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A review by markhoh
The Archipelago of Another Life by Andreï Makine
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.