Up and including to Chapter 1

[Melanie]

First impressions

[Marcella]

Just read the first 24 pages..It's just devestating...

[shakespeareandspice]

I’ve started this just after finishing Regarding the Pain of Others where Sontag argues that photography is insufficient without a narrative and reading sentences like “he was passing stools maybe twenty-five, thirty times a day. All bloody and gooey. The skin on his arms and legs cracking. His whole body was coming up in blisters.”, oh boy, the narrative is sufficient, I do not need the photographs (15). And gah, her poor baby…

I might just sit and finish this all in one go. I don’t think I have the energy to keep pausing. This is emotional beyond my expectations.

[Melanie]

This is a re-read for me but it has lost none of its impact and shock. It leaves me speechless because what is there to say. It’s important to remember that at the time the reactor blew, there was still the USSR. The countries as they are now came after. So lots of people from Belarus worked at Chernobyl. It’s like people from New Jersey working in New York City. It’s the relentlessness of the sadness of their lives for decades and then this happens as some sort of horrid joke on their existence. And the lies and the inaptitude of those in charge. Yeah I need a break from this today before I embark on chapter 2.

[Marcella]

I am with you Melanie, for me it is a book I couldn't read in one sitting. I feel like I need some time to get my head around all the different accounts and I don't want to rush through it.

[Britta]

It's a re-read for me as well, and like Melanie said, it didn't loose any of its harrowing quality the 2nd time around. Not a book I can read in one sitting. Also because the stories are so full of details and thoughts and reflections that I have to let them sit for a while before I read on.

[Keriann]

Only read 5 pages and this book has had a big impact on me already!

[Dawn]

This is just devastating. It's really taking me awhile to get through. To think these people 1) weren't told what happened and what would happen to them and then 2) when they were told everything was contaminated they wouldn't believe just baffles me. I think it was one of the soldiers working there, but it might have been someone else...anyway when he went home, he threw away everything he wore except his hat which he gave to his son because he liked it. The child had brain cancer in two years. This broke my heart. These people know something is wrong enough to throw everything away but then still don't really believe anything will happen to them.

[Keriann]

Dawn I agree, that section broke me a bit, the fact that everything we now know about radiation is due to what happened to these helpless people x

[Daphne]

Just read the first part, the story of the woman who lost her husband and her daughter. It's truly devastating.
I think I can only handle a few pages a day, because it's just too much.
Most of all, I keep reminding myself: this is real. This happened. Just one year, exactly, before I was born. My birthday is april 26, 1987... I felt connected to Chernobyl the moment I first learned about it. But I never had the heart to read about it, until now.
I'm very curious about the next pages, but at the same time, it's too horrific. Nevertheless, I feel a sort of responsibility to history, to the people of Chernobyl, to learn their story.

[Emmy B]

After finishing the story about Lyudmila and her familiy I was chrused. After that, I've decided to take my time with this book. I'm really glad that we chose to read it this month.

[MsAprilVincent]

I started this last night. I think the narrative is very powerful, and I like that the author chose to present these as monologues. There’s one segment, where a group of survivors is talking about their experience together, and I could see it staged so clearly in my head. I might use this as an assignment in my theater classes; I think it would benefit my students to dive into something that runs the gamut from emotional devastation to morbid humor, plus I know they don’t know anything about Chernobyl and they need to.

[Emmy B]

Emmy B wrote: "After finishing the story about Lyudmila and her familiy I was chrused. After that, I've decided to take my time with this book. I'm really glad that we chose to read it this month."

Great idea!

[Ruth Ann]

I finished this part a few days ago and needed time to digest what I’ve read. I keep coming back to the men talking about coming home from war in Afghanistan and then being sent to Chernobyl thinking it would be safer because no one was shooting at them. When in fact it was just as dangerous, if not more so.

While it’s not an easy book to read I’m glad you chose it. It’s definitely an important book to read.

[Daphne]

Ilka wrote: "I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, the stories these people tell are awful and I cannot wrap my head around the sheer amount of disbelief and misinformation they show. On the o..."
Just finishing this first part, I totally agree with your mixed feelings. I asked my parents (myself, being born exactly one year after Chernobyl) about some things I didn't understand or know (i.e. what is a kolchoz?). A bit more context information would be helpful.
On the other hand, these monologues are powerful examples of human emotions. Anger and disbelief, strength and love.
I need a few days to fully wrap my head around this one before I can continue reading...

Indeed, as Ruth Ann says above: an important book to read.

[Stacey]

Wow! The opening story about the fireman and his wife! So graphic, tragic and emotive! I started the book 3 days ago and I'm finding it difficult to put it down. I knew absolutely nothing about Chernobyl except that a nuclear reactor leaked. To say it's a tragedy doesn't do justice to the continued effect and pain.

[Deirdre]

This was the first time I have read anything about Chernobyl. The opening story was just so heartbreaking and left me speechless. My heart is breaking for those that suffered this disaster.

[Candace]

I think this is one of the most heartbreaking events so have ever read about. All aspects of the disaster were horrifying, what happened, how the government covered it up, how they treated people, the list goes on. I also have never read a book in this format, so I understand what you are saying about missing some context, although I am enjoying it. I am glad people were given a voice when everything else was taken away from them.

Side note, I am also very sad for the animals too. I have to read this is small sections to digest and not get too upset!

[Asha]

Very impactful- The first account is perhaps the most so and intentionally ordered that way.

The most striking aspect of these monologues is that there are similar threads with comparable imagery and description and experience running through many of them but each one is unique and portrays a new dimension of the disaster or the same issue in a new way.

It makes you wonder if there can ever be an ideal response to such an event regardless of the nature/form of government in power but it also makes you wonder about the Unique demons that your/A particular government will bring to bear on it. For example, corruption and the illegal trading of goods from the Zone would presumably be much more rampant in a country like India than it was under the Soviet dictatorship.

I can completely relate to the inability of people to understand the kind of disaster that has befallen them and imagine many rural folk not being able or not willing to comprehend these seemingly mysterious occurrences and placing their trust in what they can See and hold, in the things they think they know like their farm and potatoes and the impossibility of linen stored deep in a cupboard getting toxic as opposed to a 'war against atoms'. Not saying that in a patronizing way but as proof of our common limitations of perception and the deep attachment we sometimes develop with the places and objects we feel cannot be substituted in our lives.