The Commissariat of Enlightenment [Hardcover]

Kolya Gribshin, a young cameraman working for the Pathe Freres Cinematography Company, arrives at the railway station in Astapovo in 1910 to cover the last days of Count Leo Tolstoy, who is dying in the stationmaster's house. Reporters from all over the world have gathered to record his final moments, but only Gribshin is recording the events on film, a new medium. Gribshin knows that the printed word is inaccessible to the illiterate masses, but that film can provide immediate "truth" and is capable of "ripping away the veil of lies thrown up by language." As we see Gribshin travel between the darkness of the unlit countryside, where he is staying with an illiterate peasant family, and the artificial, arc-lit brightness of the media-mad town, the author uses vivid imagery from black and white photography to show the contrasts between the lives of illiterate peasants living in darkness and concentrating on their next meal, and the lives of an "enlightened" media conveying news to the outside world.

Like Gribshin, revolutionaries such as Josef Stalin also recognize the power of the visual image to "educate" illiterate people and shape and control public opinion. Part II takes place nine war-filled years later, after Russia has faced the horrors of The Great War, the Bolshevik revolution, and the civil war, and Stalin is putting some of these principles into effect through the Commissariat of of Enlightenment. Gribshin, now known as Comrade Astapov, is working with him as they attempt to control the masses by controlling visual images--governing theater productions, film projects, and even city planning. Here the imagery of darkness and light, introduced in Part I, becomes a constant motif, as the Commissariat plans to "extend the enlightenment to every remote...village in the tundra," destroying churches and the images (icons) within, if necessary. In 1924, the Commissariat's ultimate image-control occurs when the body of Lenin is preserved "uncorrupted," allowing the state to display publicly a man who never "dies."

Kalfus has dared to think big in his debut novel, and his talents are legion. His parallels between black and white photography and his symbols of darkness and light keep the reader constantly aware of the darkness of illiteracy and the light of truth which film can provide. But this is also a cautionary tale about the ability of images to be manipulated and controlled, and all Kalfus's plot elements are subordinated to this single, overwhelming theme. Gribshin, the "lens" through whom the reader views events, never really comes alive, and we do not know his motivations or see him wrestling with inner conflicts. He is, ultimately, a cog in the apparatus of the Commissariat of Enlightenment, a vehicle through whom the author advances his theme, not a thinking human. The novel is very tight, however, with no loose ends, and when Kalfus observes that the West, too, is creating an image-ruled empire by presenting so much imagery and meaning that "the sum [becomes] unintelligible," the reader will pause and ponder. Mary Whipple

This is excellent writing, let's be straight about that from the off. Kalfus daringly and convincingly takes us through various stages in the late-tsarist/early Soviet period of Russian history by following his protagonist, Gribshin/Astapov.

This is essentially a novel about one main idea - the power of the sign. The book begins with Tolstoy dying in a train station at Astapov and shows the burgeoning cinema/visual media industry and the power it will come to have. Gribshin is the only one to truly realise how important the new visual medium is. The camera never lies and whatever it shows will become the 'truth', regardless of real events. We see this through an incident in which Tolstoy's wife is depicted as having reconciled with her husband in film, which is far more important than whether or not this actually happened.

Next we move onto the Civil War and see how Gribshin has become Astapov and is in the employ of the Commissariat of Enlightenment, charged with sppreading the Marxist-Leninist doctrine to an unwilling, pious peasant population. Here Astapov runs into trouble where his technological revolution clashes with the long-established power of the Orthodox church and its many symbols, icons and saints' relics that have a hold over the peasant population - this is our second 'sign'.

In the third stage we see Stalin's role in the process of 'Enlightenment' as Lenin lies dying and Astapov is charged with orchestrating that all-conquering third 'sign' - Lenin's embalmed body and his tomb. This is really the best part of the book as everything comes to a head and the novel's message is hammered home among some very clever and emotional scenes.

This is without a doubt an excellent book and one that is well written and thoroughly researched without being too heavy on historical detail.

The title of my review refers to an issue that was personally no problem for me but which may put some readers off. Namely, the book focuses on the idea of the power of the sign and seems to relegate character and story to second place. Certainly, in a literary novel, it's far from uncommon to pay less attention to plot than other genres but the lack of character focus is a little unusual. I never felt I knew much about our protagonist and found myself surprised and confused by some of his actions throughout the book as they seemed out of character, until in the end I just decided I had no idea who this character was. Perhaps he is more of a cipher for the idea. There are also other characters who flit across the novel (Astapov's quickly introduced and quickly discarded and not heard from again wife, for example) so that element of the novel can feel a little superficial at times.

As I say, this is an extremely intelligent and well-written novel. It's one that I enjoyed and I'm sure many others will too. I just think that it almost becomes a treatise on semiotics more than anything else at some points and readers who are looking to engage deeply with thir protagonists or to be swept into a story might be left a bit frustrated.