A review by booksaremyjam
The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution by Yuri Slezkine
It is totally disingenuous to ping this book as "read," but I think I deserve credit for the limping I was able to do.
The House of Government was name-dropped in an article I was reading. After skimming a book jacket that promised "A vivid account of the personal and public lives of Bolshevik true believers... [the] conversion to Communism and... children's loss of faith and the fall of the Soviet Union," I was on board, and reserved it from our newly re-opened library. I don't know much about Russian history; now's a good as time as any to learn.
My first shock was being handed a book so thick you could easily concuss someone with it. I hadn't looked at the page count, and so wasn't expecting such a magnum opus, despite a comparison to Tolstoy that that same book jacket had made.
Then I opened it.
The first part was all about geography and societal set-up. It reminded me of Victor Hugo; you want to get to the meat of the story, but he just wants to tell you about flying buttresses for 20 pages. However, I appreciated that Yuri Slezkine wanted to paint a rich picture of the living conditions pre-revolution, so my eyes marched forward.
The second part was entirely about religion. I had absolutely 0 interest in this, and blatantly skipped that part.
The third part started to get into what I would call "the good stuff:" the tsar is overthrown, etc. But Slezkine is writing the driest recounting of history here, and feels the need to provide names and backgrounds for the hundreds of players in the social and political spheres. He also assumes a certain level of background knowledge on the part of his readers, which is laughable when you remember he spent 50 pages on fucking Christianity. I couldn't do it. Life is too damn short. I returned the book to the library.
I am positive that this book is a banger for some people. I know, for instance, that the 1K+ paged book The Brontes isn't devoured by others like it was by me. But, unfortunately, I'm just not enough of a Russian history nerd to have the pre-requisites to follow this story, nor do I have the patience to slog through the type of minutia in which Slezkine seems to excel. This book is written for some one(s) out there... but it ain't me, babe.
The House of Government was name-dropped in an article I was reading. After skimming a book jacket that promised "A vivid account of the personal and public lives of Bolshevik true believers... [the] conversion to Communism and... children's loss of faith and the fall of the Soviet Union," I was on board, and reserved it from our newly re-opened library. I don't know much about Russian history; now's a good as time as any to learn.
My first shock was being handed a book so thick you could easily concuss someone with it. I hadn't looked at the page count, and so wasn't expecting such a magnum opus, despite a comparison to Tolstoy that that same book jacket had made.
Then I opened it.
The first part was all about geography and societal set-up. It reminded me of Victor Hugo; you want to get to the meat of the story, but he just wants to tell you about flying buttresses for 20 pages. However, I appreciated that Yuri Slezkine wanted to paint a rich picture of the living conditions pre-revolution, so my eyes marched forward.
The second part was entirely about religion. I had absolutely 0 interest in this, and blatantly skipped that part.
The third part started to get into what I would call "the good stuff:" the tsar is overthrown, etc. But Slezkine is writing the driest recounting of history here, and feels the need to provide names and backgrounds for the hundreds of players in the social and political spheres. He also assumes a certain level of background knowledge on the part of his readers, which is laughable when you remember he spent 50 pages on fucking Christianity. I couldn't do it. Life is too damn short. I returned the book to the library.
I am positive that this book is a banger for some people. I know, for instance, that the 1K+ paged book The Brontes isn't devoured by others like it was by me. But, unfortunately, I'm just not enough of a Russian history nerd to have the pre-requisites to follow this story, nor do I have the patience to slog through the type of minutia in which Slezkine seems to excel. This book is written for some one(s) out there... but it ain't me, babe.