McKEON: All That is Solid Melts Into Air
Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 10:20 amCOLLISON: Review - All That is Solid Melts Into Air
[ http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/bo ... eview.html ]
By: Robert Collison Published on Wed Mar 19 2014
When Grigory Brovkin, one of the protagonists of the novel, All That is Solid Melts Into Air, encounters the smoke billowing out of the crippled nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in April, 1986, he recalls the words attributed to the nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer at the moment of the inception of the atomic bomb: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
That is a rather appropriate coda for this quite astonishing debut novel from Darragh McKeon, an Irishman who visited Moscow for the very first time near the end of his nine-year marathon writing the book. And that is only noteworthy because McKeon’s lack of direct experience with Russia’s nuances seems in no way to have inhibited his ability to craft a novel that brings this vast society to life at arguably the most critical juncture of its modern history — the tumultuous five years between Chernobyl and the dissolution of the Soviet state.
But while the themes of the book are epic, the narrative focuses on the lives of only a few characters whose destinies are ensnared by events unleashed by the world’s worst nuclear meltdown — to date. This novel is a truly cautionary tale for every society that uses nuclear power to fuel homes and factories. Use it, but at your own risk. Chernobyl also starkly revealed the pestilent rot at the centre of the Communist state — and its complete inability to deal with a catastrophe of this magnitude. While Chernobyl wasn’t literally the lynchpin causing the U.S.S.R. to implode, in the hands of McKeon, it brilliantly plays that role, metaphorically.
It is against this backdrop — the meltdowns at Chernobyl reactor and inside the Soviet state — that the lives of the book’s central characters unravel: Dr. Grigory Brovkin, the brilliant surgeon; his estranged wife, Maria, a onetime dissident; her sister Alina and her nephew Yvengi, a young musical prodigy; and everyday folks whom Brovkin meets in the “exclusion zone.”
Brovkin is initially dismayed when asked by an influential apparatchik to head medical operations at Chernobyl. What role can a cardiothoracic surgeon play in such an emergency? A lot, as it turns out. Chosen for his calm manner Brovkin becomes a nightmare for “The System.” Encountering not only a medical catastrophe but also political lassitude, he pushes back, demanding the evacuation of Minsk when he discovers a radioactive cloud ominously hovering over the Belarusian capital.
“They have to contain the information in order to avoid a mass panic.’
‘The KGB?’
‘The KGB. The General Secretary. Everyone.’
“So there’ll be no evacuation.’
‘No it’s direct from the highest levels in the Kremlin.’”
Brovkin is attempting to abate the horrendous impact of radioactive poisoning — and some of the most harrowing writing in the book describes it in detail. “He views photographs of firemen and technicians, a plague of black globules spread over their red-raw bodies. He shares images of infants with mushroom-shaped growths in places of eyes. . . ”
If Chernobyl’s post-apocalyptic misery is the novel’s central focus, the human drama in Moscow, focused on Maria and her family details the withering grind of Soviet society. At a critical point, a plot to stage an insurrection during a concert at Maria’s factory falters when her prodigy nephew, scheduled to be the big draw for party big shots, goes missing.
MORE:
[ http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/bo ... eview.html ]
[ http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/bo ... eview.html ]
By: Robert Collison Published on Wed Mar 19 2014
When Grigory Brovkin, one of the protagonists of the novel, All That is Solid Melts Into Air, encounters the smoke billowing out of the crippled nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in April, 1986, he recalls the words attributed to the nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer at the moment of the inception of the atomic bomb: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
That is a rather appropriate coda for this quite astonishing debut novel from Darragh McKeon, an Irishman who visited Moscow for the very first time near the end of his nine-year marathon writing the book. And that is only noteworthy because McKeon’s lack of direct experience with Russia’s nuances seems in no way to have inhibited his ability to craft a novel that brings this vast society to life at arguably the most critical juncture of its modern history — the tumultuous five years between Chernobyl and the dissolution of the Soviet state.
But while the themes of the book are epic, the narrative focuses on the lives of only a few characters whose destinies are ensnared by events unleashed by the world’s worst nuclear meltdown — to date. This novel is a truly cautionary tale for every society that uses nuclear power to fuel homes and factories. Use it, but at your own risk. Chernobyl also starkly revealed the pestilent rot at the centre of the Communist state — and its complete inability to deal with a catastrophe of this magnitude. While Chernobyl wasn’t literally the lynchpin causing the U.S.S.R. to implode, in the hands of McKeon, it brilliantly plays that role, metaphorically.
It is against this backdrop — the meltdowns at Chernobyl reactor and inside the Soviet state — that the lives of the book’s central characters unravel: Dr. Grigory Brovkin, the brilliant surgeon; his estranged wife, Maria, a onetime dissident; her sister Alina and her nephew Yvengi, a young musical prodigy; and everyday folks whom Brovkin meets in the “exclusion zone.”
Brovkin is initially dismayed when asked by an influential apparatchik to head medical operations at Chernobyl. What role can a cardiothoracic surgeon play in such an emergency? A lot, as it turns out. Chosen for his calm manner Brovkin becomes a nightmare for “The System.” Encountering not only a medical catastrophe but also political lassitude, he pushes back, demanding the evacuation of Minsk when he discovers a radioactive cloud ominously hovering over the Belarusian capital.
“They have to contain the information in order to avoid a mass panic.’
‘The KGB?’
‘The KGB. The General Secretary. Everyone.’
“So there’ll be no evacuation.’
‘No it’s direct from the highest levels in the Kremlin.’”
Brovkin is attempting to abate the horrendous impact of radioactive poisoning — and some of the most harrowing writing in the book describes it in detail. “He views photographs of firemen and technicians, a plague of black globules spread over their red-raw bodies. He shares images of infants with mushroom-shaped growths in places of eyes. . . ”
If Chernobyl’s post-apocalyptic misery is the novel’s central focus, the human drama in Moscow, focused on Maria and her family details the withering grind of Soviet society. At a critical point, a plot to stage an insurrection during a concert at Maria’s factory falters when her prodigy nephew, scheduled to be the big draw for party big shots, goes missing.
MORE:
[ http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/bo ... eview.html ]