James Meek

Fantastic, compelling account of medieval England under the threat of plague. A group of archers are travelling through southern England to meet a boat. They fought at Crècy but are barely clinging on to their status as a team, with the biggest split over one man's kidnapping of a young woman they met in France. A young man is sent to bolster their ranks, under the promise of freedom, whilst a young wealthy woman is also on the road running away from a forced marriage. The story alternates show more between narrators, reflecting the changing English language. There's frequent references to the "villains" not having a clue what the elite are saying in "French" (much more recognisable English).
Through the very different characters, the author weaves into the narrative understandings of courtly love, medieval Christianity, controls on rural workers and the horrific effects of such a devastating disease when there was no understanding of how it was caused or why some survived. I've never read anything like it, but would love to read more. show less

To Calais, in Ordinary Time is one of those books you enter like a world and realize you want to remain in. To Calais is set in the 14th Century as the Black Death arrives in Britain, so that wanting to remain is very conditional. One doesn't want the death, the brutality, the disrespect for women—but one does want the pacing and the unexpected relationships that form and the ethical considerations faced when every act (or absence) is seen as God's will.

To Calais follows an unusual cohort show more traveling south to the ports, so the members can sail to Calais for a variety of reasons. There are experienced archers who've fought in Calais earlier and who embody a volatile mix of brutality and honor; a woman these archers raped and abducted the last time they were in France; a young woman escaping marriage to a much older man; a neither-priest-nor-scholar intellectual, charged as the group's spiritual advisor; a young peasant newly joining the archers; and a swineherd in love with this peasant, alternately appearing as himself and as his "sister" Madlen, in hopes of winning that beloved's affections.

Watching these characters define themselves, both individually and in relation to one another, is fascinating and, at times, heart-rending. The language of the novel, which uses older word forms and highlights the difference between the English-English of peasants and the French-English of the nobility, slows the pace a bit in ways that are appropriate to the gradual speed of the journey the characters are undertaking. And, amid all the seriousness and exploration of the complexities of identity are generous moments of humor.

The experience this book offers is surprising, deeply engaging, challenging, and rewarding—a blend of all the best fiction has to offer.

I received a free electronic ARC of this title from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions are my own. show less

OK, this was indeed a fantastic book. Meek's intentions of writing a Great Russian Novel, as mentioned by Stewart above, certainly shine through - it has scope, multiple-character plot, ethical quandaries and satire that wouldn't be unworthy of ol' Fyodor D himself - while still modern (and postmodern) enough to make it a novel for today's age.

But the similarities I keep finding aren't as much to writers as to movies; Col mentioned Ravenous, the praising of which I would like to join, but I show more also found myself thinking of two others:
- Andrei Konchalovsky's Runaway Train - somewhat ironically an American movie made by a Russian, and in a sense the mirror image of Meek's book, tackling some of the same existential questions; that would be Samarin (not the Mohican) in Jon Voight's role.
- Werner Herzog's Aguirre - that's Klaus Kinski as Matula, leading his men on a hopeless quest, far beyond what is defensible or even sane. I kept expecting him to call himself the wrath of God, but of course the wrath of God - if indeed there is such a thing here - is much sneakier in Meek's world.

Yet for all its genre nods (it's something of a Wild East novel, isn't it? I'm sure we could find a role for a young Eastwood too) it's also something entirely its own. Meek's language is beautifully descriptive (I guess the fact that I keep seeing it as a movie is a testament to that) and the way he uses his realistic characters (of course, the Czechoslovak raids through Siberia is an actual historical event - and one I've always meant to read more about) to create a very personal drama out of The Big Questions is... again, the unwieldy adjective "Dostoevskyan" springs to mind. Or is it Dostoevskyesque? The book is just self-conscious enough to pull it off, despite - or perhaps thanks to - lines like this:

I don't serve. You know that. I'm a manifestation. Of the present anger and the future love.

How much can we be expected to sacrifice, and for what? How much can we demand that others sacrifice? The Czechoslovaks are, officially, fighting for a homeland they've never even set foot in. The Reds are fighting for a homeland they have barely even begun to imagine. Samarin has gone so far beyond idealism that he's passed into psychosis, and yet keeps going in the same direction. Balashov, the 19th century enlightened soldier, has stepped off the arena and the big industrial train comes down the track too fast to stop, dropping men and horses along the way as humanity eats itself to survive. show less

The People’s Act of Love takes place in a remote Siberian village called Yasyk in 1919 when the Bolshevik Revolution is consolidating power, driving out the Tsarist Whites. Yasyk is home to an ascetic cult of castrates, a remnant of a regiment of Czechoslovakian soldiers waiting for orders to go back home, and Anna Petrovna with her son. Anna came to Yasyk after learning her husband, a hussar, died in the war. The leader of the Czechs is a sociopathic madman named Captain Matula whose life show more was saved by Mutz, an outsider among the Czechs as he is Jewish and somewhat of a philosopher at heart.

All the Czechs long to go home, though Mutz suspects Matula does not and is perhaps lying to them about their orders. After all, he’s the lord and master of Yasyk and back in Czechoslovakia he would be a small fish in a big pond and perhaps held to account for a massacre of civilians he ordered. It is all coming to a head, though, as the Red Army is approaching.

Into this already tense setting comes Samarin, an escaped political prisoner with a story of a prison called the White Garden in the far north of Siberia more than a thousand miles from anywhere. He claimed he escaped with another prisoner, the Mohican, who took him along as his pig’ whom he had fattened with extra rations so that when the food ran out, he could eat him. He warns people the Mohican is coming, but somehow Samarin is here alive, still uneaten.

To complicate matters, a shaman being held prisoner was murdered and Samarin seemed the obvious suspect but while he was testifying to Matula and the officers, another person was murdered. Not to mention, the body of a soldier with his hand cut off outside the village with a much older, long-dead hand laid on top of it. It would be easier to blame it all on the new arrival, but that is impossible.

The People’s Act of Love has many deep questions about sin, faith, extremism, and morality. The castrates cut off their sexual organs to remove sin and the knowledge of sin, to become angels. But does that act really remove them from them their very human sins? The book opens with Samarin falling for a woman who is eventually charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism. The question is what justifies evil acts? Does political belief justify a bombing? Does survival needs justify treating a human being like livestock, fattening it up to eat later? What if the motive was love? What justifies killing another?

“What looks like an act of evil to a single person is the people’s act of love to its future self,” Samarin says. There are no easy answers in this book.

The People’s Act of Love at Grove Atlantic
James Meek author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2019/06/07/9781841958774/ show less