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markhoh's review against another edition
5.0
And his voice, echoing those words he had one day heard himself, was imbued with the dreamy simplicity: “What did we do? We lived there...” p205
I came across Andreï Makine’s “The Archipelago of Another Life”, in a list of books unpacking some of the atrocities of the Stalinist gulags following my reading of Tom Rob Smith’s Leo Demidov series. I’ve finally taken it off my TBR shelf and honestly I devoured this meditative and reflective book that delves deeply into the human soul. I’m so glad I crossed paths with this sobering read that really is a call to ‘live’, to live simply and honestly remembering the few things that really matter.
Reminiscent of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, The Archipelago of Another Life is a narrative within a narrative, set in far eastern edge of Russia’s Siberia in the final months of Stalin’s regime. Pavel Gartsev, sent on a military exercise to test resistance measures to nuclear attack, finds himself in a crew of five soldiers on the hunt for a labour camp prison escapee. In pursuit of the fugitive, the toxic horrors of the Soviet regime quickly become evident.
But this is more than a story about chasing a fugitive, this is a story about humanity. Pavel navigates more than the harsh environment of the taiga, he navigates the brutal, self preserving, and dictatorial way of being entrenched in the psyche of a culture subjugated to a cruel and horrific regime. Treading the tightrope of not disobeying unrealistic and excessively vile orders while retaining some semblance of humanness takes every ounce of Pavel’s energy and ultimately this is tested to the very core.
“Thanks to the rag doll embedded in all our brains, any idea of improving humanity was a chimera. The great doctors of the soul hoped to eliminate the bacillus that impelled us to hate, lie, and kill. But, without it, the world would have had no history, no wars, no great men”. P132
Ultimately this is a story of the survival of the human soul, the coming to the present moment and valuing and noticing it for all it is worth and the realisation that less is ultimately more and that the value of life is not what you get but what you are. Loved this story. 5 stars.
I came across Andreï Makine’s “The Archipelago of Another Life”, in a list of books unpacking some of the atrocities of the Stalinist gulags following my reading of Tom Rob Smith’s Leo Demidov series. I’ve finally taken it off my TBR shelf and honestly I devoured this meditative and reflective book that delves deeply into the human soul. I’m so glad I crossed paths with this sobering read that really is a call to ‘live’, to live simply and honestly remembering the few things that really matter.
Reminiscent of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, The Archipelago of Another Life is a narrative within a narrative, set in far eastern edge of Russia’s Siberia in the final months of Stalin’s regime. Pavel Gartsev, sent on a military exercise to test resistance measures to nuclear attack, finds himself in a crew of five soldiers on the hunt for a labour camp prison escapee. In pursuit of the fugitive, the toxic horrors of the Soviet regime quickly become evident.
But this is more than a story about chasing a fugitive, this is a story about humanity. Pavel navigates more than the harsh environment of the taiga, he navigates the brutal, self preserving, and dictatorial way of being entrenched in the psyche of a culture subjugated to a cruel and horrific regime. Treading the tightrope of not disobeying unrealistic and excessively vile orders while retaining some semblance of humanness takes every ounce of Pavel’s energy and ultimately this is tested to the very core.
“Thanks to the rag doll embedded in all our brains, any idea of improving humanity was a chimera. The great doctors of the soul hoped to eliminate the bacillus that impelled us to hate, lie, and kill. But, without it, the world would have had no history, no wars, no great men”. P132
Ultimately this is a story of the survival of the human soul, the coming to the present moment and valuing and noticing it for all it is worth and the realisation that less is ultimately more and that the value of life is not what you get but what you are. Loved this story. 5 stars.
arirang's review against another edition
4.0
The Archipelago of Another Life, translated by Geoffrey Strachan from Andreï Makine's L'Archipel d'une autre vie, is the 14th novel in English by the pair, all of which I have read and savoured for their exquisite prose. Compared to the previous novel, A Woman Loved, this is more of a return to more familiar territory.
The majority of the novel is narrated in the first person by an army reservist, Grutsev, from 1952-3, towards the end of Stalin's regime and the early years of the Cold War. Aged 27, having just completed a thesis on “The Marxist-Leninist concept of the Legitimacy of revolutionary violence”, still traumatised by what he witnessed in the second world war, orphaned as a child 20 years earlier after his parents were victims of an act of sabotage at a dam whose construction they were supervising (an act which proved to have a rather less epic motivation that at first appeared) and recently betrayed in love, he is almost relieved when called up and sent to Siberia for an exercise to simulate preparation for the imminently expected nuclear war with the US.
But while there, a prisoner escapes from a nearby camp and a group of 5 men is formed to track down the prisoner, and return them alive for exemplary punishment:
- Butov, a major, war veteran and in military charge: Plump and benevolent, he was not a man to go looking for trouble.
- Luskas,a security officer, in ideological charge and practically superior to Butov: A report written by him would suffice for any one of us to be arrested and sent to a camp. .. believing that he served an idea, Luskas was intolerant to life’s imperfections.
- Ratinsky: A young officer in the regular army, pompously aware of his rank .. he had always struck me as dangerous, on account of his relentless ambition
- Vassin, another reservist, in charge of the tracking dog: One of the rare comrades I could confide in, I had come across this sergeant in the last days of the war and was struck by how at odds his great courage was with his very short stature ... seven years later we met up again at this training area.
And Grutsev, who wonders quite what his role is, only for Vassin to inform him, cynically, that he is the prepared scapegoat if the mission fails:
I only half believed him. The beauty of the taiga was absorbing us into its slow, green, swaying rhythm, far removed from the spite of petty thoughts that might set us at one another’s throats. After that spell in my anti-atomic tomb, I was now walking along feeling as if I could soar aloft towards the stained-glass window that was the sky framed by the branches of trees, and absorb the heady intoxication of the air, the vastness of the horizon and, above all, the wind that came from the ocean, connecting the tiniest needles of fan cedar tree to that luminous infinity in which we were nothing. I filled my lungs to the point of giddiness, succumbing for a few seconds to a crazy hope: that the only purpose of our expedition might be this light, this impulse for freedom ...
The story that follows is a rather artificial one - the escapee is clearly more familiar with the terrain and appears to be toying with the pursuers, letting them get close but never quite catch up. And one by one each of the soldiers has to drop out of the chase, until, as rather flagged in the opening line of the novel, Grutsev is in solitary pursuit, although more following the prisoner, with whom he feels increasing kinship, than in pursuit.
Pure plot wise this is a rather cliched adventure story but it is elevated, as in all of Makine’s novels, in Geoffrey Strachen’s translations, by the soaring lyricism of his prose,.
One recurrent image is the vastness, but also the beauty, of the land and the promise of the vast Pacific Ocean that always seems to be just over the horizon - Grutsev compares the land to the pre-historic super-continent Rodinia and the Pacific to the accompanying super-ocean Mirovia.
Another is that of a ragdoll, originally found by him in the ruins of the flood that swept his parents away:
The sight of this scrap of fabric gave me a sense of the extreme vulnerability of my own body. That ragdoll became enbedded within me - like a kind of guardian angel that, from now on, would counsel caution, compromise, resignation.
this rag-doll, a little like Steve Peters, chimp inhibits Grutsev in any hint of rebellion or independent thought.
The nature of the tale is also justified by the novel's framing device, which makes it clear that we aren't hearing Grutsev's contemporary account, but rather a story he tells 10 years later to a young student, and in turn the account we are reading is told by the man who was that student, another 40 years later in 2003, when he revisits the area. There is almost a slight Life of Pi hint as to whether what we are reading is what actually happened or an idealised version.
Overall - not absolute Makine's finest - Memories of Our Russian Summers, his breakthrough, Prix Goncourt and Prix Médicis winning Le Testament français, is still perhaps his best. And the plot will be too artificial for some - but then Makine should be read for his prose not his plots, and here it is a strong as ever. 4 stars.
The majority of the novel is narrated in the first person by an army reservist, Grutsev, from 1952-3, towards the end of Stalin's regime and the early years of the Cold War. Aged 27, having just completed a thesis on “The Marxist-Leninist concept of the Legitimacy of revolutionary violence”, still traumatised by what he witnessed in the second world war, orphaned as a child 20 years earlier after his parents were victims of an act of sabotage at a dam whose construction they were supervising (an act which proved to have a rather less epic motivation that at first appeared) and recently betrayed in love, he is almost relieved when called up and sent to Siberia for an exercise to simulate preparation for the imminently expected nuclear war with the US.
But while there, a prisoner escapes from a nearby camp and a group of 5 men is formed to track down the prisoner, and return them alive for exemplary punishment:
- Butov, a major, war veteran and in military charge: Plump and benevolent, he was not a man to go looking for trouble.
- Luskas,a security officer, in ideological charge and practically superior to Butov: A report written by him would suffice for any one of us to be arrested and sent to a camp. .. believing that he served an idea, Luskas was intolerant to life’s imperfections.
- Ratinsky: A young officer in the regular army, pompously aware of his rank .. he had always struck me as dangerous, on account of his relentless ambition
- Vassin, another reservist, in charge of the tracking dog: One of the rare comrades I could confide in, I had come across this sergeant in the last days of the war and was struck by how at odds his great courage was with his very short stature ... seven years later we met up again at this training area.
And Grutsev, who wonders quite what his role is, only for Vassin to inform him, cynically, that he is the prepared scapegoat if the mission fails:
I only half believed him. The beauty of the taiga was absorbing us into its slow, green, swaying rhythm, far removed from the spite of petty thoughts that might set us at one another’s throats. After that spell in my anti-atomic tomb, I was now walking along feeling as if I could soar aloft towards the stained-glass window that was the sky framed by the branches of trees, and absorb the heady intoxication of the air, the vastness of the horizon and, above all, the wind that came from the ocean, connecting the tiniest needles of fan cedar tree to that luminous infinity in which we were nothing. I filled my lungs to the point of giddiness, succumbing for a few seconds to a crazy hope: that the only purpose of our expedition might be this light, this impulse for freedom ...
The story that follows is a rather artificial one - the escapee is clearly more familiar with the terrain and appears to be toying with the pursuers, letting them get close but never quite catch up. And one by one each of the soldiers has to drop out of the chase, until, as rather flagged in the opening line of the novel, Grutsev is in solitary pursuit, although more following the prisoner, with whom he feels increasing kinship, than in pursuit.
Pure plot wise this is a rather cliched adventure story but it is elevated, as in all of Makine’s novels, in Geoffrey Strachen’s translations, by the soaring lyricism of his prose,.
One recurrent image is the vastness, but also the beauty, of the land and the promise of the vast Pacific Ocean that always seems to be just over the horizon - Grutsev compares the land to the pre-historic super-continent Rodinia and the Pacific to the accompanying super-ocean Mirovia.
Another is that of a ragdoll, originally found by him in the ruins of the flood that swept his parents away:
The sight of this scrap of fabric gave me a sense of the extreme vulnerability of my own body. That ragdoll became enbedded within me - like a kind of guardian angel that, from now on, would counsel caution, compromise, resignation.
this rag-doll, a little like Steve Peters, chimp inhibits Grutsev in any hint of rebellion or independent thought.
The nature of the tale is also justified by the novel's framing device, which makes it clear that we aren't hearing Grutsev's contemporary account, but rather a story he tells 10 years later to a young student, and in turn the account we are reading is told by the man who was that student, another 40 years later in 2003, when he revisits the area. There is almost a slight Life of Pi hint as to whether what we are reading is what actually happened or an idealised version.
Overall - not absolute Makine's finest - Memories of Our Russian Summers, his breakthrough, Prix Goncourt and Prix Médicis winning Le Testament français, is still perhaps his best. And the plot will be too artificial for some - but then Makine should be read for his prose not his plots, and here it is a strong as ever. 4 stars.
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