A review by mikelangan
The People's Act of Love by James Meek
4.0
An ingenious novel with many interwoven stories makes this book a compulsive page turner. The reader is always anxious to know what happens next. A very brief outline is as follows. Suffice to say it is a novel well worth reading.
The story is centered in a remote Siberian town called Yazyk, which is in turmoil because of the civil war between the Whites and the Reds. It includes a reclusive Christian sect (practicing castration to remain pure) and a unit of Czech soldiers stranded in the aftermath of World War I together with cannibalism and escaped penal inmates. The reader can feel the all encompassing coldness of the location.
Extreme convictions abound as does mindless hatred.
The principle character, Samarin, wanders into the town having escaped from an Artic labour camp. The story gradually reveals Samarin's true history and character and his interaction with the community. Zealots abound as does their willingness to carry out, in the name of humanity, the most grotesquely inhuman acts.
The story is centered in a remote Siberian town called Yazyk, which is in turmoil because of the civil war between the Whites and the Reds. It includes a reclusive Christian sect (practicing castration to remain pure) and a unit of Czech soldiers stranded in the aftermath of World War I together with cannibalism and escaped penal inmates. The reader can feel the all encompassing coldness of the location.
Extreme convictions abound as does mindless hatred.
The principle character, Samarin, wanders into the town having escaped from an Artic labour camp. The story gradually reveals Samarin's true history and character and his interaction with the community. Zealots abound as does their willingness to carry out, in the name of humanity, the most grotesquely inhuman acts.