Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
Book Review: Voices from Chernobyl.
Summary: 5 Stars
This was not the book I was looking for but it was the book I read. Far from an historical recreation of the disaster, Voices from Chernobyl is a personal confessional, a lyric documentation of intense human emotions. Svetlana Alexiech presents each story without comment or judgement. It is a stream of conscoiusness, profoundly moving in the face of this 1986 nuclear disaster, the gross incompetence of the Soviet Government and failure to contain the radioactive contamination. The stories are of those who stayed, those who came to help, those who died and those who survived. Haunting, moving, emotional, revealing, shocking, sad and inspirational. This book will stay with you long after the last page is turned.Book Review: And You Think Hurricane Katrina Was A Disaster??
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a collection of stories, commentaries, and monologues from the people who lived and continue to live through the Chernobyl crisis. Their voices are simple and honest but come from the heart and clearly depict their hardship and suffering. Their voices also give portrayal to their culture which combines old world peasantry and Soviet collectivism that is clashing with an unexplainable, unseeable, and futuristic horror. It is this clash that renders the whole catastrophe so heartbreaking. That a simple, family oriented, agrarian society who have already lived through so much suffering be victim to such an accident is quite heartbreaking. And to make matters worse, the lack of education, support, protection, and management by the Soviet government is apalling. The failures of a socialistic bureacracy are quite apparent. After reading this book, I can clearly argue why nuclear technology should not be placed in the hands of governments such as Iran or North Korea who already have a record of irresponsibility. Allowing these countries to develop nuclear energy is like giving a three year old a loaded gun to play with. Well written and well deserving of the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction.Book Review: Deeply disturbing
Summary: 5 Stars
Occasionally I'll read first-hand accounts about human catastrophes in the modern world, such as Sudan or Rwanda or Katrina, because it offers a window into what I as a middle class American normally would never see or experience, hopefully making me a better and wiser person without becoming numb or a "dark tourist". Books are more subtle and rich than film and more rewarding in the end.
As an oral history this is a frightening experience (the term "experience" emphasized). Chernobyl has been largely hushed up and kept quiet, the scope of it is worse than most know or understand (occasionally we hear a few hundred or thousand people died and certain cancers are slightly up, don't believe it, much worse). Only about %5 of the nuclear material escaped so it was a minor accident on the scale of things. There is a %50 chance of another meltdown happening elsewhere in the world over the next 40 years (sourced in book). Had Chernobyl been a full meltdown much of Europe would be dieing off as we speak. 16 more Chernobyl-type reactors are still in operation (14 in Russia). As Alexievich says in her epitaph: "These people had already seen what for everyone else is still unknown. I felt like I was recording the future."
The disaster of Chernobyl is still going today, it never ended, it is like AIDS - it just keeps getting worse, there is no cure for radiation which lasts 100s of 1000s of years. The radiated material is finding its way outside of the "Zone" and spreading slowly around the world. Down the rivers into the seas, blown on dust, carried out by hand by bandits in the form of trucks and TV's and scrap metal sold to Asian scrap metal firms which build the goods we buy, grown in food and sold on the world market. I put this book down thinking two things: where can I buy a gieger counter and where can I buy iodine.
Alexievic is a fascinating person her books published around the world in over 19 languages; translated authors don't get big billing in the USA but she is a world-class author and pretty well known in Europe. The Stalinst-Soviet style government of Belorussia (her home country) is not sympathetic to independent journalists (they end up dead). She has a fairly detailed personal website (I can't post links on Amazon but Google search on her name).
Book Review: We didn't know that death could be so beautiful...
Summary: 5 Stars
says an evacuee in Voices of Chernobyl, an absolutely riveting collection of oral histories of people from all walks of life, affected for eternity by the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor on April 26, 1986. "A Solitary Human Voice," the prologue, recounted by a woman whose husband was one of the first on the scene as a firefighter, will lure you in and, once there, you'll feel compelled to continue to the end, painful as it may be. She's pregnant, newly married and very much in love when she hears the news. The doctors and nurses and try to no avail to keep her away from her husband once he's done his duty at the plant and then sent to a special hospital in Moscow for victims of radiation poisoning, along with six other firemen. Her baby dies. Her husband dies, horribly, the last of the seven of his crew.
These stories of "Chernobylites," the stigmatized and disdained victims of the accident, share a common theme. The government was neither truthful nor forthcoming about the level of danger that those living near the area of the Chernobyl plant experienced. They did not provide the victims with information on treatment in a timely manner, because it would have meant admitting that a horrible accident had actually occurred. Those who tried to warn others of the danger were silenced or mocked. Men were sent to clean up the site and were given extra pay in exchange, ultimately, for their lives. Because people could not see the radiation, they kept on eating contaminated food, breathing contaminated air, using contaminated clothing and living (approximately 2.1 million people) on contaminated land. Immediately afterwards, men were sent to kill the domestic animals, evacuate the people and, using shovels and minimal protective gear, remove the contaminated soil. Although precautions were recommended, like minimizing time spent in contaminated areas, tracking and limiting the amount of radiation a person was exposed to, and lining pits dug to dump the contaminated soil to prevent contamination of the groundwater, radiation detectors, even when used, rarely worked and, if they did, improperly, and liners were not typically used, almost ensuring that aquifers would become contaminated. People were encouraged not to have children, thus thousands of abortions were performed. Even those children born without birth defects spent much of their shortened lives in hospitals, suffering from radiation exposure-related diseases. Yet, thousands returned home and, willingly ate, drank, lived and live a life of everlasting contamination.
Book Review: Insight To Nuclear Power Disaster on Real Lives of Byelorussians
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a must read for all those who keep hearing our president say nuclear power is "safe and clean." The liquidator, one of about 700,000 who came to "clean up" Chernobyl, who burned all his clothes and gave his little son the hat he had worn -- and his son developed a brain tumor; all the disbelief about the danger of radioactivity, that the people could not see or taste; the forest that turned orange from the reactor fire at Chernobyl; all the secrecy about the area and the secret reports; 200,000 abortions in Byeloruss in just 1993 alone, as claimed [not mentioned whether/how many were spontaneous and how many were medical procedures -- nevertheless, no one wants a deformed child, and the area is contaminated for at least 300-600 years because of the cesium to start with, cesium having a "half life" of 30 years, and a "hazardous life" of 300-600 years) by one teacher; the physicist who wrote everything down, the belief that nuclear power could make something out of nothing, nuclear engineers the elite of scientists with the most perks and pay; all of this coming down with the apocalyptic Chernobyl accident of April 26, 1986. Premature deaths and cancers probably running into the hundreds of thousands. Read this book. Just about each vignette/voice is very personal, touching, informative, and very important. Especially to the power hungry who care not for the truth, and what can happen with ANY nuclear power plant.
Conrad Miller M.D.
Southampton, N.Y.