- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Picador (Oct 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312267533
- ISBN-13: 978-0312267537
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 14 x 1.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,377,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The painful emergence of modern Russia from the shadow of the Soviet Union over the last decade has provided many stories of incredible suffering, deprivation and loss. Martin Booth's The Industry of Souls offers one particularly unique dimension of this traumatic history. Booth's novel tells the story of Alexander Bayliss, a British businessman falsely arrested for spying in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and sentenced to 20 years hard labour in the gulag. Freed in the 1970s, Bayliss--known as Shurik, the diminutive for Alexander--makes his way to the village and family of his closest friend in the gulag. With its gentle wisdom and elegiac tone, the novel traces the events of Bayliss's 80th birthday as he moves through the village he has come to call his home, recounting in flashback the incredible camaraderie of his horrific years in the gulag and struggling with the sudden reappearance of his long-forgotten life in England.
The Industry of Souls is a wise and moving parable of personal acceptance in the face of the nightmare of modern history; probably an outside shot for the Booker Prize, but a telling story not only of personal suffering, but also the extent to which the shadow of Stalin's regime still looms over today's Russia and its people. --Jerry Brotton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"It is a story of darkness and light...remarkably moving: a morality tale, essentially, and one that reaches well beyond the obvious." - "The New York Times"
"This is often lyrical and nimble, and accomplishes the not-insignificant task of entertaining and enlightening by means of literary narrative." - "The Boston Book Review"
"This is often lyrical and nimble, and accomplishes the not-insignificant task of entertaining and enlightening by means of literary narrative." - "The Boston Book Review"
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am an American, but I subscribe to many British book reviews. This book caught my eye and I read it in one sitting. The pace is delightful, the story never lags, the character development is intense. You live in the gulag and small-town Russia simultaneously. I cried as the end approached. I have ordered every other Booth novel Amazon.co.uk has. Booth's books are not available in the US. Industry of Souls is an all-consuming, gentle and very human book. It is, without a doubt, a must-read for any compassionate person.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'The Industry of Souls' is an extremely well-written, perfectly-paced, compassionate, funny and moving account of the life of Alexander Alan Bayliss, an Englishman falsely convicted by Soviet authorities of spying in Leipzig and sentenced to twenty five years hard labour in the Soviet gulags. Now known as Shurik, and living for the past twenty years in the central Russian village of Myshkino, he wakes up to a special day, his eightieth birthday, at the end of which he is expecting important visitors whose identity and purpose remain concealed throughout the novel. (The details of the revelation came as a complete surprise to me.) Shurik takes us on his daily constitutional walk through Myshkino, introducing us to the everyday lives of an array of appealing characters. Interwoven with this account are Shurik's reminiscences about his experiences as a political prisoner in the mines of the Soviet gulag.
Shurik relates a number of incidents that convey the harshness of prison life, even though the novel as a whole may not fully reflect the horrors of life in the gulags. Martin Booth skillfully develops characterisation through Shurik's fellow convicts telling meandering, hilarious jokes, punctuated by equally funny interjections, which also serve to soften the recounting of the desperate gulag conditions for the reader and illustrate the importance of black humour to survival in the Soviet era. Martin Booth fully develops plot and character in the accounts of both gulag and village life, and has created a memorable and endearing narrator who appears to be completely at peace with life in his adopted village and reconciled with events in his past. In short, 'The Industry of Souls' is a truly first-rate achievement that brims with genuine humanity without ever becoming mawkish.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This thoughtful and loving tribute to the human spirit begins with the lines: "It is the industry of the soul, to love and to hate...to honour friends and wreak vengeance upon enemies..." Here and elsewhere throughout the book, Booth uses Biblical parallels to advance his message about the human condition: "[There is] a time to love and a time to hate...a time of war, and a time of peace." [Ecclesiastes] In quiet, thoughtful tones, the main character, 80-year-old Alexander Bayliss, called Shurik, reflects on his life, a life which we would consider intolerable but in which he has found satisfaction and, remarkably, much joy. At eighty, he is a man completely at peace with his world, celebrating the love, endurance, and forgiveness which have made his life not only bearable, but ultimately, happy.
Shurik was a 40-year-old Englishman doing business in the Soviet Union when he was summarily arrested for espionage and sentenced to hard labor in the gulag, spending the next twenty years in a coal mine. In the hellish darkness and depths of the mine, however, Shurik finds enlightenment. One of seven men in his labor group, he and his companions become a family, fiercely loyal to each other, accepting life moment by moment, with no thoughts wasted on a future they cannot afford to contemplate. When Communism eventually fails and the Soviet Union dissolves, Bayliss, at eighty, finds himself faced with his most difficult decision.
This ambitious novel entertains at the same time that it conveys a strong message about man's enduring spirit and the need to forgive. The symbolism is clear and easily understood--the miners digging up a completely preserved wooly mammoth, then roasting and eating part of it, Shurik acting as teacher to the children of the village and sometimes speaking in aphorisms or proverbs, the story of the fox in the cage, the making of bread in the village, Shurik arguing for the historic preservation of the local church, etc. The language is simple, the images are unforgettable, the prose style is both musical and urgent, and the characters are admirable and sympathetic. A memorable and thoughtfully constructed novel, every detail of which advances Bayliss's message. Mary Whipple
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Intensely humane
One of my favourite books of all time - humanity triumphs in situations which I've never been able to "see" so clearly. I bought a second copy, just to lend to friends.
Published 6 months ago by P. A. Sarr
Superb
Nothing in this book is flashy or showy. Everything is just right -- reports of conversations; pacing of plot; descriptions of landscapes; the interior monologue that forms the... Read more
Published on 4 Nov 2007 by Barton Keyes
Good -- but not as great as One Day In The Life Of...
This novel of life in the Soviet Gulag inevitably invites comparison with Solzhenitsyn's slim masterpiece. Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2001 by A. J. Craig
The Industry of Souls is absolutely spellbinding!
I had to read "The Industry of Souls" for my AP English semester project. We received a list of Booker Prize Novels to pick from. Read more
Published on 11 Dec 2000 by vlv009@hotmail.com
Absolutely Stunning
'The Industry Of Souls' is one of the most poignant and emotive books written in recent times. Its success lies in its simplicity of characters as well as its exploration of the... Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2000 by learmont@ihug.co.nz
This should have been the winner
The Industry of Souls is one of the best written books I have read since The Grapes of Wrath. It is passionate and emotional. Read more
Published on 10 Oct 2000 by Nigel Stanier
Such a tedious book! I really regret having bought it.
The story kicks off with a verbose and over-sentimentel, melodramatic scene of the brave, generous and saintly great man waking up and meeting his adopted family. Read more
Published on 20 Sep 2000
A poignant tale of a remarkable life
I found this book slow at first, but that is probably because I read it in a disjointed way, just a few pages at a time. Read more
Published on 30 Dec 1999 by L. Wylie
A passionate story told in a movingly matter-of-fact way.
I've just finished reading this book. To write within the context of another country with a very different history and set of experiences from the author's so convincingly is... Read more
Published on 13 Mar 1999
SUPERB READ, NOT ABLE TO PUT THE BOOK DOWN
A moving story of a humble, gentle man in which humanity overcomes evil, anger and bitterness.
Published on 14 Feb 1999
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