This review is for Part 1 and the first 9 chapters of Part 2 only. Unbeknownst to me, my library had only this portion available on audiobook, and I haven’t been able to track down an audiobook for the rest. I’m reminded of the time I took The Name of the Wind as my cottage book, not realizing it was only book one in an unfinished trilogy. I hunted through every used bookstore in rural Canada until I found its sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear. Ah well.
As a starting point for this review, let’s begin with its setting, evoked in the title: a small village on the banks of the Don river at the start of the 20th century. The Don flows constantly throughout the novel, the backdrop to emotional conversations or quotidian life. This is an area with a long history, and its people, the Cossacks, view themselves that way too; before the narrator can start with the story of Gregori, he first tells us of the unusual circumstances of his grandparents’ marriage. She was a Turkish war bride, was accused of witchcraft by the locals and was killed by a lynch mob, leaving behind a premature infant. He spent twelve years in a penal colony for avenging her death. Already in just this vignette, we have the unfurling of many themes of the book: match-making and love, nationality, patriarchy, community ties and community violence, the way war changes men’s lives.
Gorky compared this novel to War and Peace, and the similarity is likely intentional on Sholokov’s part. Like Tolstoy’s work, And Quiet Flows the Don is a dramatic epic spanning times of peace and war. It also introduces us to a varied cast of people trying to navigate the waters of love and social expectations, following them through the heartbreaks of these decisions. But Tolstoy’s characters navigate the world of the aristocracy, while Sholokov's characters plow fields and work in mills.
Though agrarian, the Cossacks are relatively free: they are proud of their history as escaped serfs. The Cossack sense of national identity is explored chiefly through the eyes of Gregori, who is self-consciously aware of being only three-quarters Cossack. The Cossacks are particularly proud of their horsemanship — the lack thereof in outsiders is remarked upon, and the shame of not being able to acquire a suitable horse hangs over Gregori’s head. The emotion of a scene is often conveyed through the characters’ awareness of their horses: exhaustion, urgency, readiness.
The patriarchal and parochial Cossack society is romantically and sexually restrictive, and the tension of the novel comes from the characters rearing at these reins. Economic considerations and social shame weigh differently on men and women. Aksinia, a victim of sexual abuse at home, flees a violent husband to be with her lover, Gregori. Gregori is unsatisfied in his marriage with Natalia — a marriage negotiated as a business deal under the gaze of a portrait of the Tsar. Feeling no love for his young and devoted bride he leaves his family, like his grandfather, to be with Aksinia. But Gregori is a cold partner to her too, doubting the true paternity of his daughter with Aksinia. His military summons come as a form of relief, a promise of honour. Later, grieving the loss of her baby alone while Gregori is at war, Aksinia is coerced into sex by a wealthy lord. Gregori is aware of the powerlessness of women to economic and violent coercion: he fights off a squad of his fellow soldiers to save the woman they were raping. But Gregori cannot accept Aksinia’s lack of faithfulness nor the shame of being unable to compete with a wealthier man, and he returns to his wife. Although the reader spends the most time with Gregori, Aksinia and Natalia, we see glimpses of how all the other villagers manage their own quiet gender struggles: they are jilted lovers, bear unwanted pregnancies, or despair at the loneliness of an absent partner.
Abuse, unhappy marriages, infant mortality. These tragedies are shaped by social structure and economic hardship. Although devastating for the people involved, these dramas remain domestic: their ripples aren’t felt past the banks of the Don. In the meantime, Europe comes to a boil. Rumours of a possible war with Austria start trickling into the village and are met with incredulity — how could they go to war with us? We supply all their grain! As another auger, an educated stranger moves to the village, and takes up playing cards with the mill workers in the evenings. He is arrested for possessing banned books, and is discovered to be a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (a precursor to the Bolsheviks). For the villagers, he is the first person they have seen “[dare] to act against the Tsar himself.”
The military summons finally arrive, and families are torn apart. War throws men into a deadly meat grinder — and into the company of others from distant parts of the country. Discontent and political education spread through the camps.
“You think you’re fighting for the Tsar, but what is the Tsar? The Tsar’s a nobody, and the Tsarina’s a chicken; but they’re both a weight on our backs. Don’t you see? The factory-owner drinks vodka, while the soldier kills the lice. The capitalist takes the profit, the worker goes bare. That’s the system we’ve got. Serve on, cossack, serve on!”
Russia is a tinderbox ready to explode, but the novel stops here.