The People's Act of Love in Around the World in 80 Books

Mar 05, 2010 Steve rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

I was a bit disappointed after finishing The People's Act of Love. Don't get me wrong, this is certainly a book worth reading. Meek knows his Russian Lit. In particular - Dostoevsky. Structurally the novel hurtles along (like all great Dostoevsky novels) from one revelation to another, with occasional stock gathering, as a character stops to offer up some existential musing or another. All the characters are Dostoevsky weird, and some of the dramatic set pieces are first rate. (My favorite momen I was a bit disappointed after finishing The People's Act of Love. Don't get me wrong, this is certainly a book worth reading. Meek knows his Russian Lit. In particular - Dostoevsky. Structurally the novel hurtles along (like all great Dostoevsky novels) from one revelation to another, with occasional stock gathering, as a character stops to offer up some existential musing or another. All the characters are Dostoevsky weird, and some of the dramatic set pieces are first rate. (My favorite moment was probably when we first meet the mad Czech Captain Matula, at a meal where cocaine, sex, and sable killing goes on. Whoa!) The demonic (and just as crazy) Samarin is also good character, but he would have been better with a few less speeches and his heart-of-gold moment. Balashov, the castrate, ditto. Less so is Anna Petrovna, the love interest for some of the men in this strange community. And so on. The echoes - for me - are clear, but they also seem studied. The novel does hold up well until about the last hundred pages or so, and then Meek lets his grip slip. The absurdist aspects of this story takeover (and yes, I know Karamozov was meant to be a comedy, but not a slapstick one), and characters flatten out, losing some of their depth. One character's batting of grenades, or Anna's conversation with a Cossack Communist at the end, illustrate this. I started out thinking The Devils, and ended up thinking Castle Keep. Both are good (well great and good), but the tone is different for each, with Dostoevsky always playing for the higher stakes. Why? There's a God in his universe. In The People's Act of Love, the universe is simply a place of growing extremes, which in the end devour themselves (though in the case of Samarin, Meek blinks. Dostoevsky certainly didn't with Stavrogin) . And that is the difference. Dostoevsky, however dark, has his center, Meek sees none, which is fine, but if you're going to play in Fedor's sand box, you can't be surprised when people see you've left out the sand. There are, as the character Lt. Mutz puts it, "inconsistancies" in this story.
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Jan 20, 2009 Hege rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2009, favoritter, russland

This is an awesome novelset during the Russian revolution. The beginning of the book can be a bit slow with a lot of people and stories and difficult russian names. But after you have read the part where Mutz reads THE letter, this book just takes off! With a religious sects, cannibals and Czech soldier this book has a lot of surprises!

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Jul 20, 2010 Daisy marked it as to-read

Shelves: czech-slovak, russia-ussr, quit-not-sorry-unfinished

No I don't think so. Not now, anyway. Tried the first few chapters and couldn't stick with it. Other reviews say after the first few, it gets better. Maybe some other time. ...more

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Aug 23, 2007 Kate rated it liked it

kaitlin gave me this great Russian novel. it is a wonderfully descriptive story set in Russia in the winter. oh, it also involves castration and cannibalism.

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