Harry
This book simply must be read. Paints the most spellbinding picture of the USSR as a place of united hope. A shared hope of the people being exercised each day, in the face of daunting material conditions. The confidence given to a full people of a better future, reinforced through lived experience. Also reads with an undertone of tragedy, of the dashed hopes of hundreds of millions who poured effort into building the USSR.
This book simply must be read. Paints the most spellbinding picture of the USSR as a place of united hope. A shared hope of the people being exercised each day, in the face of daunting material conditions. The confidence given to a full people of a better future, reinforced through lived experience. Also reads with an undertone of tragedy, of the dashed hopes of hundreds of millions who poured effort into building the USSR.
I was never deeply deeply moved by this book. It felt a lot like Demon Copperhead, just slightly worse, slightly less emotionally engaging. It was very matter of fact, these are the events playing out, there was a strange sense of fate about it, as if the events were always going to happen. Perhaps that comes from the structure where the text is written by the main character at a later point in his life, so that it is an adult reflecting on the events happening to a child, and so there is an extra layer of detachment to the emotions and pains that the child is feeling.
I was never deeply deeply moved by this book. It felt a lot like Demon Copperhead, just slightly worse, slightly less emotionally engaging. It was very matter of fact, these are the events playing out, there was a strange sense of fate about it, as if the events were always going to happen. Perhaps that comes from the structure where the text is written by the main character at a later point in his life, so that it is an adult reflecting on the events happening to a child, and so there is an extra layer of detachment to the emotions and pains that the child is feeling.
