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Red Plenty Hardcover – 19 Aug 2010

by
Francis Spufford (Author)
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Francis Spufford (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 54 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber; 1st edition (19 Aug. 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0571225233
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571225231
  • Product Dimensions: 14.3 x 3.7 x 22.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 186,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

'An incredibly smart, surprisingly involving and deeply eccentric book…. I am not alone in thinking that [Francis Spufford] has one of the most original minds in contemporary literature.' --Nick Hornby, Believer

'One can scarcely think of a recent book that conveys the everyday textures of life in the Soviet Union so well. ... This is a thrilling book that all enthusiasts of the Big State should read.' --Michael Burleigh, Sunday Telegraph

'(I) finished it in awe, not merely at Spufford's Stakhanovite research, but at his skill as a novelist, his judgement as a historian and his sheer guts in attempting something simultaneously so weird and yet so wonderful.' -- Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

'As a gallimaufry of the funny, technical-scientific and deadly earnest, Red Plenty ranks as one of the strangest books ever written on the Soviet Union. From start to finish, the book is an eccentric delight; absorbing, pleasingly digressive and superbly written.' --Ian Thomson, Financial Times

Book Description

What if the Soviet 'miracle' had worked, and the communists had discovered the secret to prosperity, progress and happiness...?

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA Wonderful Patchwork of Research and Imagination
By T. R. Cowdret on 20 Aug. 2010
Format: Hardcover
This is a fantastic, innovative look at the economic policies of the USSR under Khrushchev. If my opening sentence sounds dull, please don't see it as a true representation of this book. Spufford's approach is to interweave extensive research with the imagination and invention of a novelist. The end result is a fantastic patchwork in which fictional characters rub shoulders with historical ones and stunning descriptive passages add lustre to what might have been dry, factual information.
Some experts might balk at the idea of a non-Russian speaker using secondary sources to construct such a book. Readers of Taubman's biography of Khruschchev might also feel that a sense of 'deja vu' creeps in at points. However, Spufford's 'novelistic' approach brought new angles to this topic for me and certainly made me think about certain aspects of the period in a different way.
I'm not sure that I have done an effective job in this review of explaining the wonderful book Spufford has created. All I can say is that, having read many of Spufford's sources previously, I was hugely impressed with the end result of his creative approach.
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5.0 out of 5 starsSpufford triumphs again
By critic on 2 Sept. 2010
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Spufford has a talent for conveying atmosphere, for recreating an era by means of anecdote, and he uses the technique to good effect here.

The story is of Soviet Russia, and how, through the appliance of science, it will forge ahead of the capitalists. Only it didn't happen like that.

Spufford relates the story by vignettes, first showing how the system might work, and the optimism engendered, then the gradual lapse into economic arthritis that led to the collapse of the system.

Well worth your money and your time.
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5.0 out of 5 starsEnjoyable, Eccentric and Economic Fun!!!!
By Kuma on 19 Sept. 2010
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Spufford's "Red Plenty" is an amazing work. I never thought I'd ever read a novel about economics, but this is a rare work. Other reviewers have already captured a lot of what the work is about, but as an historian what this book did was something that a history book would struggle to do and that is provide a sensation of expectation.
Often the historian is faced with teleological arguments and the dreaded threat of anachronism when assessing history. Received wisdom now tells us that Soviet Union was doomed to fail, this attitude dooms historians to wonder why there was a cold war at all, surely the West could have just waited and not have been as pro-active? This book undermines that notion, partly through shrewd judgement by picking a period in which the Soviet Union had the edge, the late 50s and early 60s - the book parachutes the reader into the era in which the Soviets beat the US to the punch with the ICBM and when the planned economy represented a real challenge to the free market. Spufford infuses us with the aspirations of his characters and does a marvellous job of suspending disbelief, leaving the reader thinking at the end that maybe the Soviet decline wasn't inevitable and could have been so different if some personalities hadn't intervened. In some respects this should be essential reading for any cold war student - it really breathes life into the topic.
As a work of literature it provides a compelling set of interlinking stories, paced correctly and very readable. For those of you worried about the economic content, this is very accessible and like a good fairy tale key pieces of information and explanations are transmitted to characters that need them explained, helping the reader understand if necessary.
I'd recommend this book to anyone wanting a really entertaining read, interested in history or economics or even those who simply enjoy intelligent prose.
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5.0 out of 5 starsOrdinary people swimming in ideological tides
By Cholly McMurphy on 2 Nov. 2010
Format: Hardcover
As a 1950's Meccanophile I was thrilled by Spufford's `Backroom Boys' - a tale of British string and sealing wax inventiveness - and was very curious to see what he would make of recent Soviet History. I was not disappointed. He is a piece of work, that Spufford. He can certainly spin a good narrative. He managed to make Soviet History human - combining imagined vignettes of fictional characters with `proper' history. But unlike the usual depressing narratives covering that period (collapse of Communism - inevitable because repressive and over extended militarily) he shines a light on the totally understandable ideological commitment towards an envisioned better future realisable through the application of `Science' - physical, economic and social and managerial. If only the proletariat could be rescued from ignorance and taught to see the light - if only! Utopia is just over the horizon, and why not? What is life about if not the creation of a better world for more people, decent housing, clothing and adequate food? Spufford captures that feeling, that ideological current. Of course we know now that the experiment failed disastrously - but - and this is what I took from Spufford - there were people (ordinary people) who actually wanted it to succeed, who felt that any social organisation was better than a vast peasantry owned by a tiny aristocracy that was pre-revolutionary Russia. Just such a shame that the revolutionaries failed to trust the people.

And more - the 53 pages of notes on which the smooth narrative was based were as fascinating and as informative as the narrative itself. Well done, Spufford.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsKhrushchev's TIme

This is the story of the beginning of the end of fairytale - the fairytale of 1917. It begins with the death of Stalin. Khrushchev wanted to create a better kind of USSR. Read more

Published 7 days ago by gerardpeter
1.0 out of 5 starsMAY NOT BE WHAT YOU EXPECT.

WRITTEN AS A STORY FOLLOWING CHARACTERS IN THE REVOLUTION. GREAT IF YOU WANT THAT, MINE WENT IN THE RECYCLING. Read more

Published 2 months ago by DD
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat present for an intelligent and politically engaged person.

I bought it as a present for a friend of mine because someone had recommended it to me. My friend absolutely loved it and carried it everywhere he went.

Published 2 months ago by Marina
4.0 out of 5 starsImaginative

I've marked this as non-fiction, although really it's a hybrid. I normally don't have much time for this kind of mix, but Spufford pulls it off brilliantly, his poetic prose and... Read more

Published 8 months ago by S Litton
5.0 out of 5 starsA must-read!

It's a great book! Do read it. I wonder why communism was (in the Western imaginary) only allowed to fail once so we can so confidently imagine now that the Soviet Union was... Read more

Published 9 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsOdd, excellent, reminded me of Dubliners.

Odd, excellent, reminded me of Dubliners.

Published 10 months ago by Nick
5.0 out of 5 starsReally excellent

This is an unconventional history book. This is also an unconventional historical novel. Many of the characters are invented. Read more

Published 12 months ago by Twist Barbie
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Great enlightening book and fun to read

Published 15 months ago by Iggy
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Excellent! An informative, and entertaining account of the weaknesses of one of the ideas underlying communist "economics"

Published 18 months ago by Seamus Keane
5.0 out of 5 starsThe allure and destruction of Communism explained

Explains both the allure of Soviet Communism, and its destruction due to internal contradictions. The fictional stories, albeit with historical grounding, describe the Soviet... Read more

Published 22 months ago by Per Kraulis

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