China Mieville’s “October:” Book Review in Two Parts

Sun, Nov 5, 2017: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
Moderator: Raj Sahai
• Lew Finzel & Urszula Wislanka: China Mieville’s “October:” Book Review in Two Parts
ABSTRACT: “October is still ground zero for arguments about fundamental radical social change. Its degradation was not a given, was not written in any stars.” —China Mieville, October. Science fiction writer, China Mieville, has just published October (Verso Press: London, New York, 2017), a story of the 1917 Russian Revolution from February to October. Unusually, October does not make the revolution a background for an adventure or love story. The revolution itself, contradictory as it was, is the main character of the book. As with any look at history, the point is not to re-live the past, but to see what can we learn from it. What do we learn from 1917 for today?
Lew Finzel will introduce China Mieville as a science fiction/fantasy writer.
Urszula Wislanka will take up several of the contradictions and ask where we stand on those questions now.