The Commissariat of Enlightenment [Hardcover]

I came to this novel curious about how ideas are sold to people, and the novelistic control of this theme more than rewards the careful reader. Not a long book, this is both its strength and its slight shortcoming. I imagine Kalfus had pared down a longer draft, as there is no unessential material here at all. A lesser novelist would have wandered into fleshing out more characters, following up the fates of Volodov and Astapov with subplots stretching into the future, and would have showed off more of his (or her) knowledge about the time. I'll certainly search out his two earlier volumes of short stories now. As the bibliographical note after the novel indicates, his research matches his fictional talents. He even acknowledges Sheila Fitzpatrick's "unimaginatively titled" Commissariat of Enlightenment--for such an organization did exist, as Fitzpatrick studies. What a title: a group to enforce and rule over indoctrination into "scientific" study of history, laden with documents written by intellectuals for workers to educate the latter about why they were so idolized by the former.

With a keen understanding of the, well, dialectics involved in such a Soviet mission, Kalfus deletes, drains, and cuts, like the film editing, the embalming, and the dictate by terror that he intertwines into the three themes of his story. It makes for gripping if not casual reading. I only wish he had allowed more room for following through Astapov's fate after the establishment of Stalin's power. Yes, a whole other novel is buried in a few asides of this one. I wish there was a sequel--Kalfus makes you care about all three of his protagonists, no mean feat when they all turn out to be so terrifying in their respective devotions to their propagandistic crafts.

Kalfus has dared to think big in his debut novel, and his talents are legion. His parallels between black and white photography and his symbols of darkness and light keep the reader constantly aware of the darkness of illiteracy and the light of truth which film can provide. But this is also a cautionary tale about the ability of images to be manipulated and controlled, and all Kalfus's plot elements are subordinated to this single, overwhelming theme. Gribshin, the "lens" through which the reader views events, never really comes alive, and we do not know his motivations or see him wrestling with inner conflicts. He is, ultimately, a cog in the apparatus of the Commissariat of Enlightenment, a vehicle through whom the author advances his theme, not a thinking human. The novel is very tight, however, with no loose ends, and when Kalfus observes that the West, too, is creating an image-ruled empire by presenting so much imagery and meaning that "the sum [becomes] unintelligible," the reader will pause and ponder. Mary Whipple