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The Industry of Souls
The remarkably powerful and critically acclaimed novel that was chosen as A New York Times Notable Book of 1999 and shortlisted for The Booker Prize
The Industry of Souls is the story of Alexander Bayliss, a British citizen arrested for spying in the Soviet Union in the early 1950's. Eventually freed from the gulag in the 1970's, he finds he has no reason to return to the West-he has become Russian in everything but birth.
Now, on the day of his 80th birthday, Russia has changed. Communism has evaporated. In the aftermath, information has come to light that Alex is still alive. This moving story weaves together the events of Alex's life, exploring this momentous day, his harrowing past in the camp and his life in the village. And it ends with his having to make a personal choice, perhaps for the first time in his life, and the climax is shattering.
The Industry of Souls is the story of Alexander Bayliss, a British citizen arrested for spying in the Soviet Union in the early 1950's. Eventually freed from the gulag in the 1970's, he finds he has no reason to return to the West-he has become Russian in everything but birth.
Now, on the day of his 80th birthday, Russia has changed. Communism has evaporated. In the aftermath, information has come to light that Alex is still alive. This moving story weaves together the events of Alex's life, exploring this momentous day, his harrowing past in the camp and his life in the village. And it ends with his having to make a personal choice, perhaps for the first time in his life, and the climax is shattering.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
25 people are currently reading
1175 people want to read
About the author
Martin Booth
105 books95 followersMartin Booth was a prolific English novelist and poet. He also worked as a teacher and screenwriter, and was the founder of the Sceptre Press.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
October 30, 2019
The darker years of the dark era…
Despite its ominous subject The Industry of Souls is an exceptionally warmhearted novel.
Passing through the hell the weak in their spirit become ruined and the strong become wise…
Even some minor distortions of Russian realia add to the humane charm of this novel.
Do live and do not forget.
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. And, if the years have taught me anything, it is a wisdom of sorts.
Despite its ominous subject The Industry of Souls is an exceptionally warmhearted novel.
We cannot escape it and must come to accept it. Men fight for nations and squirrels fight for nuts. There is little difference between the two. It is only a matter of dimension. The size of a walnut against the size of the world. Ultimately, the prize is one of possession.
Passing through the hell the weak in their spirit become ruined and the strong become wise…
I have learnt the lesson. Not that of forgiveness. I forgive nothing. Nor that of stoical surrender: had I surrendered, I would be now a broken man, a ghost on legs with a cigarette in one hand and missal in the other. Nor was it the lesson of hate. One cannot hate one's destiny. The lesson I have learnt is to accept, not with docility but with understanding.
Even some minor distortions of Russian realia add to the humane charm of this novel.
Do live and do not forget.
December 2, 2020
My first introduction to Martin Booth's writing was through a lesser known work Islands of Silence, a book I found in a Waterstones clearance sale back in 2005 and picked up because the blurb intrigued me. I liked that book a lot, both the fanciful part about a girl growing up semi-wild on a small Scottish island and its central story of a soldier dealing with Great War mental traumas. So I have wanted to read this book, which was shortlisted for the Booker, for a while, and recently got hold of a cheap second hand copy.
I should read Islands of Silence again, because I suspect this book is quite similar, though my tastes as a reader may have been sharpened since I read it. Once again Booth puts an interesting juxtaposition at its centre. His hero Alexander Bayliss is British, and as a young man he is arrested in Russia on suspicion of spying by the KGB and send to a gulag in Siberia, the Russians having told the British authorities that he died in an accident. During his 25-year incarceration, mostly spent working in a coal mine, he forms a lasting friendship with Kirill, the leader of his work unit, whose dying wish is that Alexander (Shurik) should return to his village to see his daughter. Feeling no connection with the Britain he left long ago, Shurik complies with this and is taken in by the daughter and her husband, becoming a teacher in the local school.
The chapters alternate between the modern part, which is built round the day of his 80th birthday, when he has already been in the village for 20 years, and the events in the gulag. For the most part this was quite effective, but I never entirely believed the framework of the story, though many of the details are accurate and well researched.
Overall I rather liked the book (certainly more than Amsterdam, which won that year's Booker Prize, but I would have given the prize to Beryl Bainbridge and Master Georgie), but I never quite lost sight of the authorial puppet strings.
I should read Islands of Silence again, because I suspect this book is quite similar, though my tastes as a reader may have been sharpened since I read it. Once again Booth puts an interesting juxtaposition at its centre. His hero Alexander Bayliss is British, and as a young man he is arrested in Russia on suspicion of spying by the KGB and send to a gulag in Siberia, the Russians having told the British authorities that he died in an accident. During his 25-year incarceration, mostly spent working in a coal mine, he forms a lasting friendship with Kirill, the leader of his work unit, whose dying wish is that Alexander (Shurik) should return to his village to see his daughter. Feeling no connection with the Britain he left long ago, Shurik complies with this and is taken in by the daughter and her husband, becoming a teacher in the local school.
The chapters alternate between the modern part, which is built round the day of his 80th birthday, when he has already been in the village for 20 years, and the events in the gulag. For the most part this was quite effective, but I never entirely believed the framework of the story, though many of the details are accurate and well researched.
Overall I rather liked the book (certainly more than Amsterdam, which won that year's Booker Prize, but I would have given the prize to Beryl Bainbridge and Master Georgie), but I never quite lost sight of the authorial puppet strings.
February 28, 2025
This is the book I would often mention when asked for my favourite novel, it had been many years since I first read it and so I re-read it to see what the experience would be like and whether my perception had changed.
Stunning, brilliant, I still love it as much today as I ever did. It deserves to be read by all.
Review
I’ve given away numerous copies of Martin Booth’s The Industry of Souls over the years and always repurchased it for my bookshelf, just in case I wished to reread it.
But the truth is, I am not a rereader. I almost never go back (except to read highlighted passages), not even for this book which I had named at one time as my all-time favourite book. Until now.
Could I continue to say this was my favourite book, when so many reading years had passed and it became nothing more than a nostalgic memory of being uplifted by something I could no longer quite define?
I reread it. And felt all the discomfort of why that activity is not for me, as I glanced at the bookshelf seeing all those titles I had neglected and not yet read, felt the fear of this highly praised book no longer living up to my own expectations, the scepticism of being transported a second time when I knew what would pass, the memory of that paragraph about the soporific wasp, trapped in a spider’s web, snipped free by its wise eight-legged captor, a paragraph I cut and paste and sent to appreciative friends, long before the convenience of a blog, wondering if I would now view it with less than the perfection status I had granted it when first encountered.
It is true, there is nothing like gazing at a splendid view, arriving in a new city, country, or place, reading a book or meeting someone for the very first time and experiencing that element of the unknown. It’s the sense of adventure, the openness to being shocked, moved, delighted, surprised, uplifted, disappointed or merely comfortable with a familiar voice telling a new story. It reminds me of a quote (now those snippets I do reread) from one of my travel journals during a three month back-packing sojourn around India, Nepal, Vietnam and Thailand, daily living in the face of the unknown.
Reading is unique in that it allows us to rest in the safety of our environment, yet allows us to visit such extraordinary places and/or observe the heights, the depths and the edge of humanity. Primo Levi does it in If This Is a Man • The Truce, Vaddey Ratner In the Shadow of the Banyan and Jackie Kay in Red Dust Road to name just a few.
The Industry of Souls takes place on the 80th birthday of Alexander Bayliss, a British citizen arrested for spying in the Soviet Union in the early 1950’s, who after 20 years in a Soviet labour camp, the gulag, settles in the small Russian village of Myshkino, with no inclination to return to his roots.
On this day as he makes his round of the village and his friends, he remembers both his time in the village over the years and significant events of that period in the gulag, including with his friend Kirill, to whose village he returned in fulfilment of a promise. And at the end of today he will receive another visitor, a connection from that past, he long ago left behind.
For now, there is much to offer in the reading present, but having reread this favourite, I have no regrets, it is well worth delving into its depths, more than once.
Stunning, brilliant, I still love it as much today as I ever did. It deserves to be read by all.
Review
I’ve given away numerous copies of Martin Booth’s The Industry of Souls over the years and always repurchased it for my bookshelf, just in case I wished to reread it.
But the truth is, I am not a rereader. I almost never go back (except to read highlighted passages), not even for this book which I had named at one time as my all-time favourite book. Until now.
Could I continue to say this was my favourite book, when so many reading years had passed and it became nothing more than a nostalgic memory of being uplifted by something I could no longer quite define?
I reread it. And felt all the discomfort of why that activity is not for me, as I glanced at the bookshelf seeing all those titles I had neglected and not yet read, felt the fear of this highly praised book no longer living up to my own expectations, the scepticism of being transported a second time when I knew what would pass, the memory of that paragraph about the soporific wasp, trapped in a spider’s web, snipped free by its wise eight-legged captor, a paragraph I cut and paste and sent to appreciative friends, long before the convenience of a blog, wondering if I would now view it with less than the perfection status I had granted it when first encountered.
It is true, there is nothing like gazing at a splendid view, arriving in a new city, country, or place, reading a book or meeting someone for the very first time and experiencing that element of the unknown. It’s the sense of adventure, the openness to being shocked, moved, delighted, surprised, uplifted, disappointed or merely comfortable with a familiar voice telling a new story. It reminds me of a quote (now those snippets I do reread) from one of my travel journals during a three month back-packing sojourn around India, Nepal, Vietnam and Thailand, daily living in the face of the unknown.
“In the face of the unknown, man is adventurous. It is a quality of the unknown to give us a sense of hope and happiness. Man feels robust, exhilarated. Even the apprehension that it arouses is very fulfilling. The new seers saw that man is at his best in the face of the unknown.”
An extract from The Fire From Within by Carlos Castaneda
Reading is unique in that it allows us to rest in the safety of our environment, yet allows us to visit such extraordinary places and/or observe the heights, the depths and the edge of humanity. Primo Levi does it in If This Is a Man • The Truce, Vaddey Ratner In the Shadow of the Banyan and Jackie Kay in Red Dust Road to name just a few.
The Industry of Souls takes place on the 80th birthday of Alexander Bayliss, a British citizen arrested for spying in the Soviet Union in the early 1950’s, who after 20 years in a Soviet labour camp, the gulag, settles in the small Russian village of Myshkino, with no inclination to return to his roots.
It was all a part of the process of rehabilitation, of making us come to appreciate that Mother Communism, that buxom, grinning, snag-toothed wench dressed in a pair of dark blue overalls, with a scarf around her head and biceps like Popeye the Sailorman, would provide for us. She was our succour and our saviour as well as our slave-mistress and superintendent.
On this day as he makes his round of the village and his friends, he remembers both his time in the village over the years and significant events of that period in the gulag, including with his friend Kirill, to whose village he returned in fulfilment of a promise. And at the end of today he will receive another visitor, a connection from that past, he long ago left behind.
For now, there is much to offer in the reading present, but having reread this favourite, I have no regrets, it is well worth delving into its depths, more than once.
It is the industry of the soul, to love and to hate;
To seek after the beautiful and to recognise the ugly,
To honour friends and wreak vengeance upon enemies;
Yet, above all, it is the work of the soul to prove
It can be steadfast in these matters…
May 16, 2016
Just when you were about to give up on contemporary fiction, your attention is grabbed by a book like this. Written by a British novelist and shortlisted for the Booker in 1998 when it was up against Booker stalwarts McEwan and Barnes ('Amsterdam' (which eventually won) and 'England, England), Patrick McCabe's 'Breakfast on Pluto', and Magnus Mills 'Restraint of Beasts' .
This is the story of Alexander Allanovich Bayliss who whilst working as a scrap metal buyer in Russian is seized for spying and sentenced to 20 years in the gulag working in a coal mine. He is eventually released and finds home in Myshkino, the village of his friend and mentor Kirill in the gulag, where he not only settles in as a teacher in the village school but becomes a much loved resident with Kirill's daughter and her husband .
Rarely do you come across a book so sensitively written and so well crafted as this. I cannot think of a recent novel that has so moved me. The cynic in you wants to discount this man who is built as a saint-like figure with his lack of regret and simplicity of thought and honesty. But you want to believe in the human ability of acceptance and lack of revenge and regret. The interweaving of the gulag with the village, of the past with the present builds the understanding of Bayliss and the honesty of labour, the only line of possibility in the gulag. The characters are well rounded and we want to believe them all. This is not a political novel but it abounds in personal politics and belief. And there are parts of it that are deeply moving.
This is a superb book. Unfortunately Martin Booth died in 2004 but I shall seek out his other books.
This is the story of Alexander Allanovich Bayliss who whilst working as a scrap metal buyer in Russian is seized for spying and sentenced to 20 years in the gulag working in a coal mine. He is eventually released and finds home in Myshkino, the village of his friend and mentor Kirill in the gulag, where he not only settles in as a teacher in the village school but becomes a much loved resident with Kirill's daughter and her husband .
Rarely do you come across a book so sensitively written and so well crafted as this. I cannot think of a recent novel that has so moved me. The cynic in you wants to discount this man who is built as a saint-like figure with his lack of regret and simplicity of thought and honesty. But you want to believe in the human ability of acceptance and lack of revenge and regret. The interweaving of the gulag with the village, of the past with the present builds the understanding of Bayliss and the honesty of labour, the only line of possibility in the gulag. The characters are well rounded and we want to believe them all. This is not a political novel but it abounds in personal politics and belief. And there are parts of it that are deeply moving.
This is a superb book. Unfortunately Martin Booth died in 2004 but I shall seek out his other books.
April 21, 2020
The Industry of Souls is a gem of a novel by the English author Martin Booth. Published in 1998, it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. But I’d never heard of it, or its author, until a friend recommended it to me a few months ago. While it has its share of somber moments, I found it to be a beautiful and touching story, and, remarkably, one that lifted my mood in these strange days.
Booth’s novel cleverly interweaves several layers of narrative—past, present, and future. In the present, the novel takes us through a day in the life of the main character, Alexander Bayliss (nicknamed “Shurik”), an Englishman residing in a remote village in rural Russia. On this day – his 80th birthday, as it turns out -- Shurik follows his usual daily routine, circulating through the village, visiting and chatting with his friends and neighbors. Threaded in along with this narrative of the present are two narratives from the past: one recounting various incidents from Shurik’s 25 miserable years mining coal in the Soviet gulag, and a second explaining how he came to this obscure Russian village and made it his home for the past 20 years. And in addition to these past and present matters, there looms a huge question about Shurik’s future. We’re told at the outset that he expects a visit later that day that will force him to an important decision; while the reader early on can generally guess at what this might be, we know neither the specifics of the decision facing Shurik nor its outcome.
The village in which this all takes place is named Myshkino, which I assume was a deliberate allusion by author Booth to Prince Myshkin, the main character in Dostoevski’s novel The Idiot. In writing The Idiot, Dostoevski set himself the task of writing a novel in which the central character was a ”good man” but not a comic figure. In this novel, Shurik is told, more than once, that he is “a good man.” And so he is, but we also see that his goodness in large part has been fostered by the friendships with “good men” he met in the gulag, especially with his dear friend, mentor, and team leader Kirill, who himself was a native of Myshkino. And as Shurik walks through the town on his birthday, the friends he meets also seem to be “good men,” who have somehow managed to endure the privations and stupidities of decades of life in the Soviet Union and emerge with their decency intact.
So possibly there’s just a touch of Brigadoon about this place Myshkino. But it never seems *too much* like a fairy tale, and in any event the scenes from Shurik’s time in the gulag are bracing reminders that there’s more than enough evil in the world to counterbalance its entire store of goodness. Yet ultimately -- fairy tale or not -- in its quiet and insistent way, the novel's fictional world made me feel better about the real world; somehow Booth made me believe in the possibility that goodness and decency can survive in humans who have suffered through terrible times.
[One final observation: it struck me while reading this rather obscure 20-year old novel (at this moment, only 608 Goodreads ratings), that it has a great deal in common with the more recent, wildly popular best-seller, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (currently 242,000+ GR ratings). At the most superficial level, both novels describe the adventures of heroes named Alexander as they try to survive in the Stalinist Soviet Union. The deeper kinship is that both stories try to show how good and decent men can endure decades of horrors. There are also some big differences: A Gentleman in Moscow is certainly more high-spirited and humorous, and its clever plotting is more dramatic; whereas Industry of Souls works at a more sober and subdued level, although it's not without some sardonic humor. Given the differences, I can easily understand the greater popularity of AGIM. But I adored both of these novels, and so am just a little bemused at their wildly different fates with the reading public.]
Booth’s novel cleverly interweaves several layers of narrative—past, present, and future. In the present, the novel takes us through a day in the life of the main character, Alexander Bayliss (nicknamed “Shurik”), an Englishman residing in a remote village in rural Russia. On this day – his 80th birthday, as it turns out -- Shurik follows his usual daily routine, circulating through the village, visiting and chatting with his friends and neighbors. Threaded in along with this narrative of the present are two narratives from the past: one recounting various incidents from Shurik’s 25 miserable years mining coal in the Soviet gulag, and a second explaining how he came to this obscure Russian village and made it his home for the past 20 years. And in addition to these past and present matters, there looms a huge question about Shurik’s future. We’re told at the outset that he expects a visit later that day that will force him to an important decision; while the reader early on can generally guess at what this might be, we know neither the specifics of the decision facing Shurik nor its outcome.
The village in which this all takes place is named Myshkino, which I assume was a deliberate allusion by author Booth to Prince Myshkin, the main character in Dostoevski’s novel The Idiot. In writing The Idiot, Dostoevski set himself the task of writing a novel in which the central character was a ”good man” but not a comic figure. In this novel, Shurik is told, more than once, that he is “a good man.” And so he is, but we also see that his goodness in large part has been fostered by the friendships with “good men” he met in the gulag, especially with his dear friend, mentor, and team leader Kirill, who himself was a native of Myshkino. And as Shurik walks through the town on his birthday, the friends he meets also seem to be “good men,” who have somehow managed to endure the privations and stupidities of decades of life in the Soviet Union and emerge with their decency intact.
So possibly there’s just a touch of Brigadoon about this place Myshkino. But it never seems *too much* like a fairy tale, and in any event the scenes from Shurik’s time in the gulag are bracing reminders that there’s more than enough evil in the world to counterbalance its entire store of goodness. Yet ultimately -- fairy tale or not -- in its quiet and insistent way, the novel's fictional world made me feel better about the real world; somehow Booth made me believe in the possibility that goodness and decency can survive in humans who have suffered through terrible times.
[One final observation: it struck me while reading this rather obscure 20-year old novel (at this moment, only 608 Goodreads ratings), that it has a great deal in common with the more recent, wildly popular best-seller, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (currently 242,000+ GR ratings). At the most superficial level, both novels describe the adventures of heroes named Alexander as they try to survive in the Stalinist Soviet Union. The deeper kinship is that both stories try to show how good and decent men can endure decades of horrors. There are also some big differences: A Gentleman in Moscow is certainly more high-spirited and humorous, and its clever plotting is more dramatic; whereas Industry of Souls works at a more sober and subdued level, although it's not without some sardonic humor. Given the differences, I can easily understand the greater popularity of AGIM. But I adored both of these novels, and so am just a little bemused at their wildly different fates with the reading public.]
September 20, 2015
The size of a walnut against the size of the world. Ultimately, the prize is one of possession.
This is a stunning example of understatement. Oh so British. A Gulag tale lacking in hair-ripping, but rife in a vale of tears. This prompted an interest in Booth, one which died on the vine.
This is a stunning example of understatement. Oh so British. A Gulag tale lacking in hair-ripping, but rife in a vale of tears. This prompted an interest in Booth, one which died on the vine.
February 6, 2024
I love the humanity of this book. So beautifully written. Despite being largely set in a Russian gulag, the novel is not bleak but reassuring, captivating. I can see why it was shortlisted for The Booker in 1998. Highly recommended.
April 28, 2018
“And yet, by thinking of him, I keep him near me. The flesh dies as easily as a fallen petal rots, but love endures like stone.”
November 16, 2019
Despite my initial reservations, I loved this book. While the author could have put down the thesaurus in a few places, the writing was truly beautiful and the characterisation was impeccable. Booth wrote about something dark, but only to show how wonderful people truly are.
"These are yours," she said, "to have in your room. You do not need to use them. We have plenty. But you must keep them."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because," she retorted, "a man who has no personal cutlery has no dignity."
"These are yours," she said, "to have in your room. You do not need to use them. We have plenty. But you must keep them."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because," she retorted, "a man who has no personal cutlery has no dignity."
October 21, 2018
Your heart might sink a little when you read the blurb for this book – do I have the fortitude to read about a man's experiences in the gulag? – but this story is about so much more than that, alternating chapters between accounts of the main character's survival in the gulag and his life after he is freed. I had a little trouble getting into the book but soon didn't want to put it down – this is a beautifully crafted novel about a sweet, resilient man's appreciation of life, friendship, love, and family.
June 20, 2020
This is the story of a "good man", an Englishman who has been sentenced to 25 years hard labor in the the coal mines of Soviet Siberia. During the 45 years of this novel, Alexander (known as Shurik by his Russian friends) meets many other good men, with whom he shares his life and love. The story is set in the very cold and terrible prison camp, the bleak and dangerous coal mine, and the lovely town of Myshkino.
I refer you to my friend Richard's review of this book. I always read books that come highly recommended by him.
I refer you to my friend Richard's review of this book. I always read books that come highly recommended by him.
July 16, 2018
I consider this one of the best books I have ever read. It is not an easy story as far as content, but the writing is beautiful. It was on the American Library Association's Best 100 books of Year ? The effect of one man on a community to me is the overall theme, but there are several others as well. I have re-read the book several times. To me it is one that is unforgettable once you have read it.
September 7, 2020
Alexander Bayliss endures 25 years in a Soviet labour camp for spying, having been reported dead. Now feeling more Russian than English, he spends another 20 in a remote village, drawn by a debt to a fellow prisoner, until his survival is discovered and a relative arrives to invite him home. What will he decide?
It’s hard to think of a better pitch to a publisher – Ivan Denisovich meets George Smiley. And as the narrative switches from 1997 to the past there seems a conscious acknowledgement of Solzhenitsyn as Bayliss recalls how he had been happy in the camp because he had survived another day.
Regarding the espionage angle, however, we learn nothing, whether he had been the innocent businessman buying steel in East Germany or on a clandestine mission. Given the tone of the book, an explanation might have clouded what is to come.
What we do observe, as Bayliss celebrates his 80th birthday, is his remarkable resilience: ‘I will not – I have never – surrendered, not to circumstance, not to man and certainly not to the tyranny of time.’ Even more remarkable is his capacity to love his fellow man, despite all that has happened. It makes for one of the most uplifting novels I’ve read in a long time.
Booth makes life easy for the reader, introducing each of the fellow prisoners in Bayliss’ work unit with a short biography, and describing his later neighbours as the old man makes his daily circumambulation of his village. There is, it seems, not one bad egg among them, as if Bayliss’ generosity of spirit regenerates itself in others.
‘Friends are more important than flags,’ he says, a phrase that represents the tenor of the entire novel. And ‘for every beautiful thing a man destroys, two ugly ones are born.’ Even if the aphorisms become somewhat pretentious, their sentiment excuses any excess.
More awkward are the occasional lapses into florid dialogue. Hearing the movement of rock, Kirill, leader of Bayliss’ work party down the mine, describes it as ‘the music of sempiternity .. the cantata of creation .. the language of dinosaurs played by the orchestras of time.’ This from a former militia man. Bayliss himself is particularly susceptible, contemplating the future: ‘Fate was to knock its gavel on the block,’ he says. ‘I would dance to the pipes of fortune.’
Booth brilliantly recreates the horror of the camp, where a man can choose suicide in the snow and die in two minutes, and the inhuman conditions and brotherly solidarity of work in the coal mine. Elsewhere, there breathes the spirit of this vast, empty land, albeit a Russian Arcadia, at the same time as one feels the withered and deadening hand of Communism, ridiculed in anti-Soviet jokes, and neatly satirised by Bayliss’ observation of post-camp life: ‘We pretended to work whilst the Party pretended to pay us.’
A series of vignettes further symbolise the struggle between freedom and oppression - a wasp freed from a spider’s web, apples crushed to pulp by great machine, the remarkable account of unearthing a mammoth trapped in ice, sparing a bear from the hunter’s gun, returning a fox to the wild, even a brief sexual encounter in the underground passages with a group of women prisoners.
I imagine that judges of the 1998 Booker short-list, chaired by former foreign secretary Douglas Hurd, must have considered this a little too soft-hearted to be the outright winner. Despite the choice that Bayliss faces, blurbed on the novel’s cover as the first great choice in his life, there is never much doubt about what he will decide.
The only surprise is a deus ex machina that emerges to keep everyone happy. A little contrived, all a little too rosy a picture? Perhaps the judges thought so, but it kept me happy too.
It’s hard to think of a better pitch to a publisher – Ivan Denisovich meets George Smiley. And as the narrative switches from 1997 to the past there seems a conscious acknowledgement of Solzhenitsyn as Bayliss recalls how he had been happy in the camp because he had survived another day.
Regarding the espionage angle, however, we learn nothing, whether he had been the innocent businessman buying steel in East Germany or on a clandestine mission. Given the tone of the book, an explanation might have clouded what is to come.
What we do observe, as Bayliss celebrates his 80th birthday, is his remarkable resilience: ‘I will not – I have never – surrendered, not to circumstance, not to man and certainly not to the tyranny of time.’ Even more remarkable is his capacity to love his fellow man, despite all that has happened. It makes for one of the most uplifting novels I’ve read in a long time.
Booth makes life easy for the reader, introducing each of the fellow prisoners in Bayliss’ work unit with a short biography, and describing his later neighbours as the old man makes his daily circumambulation of his village. There is, it seems, not one bad egg among them, as if Bayliss’ generosity of spirit regenerates itself in others.
‘Friends are more important than flags,’ he says, a phrase that represents the tenor of the entire novel. And ‘for every beautiful thing a man destroys, two ugly ones are born.’ Even if the aphorisms become somewhat pretentious, their sentiment excuses any excess.
More awkward are the occasional lapses into florid dialogue. Hearing the movement of rock, Kirill, leader of Bayliss’ work party down the mine, describes it as ‘the music of sempiternity .. the cantata of creation .. the language of dinosaurs played by the orchestras of time.’ This from a former militia man. Bayliss himself is particularly susceptible, contemplating the future: ‘Fate was to knock its gavel on the block,’ he says. ‘I would dance to the pipes of fortune.’
Booth brilliantly recreates the horror of the camp, where a man can choose suicide in the snow and die in two minutes, and the inhuman conditions and brotherly solidarity of work in the coal mine. Elsewhere, there breathes the spirit of this vast, empty land, albeit a Russian Arcadia, at the same time as one feels the withered and deadening hand of Communism, ridiculed in anti-Soviet jokes, and neatly satirised by Bayliss’ observation of post-camp life: ‘We pretended to work whilst the Party pretended to pay us.’
A series of vignettes further symbolise the struggle between freedom and oppression - a wasp freed from a spider’s web, apples crushed to pulp by great machine, the remarkable account of unearthing a mammoth trapped in ice, sparing a bear from the hunter’s gun, returning a fox to the wild, even a brief sexual encounter in the underground passages with a group of women prisoners.
I imagine that judges of the 1998 Booker short-list, chaired by former foreign secretary Douglas Hurd, must have considered this a little too soft-hearted to be the outright winner. Despite the choice that Bayliss faces, blurbed on the novel’s cover as the first great choice in his life, there is never much doubt about what he will decide.
The only surprise is a deus ex machina that emerges to keep everyone happy. A little contrived, all a little too rosy a picture? Perhaps the judges thought so, but it kept me happy too.
April 30, 2019
A moving account of a lifetime of extreme hardship and friendship that left me crying in the end. This one dragged for me a bit in spots because some sections (I think) were about painting a picture of the scenery in a way that would make the reader understand the protagonist's gratitude for the world around him. He'd suffered so much and yet remained pure of heart and able to appreciate beauty in the world. That said, I skimmed those parts because I just... don't care. I want to read about people doing things, not nature scenes and how green and beautiful they are. (Sorry!) HOWEVER. I am still giving this book 5 stars because DAMMIT I ended up crying in the end. Also, in general, the prose was both economical and gorgeous. A worthy read.
April 26, 2024
Painful yet heartwarming
May 15, 2019
pretty good, like the author. takes u places ud never go otherwise
March 5, 2020
What sustains a man during dark days in the gulag of Stalin’s Russia. This question forms the backbone of the novel. It’s an amazing story of hope, friendship and acceptance.
September 1, 2020
Booth’s best book and the novel that should have won the 1998 Booker.
April 20, 2018
This story is so well done, so exceedingly well put-together, and yet (like its main character) so modest and understated that I feel almost unqualified to discuss it.
That character, nicknamed Shurik by his friends, had in times past been an Englishman. In the course of doing business he'd ventured into the Soviet Bloc to buy scrap iron, and had been swept up in one of the purges by which Stalin populated the gulag with slave laborers.
Unquestionably, Shurik's 25 years of toil in a coal mine north of the Arctic Circle are utter hell. I think many writers would have endeavored to make the hopelessness of that experience visceral for the reader. Booth does not. He simply lets the facts speak for themselves. Kirill, the leader of Work Group 8, advises the new arrival not to expect ever to be released. "Live for now," he suggests. Their life involves hacking at a rock wall in a 1.5-meter-high tunnel 2 kilometers underground—but it's life nonetheless. In time, a rare camaraderie grows among these conscripts, all of them victims of unspeakable injustice. They are far beyond emotions like bitterness and enjoy humor as well as personal mental escapes into their private fantasies. Shurik's involves strolling through an imagined garden on an unpeopled estate.
It turns out that Shurik does survive his imprisonment and returns to the outside world. The episodes in the gulag are balanced by and interwoven with moments in a day many years later (his 80th birthday, in fact) when he's enjoying his "daily neighbourhood perambulation" around the village where he's made a new life for himself. This peaceful walk is not unlike the one he'd previously imagined except for frequent encounters with people who know him well, and love him. One asks, "What will you do with your day?"
Shurik replies, "What I do with every day. Live through it, experience what it brings, suffer its pains, or those which twinge my joints when the weather's damp or cold, and rejoice at its little pleasures." Elaborating, he says, "It is not a lesson taught just in the gulag. It is presented to every human."
If anything here rings at all false, I'd say it would be the way virtually everyone in the story shows him respect as a minimum and often unreserved affection. Not to say he doesn't merit it, just that it begins to make the story feel like yet another fantasy. But that's all right with me. There is wisdom here, and the essence of humanity.
That character, nicknamed Shurik by his friends, had in times past been an Englishman. In the course of doing business he'd ventured into the Soviet Bloc to buy scrap iron, and had been swept up in one of the purges by which Stalin populated the gulag with slave laborers.
Unquestionably, Shurik's 25 years of toil in a coal mine north of the Arctic Circle are utter hell. I think many writers would have endeavored to make the hopelessness of that experience visceral for the reader. Booth does not. He simply lets the facts speak for themselves. Kirill, the leader of Work Group 8, advises the new arrival not to expect ever to be released. "Live for now," he suggests. Their life involves hacking at a rock wall in a 1.5-meter-high tunnel 2 kilometers underground—but it's life nonetheless. In time, a rare camaraderie grows among these conscripts, all of them victims of unspeakable injustice. They are far beyond emotions like bitterness and enjoy humor as well as personal mental escapes into their private fantasies. Shurik's involves strolling through an imagined garden on an unpeopled estate.
It turns out that Shurik does survive his imprisonment and returns to the outside world. The episodes in the gulag are balanced by and interwoven with moments in a day many years later (his 80th birthday, in fact) when he's enjoying his "daily neighbourhood perambulation" around the village where he's made a new life for himself. This peaceful walk is not unlike the one he'd previously imagined except for frequent encounters with people who know him well, and love him. One asks, "What will you do with your day?"
Shurik replies, "What I do with every day. Live through it, experience what it brings, suffer its pains, or those which twinge my joints when the weather's damp or cold, and rejoice at its little pleasures." Elaborating, he says, "It is not a lesson taught just in the gulag. It is presented to every human."
If anything here rings at all false, I'd say it would be the way virtually everyone in the story shows him respect as a minimum and often unreserved affection. Not to say he doesn't merit it, just that it begins to make the story feel like yet another fantasy. But that's all right with me. There is wisdom here, and the essence of humanity.
November 2, 2010
A Story of a Man who miraculously finds Freedom & Friendship...
This was an interesting book that I bought because it was clipped out of almost winning the coveted Booker Prize. It was an interesting story that I think would make a wonderful film. The whole idea of being wrongfully accused of being a British agent and arrested by the Russian KGB and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor is a painful thought. However, this British character grows on you as you feel his pain and suffering while he works around it via friendships with inmates. It's meaningful, but I wouldn't rave about it as a very BEST BOOK that one must read. There is a line in the book that goes, "So what wisdom have you learnt today? Or has it yet to come?" Well, I liked the book but I still feel the wisdom I wanted to get has yet to come. There were some remarkable lines that are worth remembering (that I will not deny). More men would appreciate the book than women. It's written by a man who is writing about a man's life. In the end, the main character chooses a small village to remain close to the family he promised to keep a watchful eye over. The writing style is unique.
This was an interesting book that I bought because it was clipped out of almost winning the coveted Booker Prize. It was an interesting story that I think would make a wonderful film. The whole idea of being wrongfully accused of being a British agent and arrested by the Russian KGB and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor is a painful thought. However, this British character grows on you as you feel his pain and suffering while he works around it via friendships with inmates. It's meaningful, but I wouldn't rave about it as a very BEST BOOK that one must read. There is a line in the book that goes, "So what wisdom have you learnt today? Or has it yet to come?" Well, I liked the book but I still feel the wisdom I wanted to get has yet to come. There were some remarkable lines that are worth remembering (that I will not deny). More men would appreciate the book than women. It's written by a man who is writing about a man's life. In the end, the main character chooses a small village to remain close to the family he promised to keep a watchful eye over. The writing style is unique.
February 24, 2016
I'm not sure why Goodreads recommended this so insistently, but it was interesting and not something I would have come across otherwise. I had to get it on interlibrary loan!
Essentially, Alexander has a pretty nice time in the gulag, then hangs out with a nice family in a little town in Russia until he gets to a ripe old age. The book is about choice and the lack thereof, but most of the pages are taken up with descriptions of his time in the gulag (very cold and lots of heavy lifting, but he made great friends) and him taking a walk around the little town to see all his friends and sit on a tree.
Essentially, Alexander has a pretty nice time in the gulag, then hangs out with a nice family in a little town in Russia until he gets to a ripe old age. The book is about choice and the lack thereof, but most of the pages are taken up with descriptions of his time in the gulag (very cold and lots of heavy lifting, but he made great friends) and him taking a walk around the little town to see all his friends and sit on a tree.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 25, 2019
Just finished reading this for perhaps the third time over maybe 20 years and still love it. I don't know if I have a favourite book but if I do, this might be it. On his 80th birthday Alexander Bayliss, Shurik to his Russian friends and comrades, is taking a turn around his adopted village and remembering his life, 20 years of which have been spent in a gulag. He awaits the arrival of someone from his previous life in England. I just can't say enough about how much I live this book, the story, the language, the humanity. There are plenty of other reviews that have said it for me already.
August 17, 2016
It was a bearable read, but not particularly well researched and often quite cliché. I get the impression that the author didn't actually know much about the Gulag system.
If I was told to write a book about living in forced labour camps in general I might have come up with a similar book without thinking too hard. It would have been nice if there were insights into how people were taken to the gulags and more thought on what life was actually like in that system.
If I was told to write a book about living in forced labour camps in general I might have come up with a similar book without thinking too hard. It would have been nice if there were insights into how people were taken to the gulags and more thought on what life was actually like in that system.
August 9, 2013
While I enjoyed the book, I get frustrated when authors heavily hint at but refuse to reveal bits of information until really far into the book. The author did that, but then the information that was revealed turned out to not be very interesting or surprising. It was good but not unusual.
June 29, 2019
“One cannot hate one’s destiny.”
If you have even one ounce of humanity in you there are pages in here that will make you cry but you will also be awed by the limits of endurance of the human spirit.
If you have even one ounce of humanity in you there are pages in here that will make you cry but you will also be awed by the limits of endurance of the human spirit.
January 31, 2014
A very profound, beautifully written novel.
October 17, 2022
In this tale an Englishman is swept into the gulag system for no reason at all, and then forgotten by all he does his 20-30 year term in a labor camp at a coal mine. His best friend in the labor camp was from this village and his dying wish is for our hero to visit his family. Having no where else obvious to go, our hero stays in the village and becomes part of the local fabric.
The book is set on a single day, although there are many flashbacks to the coal mine. Booth does a wonderful job of illustrating such a world. I enjoyed the observation that the camp couldn’t be too hard on its workers, as death or starvation or imprisonment meant less coal production, so as long as the workers were reasonably compliant they could muddle along. On the day of the book, our hero wanders around the town and sees his friends and favorite spots. The portrayal of Russian village life is a bit rosy, and reminds a bit of the Russia portrayed in Dead Souls, where Mother Russia in rich and bountiful and the good peasants are held down by corrupt superiors. It all seems quite believable.
My one quibble with the structure of the book is that at the very beginning we learn that our hero has received an official looking letter telling him that certain visitors are coming that evening to see him. The reader presumes they are English, but we don’t learn much about the purpose of their visit until the very end. I found the continual references to this letter and the meeting a little tedious and not effective at heightening tension. Just hint at what the meeting is about once or twice but don’t constantly refer to it. But that is a minor point in a very good book.
The book is set on a single day, although there are many flashbacks to the coal mine. Booth does a wonderful job of illustrating such a world. I enjoyed the observation that the camp couldn’t be too hard on its workers, as death or starvation or imprisonment meant less coal production, so as long as the workers were reasonably compliant they could muddle along. On the day of the book, our hero wanders around the town and sees his friends and favorite spots. The portrayal of Russian village life is a bit rosy, and reminds a bit of the Russia portrayed in Dead Souls, where Mother Russia in rich and bountiful and the good peasants are held down by corrupt superiors. It all seems quite believable.
My one quibble with the structure of the book is that at the very beginning we learn that our hero has received an official looking letter telling him that certain visitors are coming that evening to see him. The reader presumes they are English, but we don’t learn much about the purpose of their visit until the very end. I found the continual references to this letter and the meeting a little tedious and not effective at heightening tension. Just hint at what the meeting is about once or twice but don’t constantly refer to it. But that is a minor point in a very good book.
May 27, 2025
One of those solid Booker nominees that grips the imagination for its short tenure, then melts away after a few days. If that sounds dismissive, it's not intended as it was a strong book and certainly better than the 1998 Booker's eventual winner ('Amsterdam' by McEwan). Wikipedia reminds me that Booth's book was about a UK citizen arrested under fabricated charges before being sent to the gulag. As ever, I'm happy with a book that telescopes between aged lives in the present and historical youth. It provides some security against catastrophe for those of us with weaker stomachs, while adding an imaginative depth of perspective. Our 80 year old narrator has survived the gulag and carried a mix of guilt and gratitude with a zen-lightness.
The Bhuddist reference is attributable to a professional reviewer quoted on the dust jacket. It perfectly encapsulates the heavy-lightness of this book. The protagonist - Alexander - is of the 'forgive but do not forget' school, or rather to paraphrase a line in the book, 'accept but do not forgive '. He takes a philosophical view of the 30+ years he spent in icy confinement at the hands of an arbitrarily monstrous Soviet state. There are intertextual references to Proust's madelines, while fleshier encounters provide a more universally-relatable moment of fleetingly-savoured bliss. Somehow the book manages to combine lightness and humour with a clear-sighted unflinching presentation of the horrors of twentieth century totalitarianism.
When is heavy not heavy? When the industry of the state is transmuted into a story of the soul.
The Bhuddist reference is attributable to a professional reviewer quoted on the dust jacket. It perfectly encapsulates the heavy-lightness of this book. The protagonist - Alexander - is of the 'forgive but do not forget' school, or rather to paraphrase a line in the book, 'accept but do not forgive '. He takes a philosophical view of the 30+ years he spent in icy confinement at the hands of an arbitrarily monstrous Soviet state. There are intertextual references to Proust's madelines, while fleshier encounters provide a more universally-relatable moment of fleetingly-savoured bliss. Somehow the book manages to combine lightness and humour with a clear-sighted unflinching presentation of the horrors of twentieth century totalitarianism.
When is heavy not heavy? When the industry of the state is transmuted into a story of the soul.
February 8, 2021
I enjoyed this book immensely. It was a both sweet and awful story of Alexander (Shurik) Bayliss. The author made it very realistic without too much too much detail of the horrors involved. Somehow his words were made me feel like I could see and hear Shurik and his experiences. I felt like I understood and liked him and all the people close to him were very likeable also. The author gave such good brief descriptions of each person that you never forgot that person again. After Martin Booth described a person, you understood what kind of person they were. There was foreshadowing throughout the book, and also hints of the past. I missed an obvious clue to the backstory at the very beginning of the book, so I had even more anticipation while reading than I should have had. There is a rhythm to how the unknowns are revealed that keeps the book captivating. It is sprinkled with what is for me just the right number of new words to make it sparkle. This book engaged me emotionally and logically, so I ended up being very curious about how the author researched the background and came up with the details for the story. The location of the labor camp and the village where the protagonist settled both exist and there was a labor camp. I would love to know if Martin Booth traveled there and if he based this book on any historical documents. It may be because I have been reading a lot of non-fiction that I really want to understand what the factual background is.
May 7, 2021
I enjoyed this book immensely. It was a both sweet and awful story of Alexander (Shurik) Bayliss. The author made it very realistic without too much too much detail of the horrors involved. Somehow his words were made me feel like I could see and hear Shurik and his experiences. I felt like I understood and liked him and all the people close to him were very likeable also. The author gave such good brief descriptions of each person that you never forgot that person again. After Martin Booth described a person, you understood what kind of person they were. There was foreshadowing throughout the book, and also hints of the past. I missed an obvious clue to the backstory at the very beginning of the book, so I had even more anticipation while reading than I should have had. There is a rhythm to how the unknowns are revealed that keeps the book captivating. It is sprinkled with what is for me just the right number of new words to make it sparkle. This book engaged me emotionally and logically, so I ended up being very curious about how the author researched the background and came up with the details for the story. The location of the labor camp and the village where the protagonist settled both exist and there was a labor camp. I would love to know if Martin Booth traveled there and if he based this book on any historical documents. It may be because I have been reading a lot of non-fiction that I really want to understand what the factual background is.
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