This is a novel of striking juxtapositions. The main plotline takes place over the course of a single day, and yet the past is ever present both in reflections and in legends. The focus is a tiny settlement at a railway intersection surrounded by the vastness of the Central Asian steppe, yet other nations and even aliens from outer space have a role. It is an example of socialist realism with its heroic railway worker, yet is subversive with its mankurts men who have been captured, tortured, and brainwashed into mindless slaves with no memory or identity. It is village prose and yet lauds the advances of technology. Finally, it is a novel written in Russian for a Russian or Russified audience, and yet seems to advocate for the retention of national identity and religion. And it is a novel by a Kyrgyz author set in Kazakhstan.

Yedigei was a soldier in WWII but suffered from shell shock and returned home early. Unable at first to perform the hard labor he is assigned, he finds a place in a remote settlement helping maintain the lines at a railroad junction. He and his wife are taken in by Kazangap, an older worker who is the lynchpin of the tiny community. The book opens with Yedigei learning that Kazangap has died, and the frame for the rest of the book is the journey Yedigei undertakes on his camel to take Kazangap to a cemetery for burial according to Muslim tradition. Along the way, Yedigei ruminates on his life, and especially on the fate of another family who joined their community for a time years ago.

A subplot involves the nearby (fictitious) cosmodrome, where rockets are launched after scientists from a join Soviet-US venture make contact with another intelligent species.

Despite its length (and the horribly damaged copy I was reading), I found this novel very compelling, as well as touching. I grew to care about Yedigei and his relationships with Kazangap and the members of the other family, as well as the troublesome, yet magnificent male camel, Karanar. It's a novel that would lend itself well to discussion, and I continue to think about aspects of the novel, especially after reading the introduction, which I did once I finished the book. I can see why the book is popular with readers of all stripes as it can be interpreted in a myriad of ways. ( )

A fascinating journey through the Central Asian steppes. Centered on the life of a railway worker in a remote part of (today's) Kazakhstan, it is part-epic, part-metaphor for Soviet Russia, and a small part-science fiction. The science fiction is more fantasy than science, but it serves a metaphorical purpose as the (iron) curtain descends. Worth reading. ( )

Un camello tiene un papel destacado en «Más de un siglo dura el día», una de las características de la novela que define el carácter del principal protagonista, es narrado por medio de la historia de las peripecias de un camello.

It's not uncommon for a book to take you somewhere which is completely removed from your personal reality. But I'm trying to think of another example of a book which has really conveyed a sense of life which is different from anything I've ever even read or heard about. Right now I can't think of one.

The setting of this book is a railway junction in the middle of the Central Asian steppe. Apart from the railway lines crossing each other, there is nothing for hundreds of miles around.

You must have the will to live on the Sarozek junctions—otherwise you perish. The steppe is vast and man is small. The steppe takes no sides; it doesn’t care if you are in trouble or if all is well with you; you have to take the steppe as it is. But a man cannot remain indifferent to the world around him; it worries him and torments him to think that he could be happier somewhere else, and that he is where he is simply through a mistake of fate. Because of this he wears himself out before the great, pitiless steppe and loses his will, just as that accumulator on Shaimerden’s three-wheel motor-bike loses its charge. The owner looks after it, but does not ride it or lend it to anyone else. So the machine stands idle—and that’s all there is to it—soon it won’t start up any more, its starting power is lost. It is the same with a man at a Sarozek junction: he fails to get on with his work, to put down roots in the steppe, to adjust to his surroundings; and then he finds he can’t settle down. Passengers look out from passing trains, shake their heads and ask: “God, how can people live here? Nothing but steppe and camels!” But people who have enough patience can live here. For three years, or four, with an effort. But then they pack up and get as far away as possible. Only two people really put down roots at Boranly-Burannyi—Kazangap and he, Burannyi Yedigei.

At the start of the novel, Yedigei is told that the old man Kazangap has died. Kazangap was already well established at the Sarozek junctions when Yedegei arrived in the 1950s, shattered by the experience of fighting in the war. Yedigei decides that, for all the Soviet teachings, Kazangap should be buried properly, in the old way, and so they set out by tractor and camel to take the body to the cemetery. The story of the journey is interleaved with the stories of Kazangap, Yedigei, and others who have stopped at the junction for a few years, as well as traditional Kazakh myths and legends. Through these, the book touches on the history of the steppe as well as the modern changes, including some of the brutality of Soviet politics (one character ends up in Sarozek because he fought for the Soviet Union in a way which later became seen as politically suspect: the scene in which the apparatchik interrogates Yedigei and twists his words into something incriminating is chilling).

It's not a perfect book. There is a science fiction-y subplot which contains some political critique which I don't think was needed - you get all that you need from the story of the steppe. And there's a love story which reads very differently to a female reader than I think the author intended. But regardless of these criticisms, it's a really interesting read, and one that I think will stay with me. ( )

I just wish everyone I love will read this book. It is truly one of the most wonderful books I've ever read. And I don't use that word (the most...) lightly.
( )