarin with him, it seems, to eat his flesh. Samarin's story is slowly unraveled, but not before we meet the other characters. An extreme Christian sect that castrates its members so they can be called angels. A group of Czechoslovakian legions, trying to leave this God-forbidden place, led by Lieutenant Mutz. Mutz loves the earth and a woman, Anna Petrovna. Anna is the wife of the leader of the Christian sect. She is also a woman who loves men and sex, photography and her son. All these characters and more who are puzzled about many events. They learn as we do, when the puzzle begins to fit; the meaning of the extremes of the political, the spiritual and the humanity. There are heroes and there is goodness. This is a particularly spectacular book, written by a particularly special writer. Highly recommended. prisrob

The People's Act of Love is set in an isolated religious commune in 1919 Siberia, that is also occupied by a regiment of Czech Legion soldiers who were on the wrong side of the recent revolutionary conflict. The Legion has lost a third of its number to battle, hunger and cold and is desperate to go home. Into this uneasy community trudges Samarin, an escapee from an Arctic gulag. Before his arrest Samarin claims to have been a university student, who was at the wrong place during an activist action. His trial sent him to the White Garden, from which he escaped with the assistance of another convict, the Mohican. During the long walk, he discovers that the Mohican brought him along as a "cow", a lesser prisoner that is fattened for the slaughter, and is butchered and eaten so that the Mohican may survive the hazardous trek to freedom. Samarin eludes the Mohican but fears he is still being chased by a hungry cannibal bent on revenge. Anna Petrovna is a woman who moves to this isolated community to discover what really happened to the husband she thought had died in battle. Lonely and estranged from the villagers as a non-practitioner, Anna Petrovna stakes her life as bond in order to host Samarin in her home. Has she made a bad choice? Balashov is the enigmatic leader of the religious community, who first meets Samarin on the mountain and through his actions brings Samarin to Anna. His followers seek Utopia through personal sacrifice to God, this sacrifice bringing them closer to being angels on earth. It is Balashov's fate that gives title to the book. This book gets off to a slow start. At first glance, the opening chapters appear to be individual parables instead of a cohesive narrative. The author created a complex web of interconnecting stories, for which a scorecard would be helpful to keep all the characters straight. Once everything falls into place, a reader who truly enjoys historical fiction will be transported. The attention to detail is extraordinary. Another reviewer commented that this book is reminiscent of classic Russian literature translated into English, rather than contemporary fiction. This isn't an easy read, nor one that is easily forgettable.