I struggle to begin a post about a book so unusual, eye-opening, moving, enlightening and even entertaining that I know I won't do it justice. Alexievich has spent decades recording lengthy conversations of ordinary former Soviets: Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Tajiks, and Armenians, among others. Through the voices of a huge array of people representing all walks of the post-Soviet experience, the reader is taken inside the fall of Communism in a new way. The west experienced the collapse of the USSR with almost unalloyed jubilation; the picture looks different from the point of view of many ordinary Russians for whom the Revolution has ranged from disappointing to terrifying. I especially appreciated the thoughts of those who seemed to have had real love for the Soviet ideal. These speakers will concede the excesses of Stalinism but affirm that the notion of working for society as a whole rather than oneself alone had meaning for them, and that they are unmoored by the excesses, vulgarity, violence, and indifference of the capitalist 'freedom' they now enjoy.
Alexievich's technique is amazing. She allows her subjects to speak without filter and without seeming to insert herself into the process. The beauty lies in the choice and juxtaposition of subjects, and what I assume must be an amazing sympathetic quality, so intense is the material she's drawn from these people.
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