Book Review: Farewell to Russia by Joe Luc Barnes

 

I think Farewell to Russia - a travelogue with political bite in which the author visits all of the constituent parts of the former USSR - might just be one of my favourite books of the year. 

It has its weaknesses. It is, after all, a huge ask to try and cover the enormity of the discrete territories - all fifteen of them - that stretch from the Baltic to the Sea of Japan and the Arctic Ocean to the southern Caspian Sea. They are so hugely different and so individually and collectively fascinating that I wanted more. 

That said, Joe Luc Barnes has done a proper job within these limits. I thoroughly enjoyed his wit and observation; I liked the dry way in which he observed the differences between the multiple cultures; I enjoyed his adventures and the characterisations of those he met. 

I already had an idea of the extent to which the Baltic states have always regarded themselves as separate, and who doesn't, these days, have an interest in Ukraine? If I'm honest I thought Barnes rather short-changed us with regard to these states, lumping the three Baltic states in a single chapter, and his journeys in Belarus and Ukraine were necessarily constrained. Perhaps that was unavoidable.

To compensate for that, his descriptions of Russia itself, and in particular of the jigsaw of warring tribes and micro-republics that make up the turbulent Caucasus, intrigued me the most. And I've always had a vague interest in the republics among the former Silk Road but had no concept of how differently they have evolved since their independence (and yet in many ways remain similar). 

Of the Caucasus I knew almost nothing (which is odd because that border between Armenia and Turkey is the closest I have ever come the old USSR, and I was there when the big beast was very much alive and the frontier bristled with armed men in watchtowers). Barnes' introduction to these tumultuous republics has already set me on the route to wider reading, his fascinating glimpses leading me to want more. 

This is an excellent book and achieved what all travel books should -- entertaining the reader while opening their mind. 

Thank you to Netgalley and Elliott & Thompson for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review. 

 

Book Review: A History of England in 25 poems by Catherine Clark

 

The concept of Catherine Clark’s history-poetry book is an interesting one: “…the history of England told in a new way: glimpsed through twenty-five remarkable poems written down between the eighth century and today, which connect us directly with the nation’s past, and the experiences, emotions and imaginations of those who lived it.”

And it’s fine. It really is fine. 

The trouble is that it felt like it had missed a few tricks. Yes, I liked (most of) the poems but the selection was a bit odd, ranging from some of the absolute best (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) through the historical oddities like The Agincourt Carol, to those which seemed a little strange (such as Crumble Hall). 

There is a paradox here. The better poems from any era have survived and are well-known and the less good have fallen by the wayside for a reason, so that if you go out of your way  to include lesser-known poems they are unlikely to be the best. And while I very much liked the fact that Clarke chose lesser-heard voices (women, PoC) she was necessarily picking from a much narrower library, especially historically and some of the poems, for me, lacked literary merit.

I also felt the definition of English history was a bit stretched: Clarke includes Geoffrey Hill’s Poetry After Auschwitz and though she acknowledges the difficulties (not just the fact that Auschwitz is by no definition an English event) I nevertheless thought it a bit of a stretch to say that Hill (who was a child during the war “is nevertheless implicated, like everyone, in the violence and brutality of the Holocaust.” 

On the whole I think Clarke’s choices were insightful, especially given that it was inevitable some significant events had to be left out, but I did feel that my enjoyment of the poetry was poorer for some of them. I largely enjoyed the commentary, too, though the same limitations apply: so much had to be left unsaid. 

As a result the book was somehow less than the sum of its parts, which is a pity — but I nevertheless enjoyed it for its quirkiness and I definitely learned from it.