Eastbound

I was pleasantly surprised by this short novel by Maylis De Kerangal. Aliocha is aboard a Trans-Siberian train to (unwillingly) join the military. As the train makes its journey towards Vladivostok, Aliocha plots to flee the train. It is only when he meets Helene, a French woman with limited Russian, that he begins to set his plan in motion.

The almost-wordless alliance between Aliocha and Helene is beautiful and real. They both have the upper hand in some regard, Helene a wealthy passenger, but Aliocha has a distinct strength and height advantage. When Helene opens her cabin and agrees to hide Aliocha, she underestimates how far he will go to escape his fate. Both Helen and Aliocha are trying to escape something, and the strange bond between them is incredibly compelling.

Despite being set in the present, the novel has a historical feel; perhaps that is the mood that trains evoke. The time constraint of the journey really adds to the tension.

Eastbound is a fantastic little novel, ideal for a single-sitting read.

More than one hundred conscripts were crammed on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow, among them, 20 year old, Aliocha. He was unable to obtain a false medical certificate, ineligible for the exemption for "conjugal salvation" (no girlfriend who was 6 months pregnant to save him). With kit in hand, Aliocha was hustled on board, with other young soldiers. "the cadence of the train...rather than numbing his anxiety, shakes it up and revives it...Blurred images of a territory from which no one returns...".

Manhandled by two conscripts, Aliocha needed to escape...run away...get out...defect. Was it possible to hide in the overcrowded, third class compartment until the next train stop then, in the darkness, disappear into the crowd? There were those who watched. Sergeant Letchov, his constant, sly vigilance . Provodnitsas (train attendants who lived on the train) were "cross-border agents without a passport moving from one republic to the next...trafficked all there is to traffic...Moscow to Vladivostok and back...nearly a quarter of the circumference of the earth with each trip."

A foreigner, Helene, entered Aliocha's compartment. "They share(d) names, a light, cigarettes." They didn't share a common language. Gesture and action was their method of communication. "Aliocha holds his breath...he's no beggar, no victim, he's just like her, he's running away..." he, from soldiering, she, from her Russian lover. Forcefully, he received Helene's compliance. She would hide him in her first class compartment. "Helene is terrified that the top of the blonde attendant's head with her crimped hair puffs will touch Aliocha's knee..." as he hides in the cavity above the door. Helene was Aliocha's accomplice as well as his captive. How can she leave her compartment?

"Eastbound" by Maylis De Kerangal is a tense, suspenseful ride on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The soldier and the foreigner both seek freedom as the drama unfolds through the use of beautifully descriptive prose. I highly recommend this masterfully written novella.

Thank you Archipelago Books and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really fell in love with the characters in this fine book. The story moves along at a good pace, and there is enough suspense and drama to make me worry about the characters I grew to care about. It really fits what is going on now in Russia too. I will miss them; that is how I know it was a great book. I will read more by this author.

A timely short novel about two disparate people who meet on the Trans-Siberian Express as it heads east to Vladivostok and forge an unlikely alliance. Helene is a young French woman fleeing her relationship with her Russian boyfriend. Aliocha is a young Russian conscript desperate to escape the brutal military service awaiting him. A chance encounter brings them together on the train and Helene has to decide whether or not to help hide the young man from the military authorities hunting for him. It’s a tense and suspenseful story, richly atmospheric, immersive and expertly paced, with the outcome uncertain right to the last page. A compelling read.

A beautifully scripted story of a young army conscript trying to defect from the army whilst travelling on the Trans-Siberian railway. Edgy and suspenseful novella that is filled with surprising compassion. Maylis De Kerangal has written a literary gem that was wonderfully translated by Jessica Moore.

Eastbound by Maylis De Kerangal is a real treat, a story but beautifully written.
Fate brings 2 very different people together on the Trans-Siberian Railway, Frenchwoman Helene leaving her Russian lover and heading for home and Aliocha , reluctant conscript into heading for his first posting in a Russian army notorious for its bullying.
Before their inauspicious meeting Aliocha has already had a taste of what awaits him as more experienced conscripts can't wait to even get off the train to begin the "hazing" of new recruits and decides that Army life is not for him. With nothing in common,not even language,Aliocha and Helene team up in a tense game of cat and mouse as the train rolls on with neither assured of having broken free at the end of their journey.

This is an exceptional piece of writing as well as an exciting and often moving story with complex characters. Aliocha isn't massively likeable and occasionally seems to be as unpleasant as those he's trying to avoid and it's quite hard to understand quite why Helene feels so desperate to get away. There are some great supporting characters and it's a timely book in these days when there are thousands of Aliochas being reluctantly conscripted into the Russian Army.

An exceptional novella with praise also due to Jessica Moore for an excellent translation.

Thanks to Netgalley and Archipelago for the ebook. Aliocha, 20, unable to get anyone pregnant to avoid military service is now speeding across Russia on the Trans-Siberian railroad. He decides to desert and pushes/begs a French woman, Helene, to hide him in her compartment. Helene, who is escaping a relationship that she jumped into without thinking it through, is at first annoyed by the young man, separated by years and languages, but then jumps into this life and death adventure. A swift and amusing journey with two lost characters.

In Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, a young Russian conscript, Aliocha, is heading east on a trans-Siberian train to an unknown destination with his fellow conscripts and a brutal sergeant. Aliocha decides to desert and enlists the help of a Frenchwoman, Helene, who is running away from her life in Siberia. Both are unsure of each other and the tension steadily rises as Aliocha has to avoid being noticed by passengers, train employees, and the sergeant. He must trust that Helene is the one person who won’t betray him. How Aliocha will get off the train unnoticed and where he will go in this unknown and unforgiving land keeps the pages flying by. The translation by Jessica Moore is top-notch.

The Trans-Siberian Express is the location of this story. Here is another gripping tale set aboard a train where lives are often thrown together. Especially on longer journeys that involve overnight sleeping cars and scheduled stops in the middle of the night.

There have been some fascinating books written about such journeys and here is yet another one. Told with restraint but in wonderful words that capture the vulnerability within a train carriage; the sense of claustrophobic feelings, especially at night and despite the vast open spaces rushing across the windows, and the potential for romance, conflict even murder.

Train journeys are often planned or as with the young conscriptions aboard this particular train, a means to take them away from home into the heart of Russia and make soldiers of them. Among their number is a young man scared of his future, for his life and intent to avoid their final destination.

I loved the growing tension here as his initial attempts to drift away into the night at the end of the station platform are thwarted and then possible allies to help and traitors willing to turn him in, cross his path.

A work of literary magic that lifts the story above the routine and explores motive, self awareness and one’s ability to control your future and heart’s desire. A word for the marvellous translation into English that enables the story to still flow and mimic the rhythm of the wheels across the tracks.

Someone wrote:
Life is a journey not a destination.
With books set on trains the journey is different for most of the travellers although a shared experience and the destination is hardly ever just what it says on your ticket.
I enjoy travel and the sense of movement such novels like Eastbound bring that and are a joy to participate in.
And when intriguing stories flow and develop you long for those books like Eastbound, to never reach their end of the line.

“Siberia–fuck! […] a territory of banishment, giant oubliette of the Tsarist empire before it turns Gulag country.”

The Trans-Siberian railway evokes a romantic feel, but that feeling is absent in Maylis de Kerangel’s Eastbound. Set on the train heading for Vladivostok, the novel explores themes of loneliness and escape through two characters: conscript 20-year-old Aliocha, and Hélène, an older French woman who is fleeing from a relationship. Aliocha, in his third class compartment with other soldiers, is desperate. He had no desire to join the army but did not have the necessary connections, money, or waivers to escape conscription.

Right up until the last, Aliocha had believed he wouldn’t have to go. Right up until April 1st., the traditional day of the Spring Draft, he thought he would manage to avoid military service, to fake out the system, and be exempted–and to tell the truth, there’s not a single guy in Moscow between eighteen and twenty-seven years old who hasn’t tried to do the same. It’s the young men of means who tend to be favoured at this game; the others do what they can, meanwhile their mothers scream in Pushkin Square, in ever-increasing numbers since the soldier Sytchev* was martyred, and gather around Valentina Melnikova, President of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers–they’re fearsome, boiling mad, determined, and if the cameras turn up they rush to fit their eager faces in the frame: I don’t want my son to go, and he’s not even a drinker! When reprieves run out, the next option is the false medical certificate, bought for an arm and a leg from doctors who slip the cash directly into their breast pockets, and the families who’ve been bled dry go home and get smashed in relief. If this doesn’t work, and when anxiety has bitten down night after night to the quick, then come the direct attempts at bribery. These can be effective but slow to put into action and meanwhile time is galloping past–investigating the networks of influence within administrations, identifying the right person, the one who’ll be able to intervene, all this takes a crazy amount of time. And finally, when there’s nothing left, when it’s looking hopeless, there are women. Find one before winter and get her knocked up–this is all that’s left to do because at six months, a pregnancy will grant an exemption.

After being beaten by other soldiers, and knowing this is the beginning of the hell that awaits, Aliocha takes his fate in his hands and decides to escape.

It’s the end of the afternoon and the sky is turning to ash. The back window is free again and Aliocha leaps to it, magnetized to this unique focal point on the world–like an eye in the back of your head–captivated by the sight of the tracks that hurtle backwards into the landscape.

After his first attempt to escape fails, Aliocha meets Hélène, a French woman on the train; they share a cigarette, and even though their communications are limited, she understands, through Aliocha’s gestures, that he does not want to be a soldier, and so she hides him. Of course, she doesn’t realise the extent of the danger or grasp the commitment that she has not yet made. This is an incredibly tense novella, quite cinematic in its execution. Naturally claustrophobic due to its setting, the speeding train rushing towards Siberia accelerates the notion of freedom, taking a chance.

Thinking over the use of travel in fiction. Regular readers know I have a thing for books that involve holidays. Holiday travel in books is seen as stressful, exciting, the gateway to possibilities of new experiences, romance. But travel in books set in wartime is an entirely different animal: it’s desperation, fear, anxiety, escape, danger.

Here’s Joe’s review at Rough Ghosts.

*Dedovshchina is the practice of hazing/abusing conscripts. In 2006, Andrei Sytchev was an 18-year-old conscript who was tied to a chair and beaten. He was so badly beaten, his legs and his genitals had to be amputated..

Eastbound – Maylis de Kerangal (translated from French by Jessica Moore)

Thanks to @archipelagobooks and @netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

A tale of suspense aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway, “Eastbound” is the tale of two people who meet by chance, their desires linked, a longing for freedom uniting them through barriers of language.

Aliocha is a Russian conscript, 20 years old, unable to escape his fate. No pregnant girlfriend, no fake illness, no mother or money to protect him. He and 100 other conscripts are packed in a single carriage:

limbs tangled and necks outstretched as though there wasn’t enough air, a mass of squid.

Under the permanently watchful eye of Sergeant Letchov and the carriage attendants, the peroxide-blonde provodnitsa, he looks at the future stops and ponders how to flee the train and the patrols, escape into the Siberian wilderness.

Into his compartment wanders a woman, a foreigner, calmly smoking out of the window, unlike any woman he’s seen before. Helene is also on the run, in her case from a Russian lover. In their shared looks and cigarettes, copious sign language, and a desperate act from him, Helene becomes an accomplice in his attempts to flee.

What follows is a tense novella, as relentless as the train itself, the prose almost following the rhythm of the carriages on the tracks. There are some nerve-wracking scenes, but also parts of real beauty, moments shared by people of different cultures, which I think is a big theme of the book. Also seems to resonate now with current events in Russia, of young men also being sent to fight in a war that it would appear few believe in.

Brought back some memories of when I did this train journey in 2015, albeit in the opposite direction, and a chance to look at some old photos. Really enjoyed the book, worth seeking out.

First off, my thanks to NetGalley and Archipelago for an ebook ARC of this title. Archipelago is publishing some great contemporary work in translation. Not huge best sellers, but titles that should be available, and read, in English.
A novella of about 130 pp, it can be read in a sitting or two. Practically no dialog. Which makes sense, since the main characters are a young Russian conscript and an early mid-aged French woman - niether of whom speaks the other's language.
Set on the Trans-Siberian Train, just such a classic setting! Churns along for a bit, but there is real tension involved, especially when the other soldiers seriously search for him as they detrain.
de Kerangaql, who is French, is interesting. This is her 4th of 5th novel translated into English, but it was first published in France 10 years ago. Given the recent war against Ukraine, and the thousands of young Russians fleeing the country rather than serve in the military and die, it still is a very timely story. Although being French, she has set some of her books in other countries - this in Russia, and an earlier work in an imaginary California ("Birth of a Bridge").
Also, there is a reminder in the story that the Russian people are not the Russian rulers. There is a wonderful scene when the train approaches Siberia's stunningly beautiful Lake Baikal, and how this national treasure inspires the train passengers.
The book ends on a nicely positive note, which does not come off as phoney optimism. I enjoyed this enough that I have already ordered a couple of her earlier translated works. And I am looking forward to reading them.

A spectacular book that shows the power of the novella in full-flight. With perfect pace, Maylis De Kerangal crafts beautiful, devastating moments that show how trapped one can feel even while hurtling in motion through a wide expanse.

Set on the Trans-Siberian Railway, Eastbound recounts a brief but consequential interlude in the life of Aliocha and Helene. Aliocha is a solder crammed with hundreds of other conscripts on a journey to the other side of the country for a military life that he desperately tried to avoid. Through a hasty and ill-thought-out escape attempt, Helene, a French expat becomes his somewhat willing accomplice.

As the train moves further east, questions of nationality and identity are considered as the intensity ratchets up to a suspenseful conclusion.

Would you be willing to risk everything to change your fate? What about to change someone else's future?

This short book packs a powerful punch that lingers long after the last page. Upon reaching the conclusion I found myself checking - and then double checking - in vain or the next page, hoping against hope for more.

Reading this book puts you right in on the action, heart racing as you experience the hopes and fears of the characters.

Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for a review copy of this title.

This wonderful novela is tense and claustrophobic. The story tells of two characters, a 20 year old conscript Aliocha, and an older French woman Helene, travelling east on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Aliocha hopes to escape military service and Helene has left her partner. With beautiful prose, De Kerangal explores language, landscape and freedom.