Nevertheless, upon his return to the Soviet Union he still retained the stigma of having been a prisoner of war and was often relocated because of political reasons. View 2 comments. This is easily in the top ten of best books I have ever read. Aitmatov is an over looked genius. While the translation I read is less than the best, there are passages so lyrical they could easily pass for poetry.
I attempted to give a review of the book to my Toastmasters Club and discovered that it is simply too complex and filled with layers of meaning to cover in a 7 minute speech. I cannot do it justice here.
I will just note that anyone interested in any of the following will like this book This is easily in the top ten of best books I have ever read.
I will just note that anyone interested in any of the following will like this book: Soviet History from World War II to the s. Growing old. It carries the reader on the flow of the narrative.
The hard part comes when you realize you are nearing the last page and will have to go to work to integrate all of what you've read into your consciousness, View all 3 comments.
A fervent tale that reveals just how real, how surreal, how drastic, the gap is between modern and traditional lifestyles. The prose, the imagery, and the outcome of this story transport me to a discarded, burnt out, rusting hull of a train, plane, or submarine at the banks of a receding sea, invisible radiation raining down, the last pick of cotton long gone from an abused land. How far is it then to find beauty in a simple hut or the explosion of fresh yogurt on your tongue? Aug 02, Naeem rated it it was amazing.
It was one of the best set of students I ever had. One of them, Kydr from Kyrgyzstan -- whom I met again one day inside the Blue Masjid in Istanbul -- gave me this book to read. He said it was one of the best books by a world class writer. I had my doubts. But then I read it. And wow! In part its a homage to to Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
But mostly it is about the encounter between the traditional cultures conquered first by Russia and then by the USSR and the modernity that this conquering brought. I have sometimes thought that Achebe's Things Fall Apart is the only plot that 3rd worlders writers write. Here is a version of it. But the details are utterly different. And so is the spirit of the prose. This book takes you there -- in time and place. There are actually people who rated this book 1 star.
For me it is one of the best books I have ever read. It is so simple and yet so powerful. A very very very strong recommendation. I would say, it is a book of practical philosophy. Dec 05, Ruslan Georgiev rated it it was amazing. This is the third novel I've read by the Kyrgyz writer and again he manages to make me fall in love in his characters and narrative.
There is something special and unique in Aitmatov's writing that I seldom see in other authors. I especially admire is his skill to describe nature and use is to crate emotional atmosphere and evoke feelings.
He has the ability to write beyond time and space by using grounds common for all human beings. He makes us realize that we are not so much different than the This is the third novel I've read by the Kyrgyz writer and again he manages to make me fall in love in his characters and narrative. He makes us realize that we are not so much different than the people from the remote Boranly-Burannyi junction situated somewhere in the Kazakh steppes.
Mar 18, Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship rated it really liked it Shelves: historical-fiction , world-books-challenge , literary-fiction , read-in-translation , 4-stars-and-a-half , science-fiction , bestbooks-read-in , kazakhstan , central-asia. This is exactly the sort of book I was hoping to find when I started my world fiction challenge: a truly excellent and accessible novel that deserves to be much more widely read.
The book is about an old man nam This is exactly the sort of book I was hoping to find when I started my world fiction challenge: a truly excellent and accessible novel that deserves to be much more widely read. The book is about an old man named Yedigei, who works at a tiny railway junction out in the empty steppe of Kazakhstan.
His oldest friend, Kazangap, dies at the beginning of the book, and Yedigei leads the other men of the junction out to an ancient cemetery for the burial. On their trip to the cemetery, he reminisces about his life, particularly about an ill-fated family he grew close to in the s.
There are also a couple of folk tales included, as well as a science fiction subplot about a first contact with an alien civilization. Which may sound like a lot, but it all comes together very well--even the sci-fi bit, which seemed clumsy until its thematic reason for being in the story became clear.
Overall, this is simply an excellent book. The evocative writing brings to life a remote corner of the world, and the translation, including the dialogue, is very readable without being dumbed-down. The author incorporates a lot of 20th century Soviet history while still keeping the focus on the characters. It would have been nice had the foreword been more about providing the reader with helpful background information like where in Kazakhstan this actually takes place! Definitely recommended--if you can get your hands on a copy.
View 1 comment. Recommended to Czarny by: I could not resist the opportunity to read a book by a Kyrgyz communist. Shelves: russian-lit. Read this book. I mean really how often do you get at chance to read a book set in Kyrgyzstan written by a Kyrgyz. Last summer at the cottage I cut myself while sawing wood for my sauna. The Doctor who sewed me up had been raised and educated in Kyrgyzstan. Her opinion of me went up when I was able to tell her that I had read this book.
Most however are likely to lack any knowledge Read this book. Most however are likely to lack any knowledge of Kyrgyzstan. This is a good book that will help you make new friends sooner or later. View all 4 comments. Jun 17, Marc Gerstein rated it liked it Shelves: literary-fiction. It started as a two-plot novel.
One involved the death of a respected elder at a remote very, very remote Soviet railway junction and the efforts by Yeidigei, his close friend, to brings the body fur burial at a distant cemetery that holds meaning for the tied to the region.
The other plot involves a joint U. Soviet space mission that is. Not sure how it would all connect, but what the heck: an author need not reveal all in the early stages. I was all in. Hooked and eager to go further. That loud thud you may heave heard was really my great expectations plunging to the ground in a dead heap.
But really, they never connect, at least not in a more-than-trivial way at the every end. The sci-fi story quickly petered out and died and like the deceased elder, got a disappointing burial at the end. This was really a one-plot novel all the way.
There was interest to it. How could there not be dealing with all that went on in Stalin-land. But it just seemed to drag on for many more pages than was warranted by the material, especially the amount of paper and ink devoted to the rebellion of the rambunctious camel. I know that this book is a Goodreads superstar, judging by the prevalence of five-star reviews, including two from folks I know in real life.
Dec 30, Omama. The tragedy of a man who is squeezed between Soviet modernism and the traditions of his fellow people, giving a feel for what it was like to live through the s in Soviet Kazakhstan, the tension between the traditional Kazakh culture and the Soviet bureaucracy. In my mind's eye, I saw the story unfolding in the mainlands of the Asian steppe, at a remote railway junction in the middle of nowhere. A slow, poetic, beautiful read, and a genuine classic!
Still one of my favorite books. Written during the Breshnev-years, during the Cold War, the novel interweaves several stories and discusses various problems of the day. Beings from another galaxy contact astronauts at the space station because they need help. But since the world was split into two political systems, fighting over world power, the astronauts were prohibited to help them.
The death of a villager in Kyrgyzs Still one of my favorite books. The death of a villager in Kyrgyzstan brings the abyss between the younger and older generation to the forefront, and their different views on traditions.
While retelling the life of the deceased, the reader receives insights into life in the steppes of Kyrgyzstan, into repression under Stalin, and the changes that have come about this stretch of the large Soviet Union. Recommendable to anybody who loves multi-layered novels and is interested in Soviet literature, far from the rules the Socialist Realism tried to impose on novelists and their works. Mar 12, Eric rated it it was amazing. This novel was reommended to me by an Israeli friend which is a little odd as it was written by Soviet Kirghiz the Turkic people of the Soviet Union who are principally Muslim about a Kazakhstan Muslim.
While religion does not play a major role in the novel, it seems to be always in the background. The novel is about a lot of different forms of prejudice - against prisoners of war an interesting historical event from WWII , against creative artists mainly writers , against higher intelligenc This novel was reommended to me by an Israeli friend which is a little odd as it was written by Soviet Kirghiz the Turkic people of the Soviet Union who are principally Muslim about a Kazakhstan Muslim.
The novel is about a lot of different forms of prejudice - against prisoners of war an interesting historical event from WWII , against creative artists mainly writers , against higher intelligence, and against open communications. Yedigei is a compelling protagonist; we read of many major events of his life that help develop an understanding of the man he had become at the time of the novel a man trying to reconcile and comprehend his older age and ultimate death.
Ultimately my favorite lines which protray Yedigei's supreme practical wisdom are "I am just a man. I think as best as I can.
Feb 21, Manuel Alfonseca rated it really liked it. One is excellent, a revision of life in a small railway junction lost in the heart of the Sarozek desert in Kazakhstan, full with local legend and descriptions of the hard times they had to live in the years after the second world war, under the control of the communist empire.
The second book is a science-fiction novel about discovery and communication with extraterrestrial intelligence. This part is an eyesore that somewhat waters down the superb other part of the book.
The science-fiction part is terribly flawed by the lack of scientific knowledge by the author: a He mistakes "galaxy" with "planetary system," therefore believing that if we find extra-terrestrial intelligence around a near-by star, it would automatically be "in another galaxy".
Yes, I know other writers get over those limits, but they give a "scientific" explanation, adducing some yet-undiscovered property of the universe, something Aitmatov never thinks necessary. This solution could only be imagined in the Soviet Union, never in the rest of the world. The only explanation to this strange and unnatural mixture I can find is that it is a way to dodge Soviet censorship in literature.
The book was published in , near the end of the Brezhnev era. In my view, Aitmatov eludes censorship in two ways: 1. By assigning all the blame of the communistic cruelty he denounces to the Stalin regime Brezhnev was post-Stalinist and criticisms to the Stalin era would be acceptable.
By introducing a science-fiction unnecessary secondary plot, so as to lower the bar for censorship approval. Anyway he was successful. The book was approved by Soviet censorship, and the reader can always skip the science-fiction mess and concentrate on the other part, which in fact makes most of the book and is sufficiently good so that the whole work can be assigned at least four Goodreads stars.
Esta parte es un pegote que diluye un poco la otra parte, excelente, del libro. View all 5 comments. Feb 23, J. Hushour rated it really liked it. The novel is a tapestry of interweaving tales. First, a railway worker, Burranyi Yedigei literally Blizzard Yedigei takes over the traditional funeral arrangements for his now-dead friend and sets out to bury him in a near-mythical cemetery on the steppe. Second, the arrest and death of a colleague 30 years prior at the height of Stalinism.
Third, the main character's overly horny camel. Fourth, aliens from a utopian world make contact with a space station above Earth and are coldly rejected by mankind. There are also ancient Turkic steppe zombies and mad poet love of the 19th century. I really can't do the book justice in the space allowed here, but I do highly recommend it to anyone looking to round out their Turkic speculative fiction collection.
Oct 28, Lidija rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites , literature. If I could give it stars, I would. One of the best books I've ever read! View all 21 comments. Mar 29, Bbrown rated it liked it Shelves: science-fiction. In this book, Aitmatov writes a great setting and a solid cast of characters, and uses them to deliver a scathing critique of the Soviet Union that I'm surprised was allowed to be published at all.
Beyond these strengths, however, much of the story is spent on uninteresting facets, with tired critiques against changing times. The largest flaw, however, is a parallel story that goes nowhere.
Though I understand its purpose, it serves to distract and detract from what is otherwise a strong work ov In this book, Aitmatov writes a great setting and a solid cast of characters, and uses them to deliver a scathing critique of the Soviet Union that I'm surprised was allowed to be published at all.
Though I understand its purpose, it serves to distract and detract from what is otherwise a strong work overall. When I began The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, the very first chapter led me to believe that this would be the story of two initially parallel, but later interconnecting, plot threads: the first thread, following the character Yedigei, an inhabitant of the Steppe and a worker on the rail line, as he attempted to bury his deceased friend in the traditional way; the second thread, following a mystery of two astronauts that disappeared from an international space station.
The end of the first chapter promises that Yedigei's life will be directly effected by this second thread. Spoilers: this intertwining of the two threads never occurs. Though the second thread pops up sporadically throughout the book, it never coalesces into a solid standalone narrative, nor is it ever linked back in with the main story of the first thread.
This leads to both the United States and the Soviet Union scrambling in response to this unplanned-for turn of events, eventually deciding that, because they cannot predict public reaction, they will cover up the alien contact, prevent the astronauts from ever coming back to Earth, and launch an Earth defense program based around orbiting nuclear weapons. In all, this thread is only maybe forty pages of the story, broken up and scattered across the book, with only a few located in the last third of the novel.
The only way that this thread directly matters to Yedigei's life is that he witnesses another series of shuttle launches at the very end of the book that send him running with his dog and camel, hardly meeting the description of concrete impact described in Chapter 1. I read every chapter expecting to get additional information on the second plot thread, but at most I got a page or two, with little in the way of resolution in the end. Overall this was more of a distraction than a benefit to the story, as all the themes in the second thread are already communicated by the story proper.
This book would have been stronger without the science-fiction aside, and I say that as a great fan of science-fiction. Ignoring this distraction, the book has several impressive strengths. The Sary-Ozeki, a desert in Kazakhstan's yellow Steppes, is one of those little-known and rarely described corners of the earth that seem fantastic even though real though there is no Sary-Ozeki, of course, but the Kazakh steppes in general fall into this category. This sparsely populated settlement is nevertheless inhabited by legends, both living ones in the form of the main character and his monstrous camel, and ones long-dead like the namesake of the traditional burial site.
It is an evocative setting, and descriptions of it are the most beautiful prose in a book where otherwise the writing doesn't stand out: "all around was the vast Sarozek, still covered in snow, a silent, endless kingdom of uninhabited space.
The main character Yedigei grew up on the Aral' Sea as a fisherman before moving to the desert. Though the book discusses it little with Russian readers likely already aware of the information , the Aral' Sea, which was in fact a lake that used to be the world's 4th largest, was destroyed by the Soviets. Later on in the story the main action, an attempt to bury the deceased Kazangap, is frustrated by a Soviet cosmodrome security perimeter that prevents access to the aforementioned traditional cemetery.
The perimeter was put up without caring for the traditions of the local inhabitants. The Steppe is an uncaring setting, but a beautiful one because it is natural and untamed. The Soviet changes to the landscape are also uncaring, but without these redeeming features. Add to this the arrest and death of one of the characters out of bureaucratic paranoia, and you have a harsh critique of the Soviet government.
Beyond the setting, another strength of the book is that the characters were generally well-written, with Yedigei, Kazangap, Abutalip, Ukubala, Yelizarov, and others all given more than one dimension. There were, however, some one-note characters, like Kazangap's son, who is symbolic of the new Soviet world and eschews the traditions of his father and home.
The complex characters are also often given things to do that do not take advantage of their depth. An unrequited romance takes up a chunk of the book, and it's not badly written by any means, but it is boring compared to the characters that are involved. The sadness at the loss of the old ways is such a common literary theme that it seems a waste to have this cast of characters muse on it for as long as they do. I just wish that the action of the story had been more original and thought-provoking than it was.
I enjoyed this work. It brought to mind The File on H by Kadare and Independent People by Laxness, for very different reasons, if you happen to be a fan of either of those. Still, despite my enjoyment I must confess to disappointment overall.
What appeared to be the second thread of the story turned out to be an unnecessary tangent. The characters, while complex, were not given much of interest to do. I enjoyed my time with them on the Steppe, hearing their legends, watching their struggle with both the elements and the Soviet state, but I feel like this book could have been so much more.
To be clear, however, this is one of those books I give 3 stars but that I think is well worth a read. Aug 18, Steven rated it it was amazing. What can I say, This book is a precious glimpse into a corner of the world no one would ever see otherwise: an isolated train stop in the middle of nowhere in the yellow steppes of Kyrgyzstan.
For me an utterly memorable novel, unlike any other I have read. Oct 27, Harry Rutherford rated it really liked it Shelves: asia , central-asia , around-the-world. This novels tells the story of Yedigei, a worker at a remote railway junction in the middle of the Kazakh steppes. On either side of the railway lines lay the great wide spaces of the desert — Sary-Ozeki, the Middle lands of the yellow steppes.
In these parts any distance was measured in relation to the railway, as if from the Greenwich meridian. And t This novels tells the story of Yedigei, a worker at a remote railway junction in the middle of the Kazakh steppes. And the trains went from East to West, and from West to East.
Yedigei is taking the body of a friend to be buried at a traditional cemetery out in the steppes, and his life story is told in flashback. It was written in Russian and is set in Kazakhstan, and one of the themes in the book is the tension between the traditional Kazakh culture and the Soviet bureaucracy. The material which is most critical of the government is about things which happened under Stalin; presumably by , when this novel was published, that was fair game.
In the summer was even hotter than usual. The ground dried out and became so hot that the Sarozek lizards did not know what to do; they lost their fear of people and were to be found sitting on the doorstep, their throats quivering, with mouths wide open, trying somehow to find shelter from the sun.
Meanwhile, the kites were trying to get cool by soaring to such heights that you could no longer see them with the naked eye. Just now and again they gave themselves away with a single cry and then once more they became silent in the hot, quivering, mirage-laden air. I really enjoyed this book. The setting is striking and atmospheric; the steppes of central Asia, punishingly hot in summer and snow-covered in winter, inhabited by foxes and eagles and camels, with just this one railway line running through it.
And the fairly conventional human drama which anchors the book is intertwined with the science fiction subplot on one hand and bits of Kazakh folk myth on the other.
Here Yedigei is dealing with his magnificent but difficult camel, Burannyi Karanar: That snowfall heralded the start of winter in the Sarozek, early and chill from the very first.
With the start of the cold weather Burannyi Karanar became restless, angry and irritable, as once again his male instincts rebelled within him. No one and no thing could be permitted to encroach on his freedom. During this time even his master had to retreat on occasions and bow to the inevitable.
On the third day after the snowfall there was a frosty wind blowing over the Sarozek, and suddenly there arose a thick, chilly haze just like steam over the steppe. You could hear footsteps crunching in the snow far away, and any sound, even the faintest rustling, was carried through the air with exceptional clarity. The trains could be heard coming along the lines when they were many kilometres away.
And when at dawn Yedigei heard the waking roar of Burannyi Karanar in the fold and heard him trampling and noisily shaking the fence behind the house, he knew only too well that he was in for trouble. He dressed quickly and stepping out into the darkness, walked over to the fold. Is it the end of the world again? The main characters of this literature, russian literature story are ,. The book has been awarded with , and many others.
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