HOW THE OTHER HALF READS

THE DAY LASTS MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS by Chingis Aitmatov, translator John French, Indiana University Press, 1983.

People in the Soviet Union still have a nineteenth-century allegiance to the printed word. Authors are major public figures. Poets recite to packed soccer stadiums. Classic works of Russian literature are available, and their lack of Marxist ballast makes them seem vividly energetic and relevant. In the Soviet Union you can be a 'literary intellectual,' and no one will grin and ask what you REALLY do. You can get a license for it, and join the Writer's Union, and the State will pay you a salary.

Chingis Aitmatov, a Kirghiz national born in 1928, is a highly prominent, established Soviet literateur. He's been a member of the Supreme Soviet, a winner of the Lenin Prize for literature, a Hero of Socialist Labor, an editor of NOVY MIR, an official correspondent for PRAVDA. His Marxist-Leninist credentials are impeccable.

And he is wildly popular. He is considered one of the most gifted authors of the post-Stalinist generation, not only by Party hacks but by the 'liberal' intelligentsia. When a writer like Aitmatov turns to science fiction, it behooves us to take notice.

THE DAY LASTS MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS, published in 1980 to vast acclaim, is a remarkable, revealing piece of work. We should make it clear at once that it is terrible science fiction. Aitmatov has not escaped the condescension typical of mainstream writers who dabble in the field. In fact the SF element has been grafted into the narrative for ideological reasons, which is remarkable in itself.

The predominant movement in Brezhnev-era Soviet fiction was the 'village novel,' simple small-scale narratives of rural life, drenched with pre-Revolutionary nostalgia. Through this device it was possible to dodge the crippling load of Marxist relevance demanded of State writers. In the early '80's, literary ideologues decided that enough was enough and demanded that Soviet writers to produce large works on a "global scope." Aitmatov has used wide-screen SF techniques to combine the popular 'village' narrative with the new requirements.

Strangely, although its traditional SF elements are abominable -- ludicrous blue-haired aliens, moons and planets whizzing by at the speed of light -- Aitmatov's novel does have a genuine SF feel. For it is about technology and its impact on human life.

The hero is a Kazakh Central Asian railroad worker. He lives in a godforsaken steppe railway junction with a handful of sturdy peasants. For decades he and his friend have tended the snorting machines, living a harsh, isolated life, not without dignity, but without much decadent fun. The book opens with the friend's death.

The Kazakh hero stubbornly decides to give his friend a traditional Kazakh Moslem burial, a rite worthy of a 'true steppe cavalier.' But technical progress has invaded everything. He has given his life to the railroad. A large rocket-complex has been built across the steppe, and its great rumbling launches light the sky. What is left to our hero? What is the meaning of his tribal traditions and memories? Has he thrown away his life, or does it all mean something, was the sacrifice worth it? These issues are handled with great skill and deep ambiguity.

At the same time, a large and somewhat bogus SF counterplot rumbles along in parallel. The novel is set in the near future, in which aliens have been contacted, through Soviet-American cooperation in space.

Here is another remarkable aspect of the book: its utter lack of hostility toward the West. This space effort in administered in friendly unison by Yanks and Soviets, from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. (This ship is in itself a powerful image of hope for the Soviet audience. They have no aircraft carriers and see them as fearsome symbols of aggressive capitalism.)

These aliens are blissful, socially-advanced superbeings of vaguely Marxist derivation. They are of vast power and supernal wisdom. Are we to join them, or stick mulishly to our human heritage and its faults?

This question roughly parallels the first theme. Aitmatov attempts to give the events in the remote railway junction a cosmic resonance. If he fails, it's because his SF concepts are essentially ridiculous. And because, in the last analysis, his book has the painful, disjointed feel of a work designed by committee.

Yet it remains engrossing. Its flinching view of delicate political issues, such as the Stalinist purges, has a hot-potato daring. Its allusions are subtle and its scenes memorable. And there's no red-flag-waving, sunset-riding agitprop trash here; but hard issues faced down by a brave man who is in too deep to back out.

This book was written in a metaphorical straitjacket, and it shows it. Yet this much must be admitted: Aitmatov's book speaks to us in the West with force and relevance. Would our glittery, escapist tripe translate half so well?