Harvest on the Don, 1961 1st American Edition, by Mikhail Sholokhov. Hardcover with dust jacket, 367 pages, published by Alfred A. Knopf.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
In the greatest tradition of Russian fiction,
By A Customer
This review is from: Harvest on the Don (Hardcover)
This is a sequel of another epic novel, Virgin Soil Upturned. The lowdown about this novel is that the author was the favorite of the Soviet Communist Party (pitted against the likes of other Nobel prize winners Solzhenitsyn and Pasternak) and the subject matter SOUNDS boring: the collectivization of farming among Don Cossacks during the early history of the Soviet era.But like all other great minds, Sholokhov is an aberration: despite being a true blue card-carrying member of the Central Committee and despite the seemingly boring subject, he is genuinely a first-class talent that to me is truly superior to Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn, and approaches the likes of Turgenev and Gogol. The pacing and humour of his narrative is similar to Dostoevsky -- fast and interesting, unlike Tolstoy who can be boring and didactic. Characterization and local color however is Tolstoyan: you can really recognize even the individual horses and the dogs, and the description of the peasantry and the countryside reminds one of the pastoral passages in Tolstoy. The gritty and unflinching realism is very honest and peculiarly modern, but always in the best tradition of grand Russian novels: sweeping, panoramic, and places the reader right in the center of the whirlwind of events and emotions.
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Socialist realism at its worst,
This review is from: Harvest on the Don (Hardcover)
I found this account of life on a collective farm totally boring. The only reason I can see for reading it is to experience a good example of what socialist realism can do to writing. The story and characters did not engage my interest. After reading this novel, I felt as bleak as the life it describes.
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