Books of the Month

'The People's Act of Love' by James Meek

Set in Siberia in 1919, this novel centres on the remote village of Yazyk, governed by Czech soldiers but under advancing threat from vengeful Bolshevik forces. Kyrill Ivanovich Samarin arrives in the village, claiming he’s escaped from an Arctic prison camp and is being pursued by a fellow convict who tried to eat him. The truth of Samarin’s story is still unproven when he’s given refuge by Anna, a widow who lives with her small son – despite the fears of Lieutenant Mutz and Balashov, the leading light in the village’s mysterious religious sect.

Meek's measured introduction to place, characters and ideologies builds into a pacy tale which encompasses murder, religious extremism, prejudice, war and cannibalism. The language of the book takes inspiration from the inflections and expressions of Russian speech (to the extent that some critics have felt as if they were reading a translation). And the novel’s title highlights the one thing that its four main characters agree on: that love exists and matters. But their interpretations of love are wildly variant, and the book explores the differences between personal love, for family and loved ones, and love for larger ideals, for one’s country and one’s god. Early in the novel a character recites the political idealist’s creed: ‘the true revolutionary has no place for any romanticism, any sentimentality ... he is not a revolutionary if he feels pity for anything in this world.' Insofar as the book has any heroes though, they aren't the idealists justifying unspeakable cruelty and violence in the name of the generations coming after them, but those who are capable of loving and connecting with the everyday things around them – in however flawed or incomplete a fashion.

A gripping historical novel which manages to deal with some harsh subjects in a thought-provoking way. Give it a try.

Susan Tranter

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