This is a first Thubron travel work for me. I am impressed. His sensitive writing combined with the vast, bleak subject-matter of Siberia gave me a sense of the surreal. A fascinating but largely grim adventure into a post-Soviet wilderness, you feel the huge weight of history and loss hanging over an impoverished and isolated people. I wonder how much has changed now but I am not sure I am brave enough to travel there and find out.
(Rebecca Howell - bwl 75 Winter 2015 ) |
