Sebastian Everard reviews East

Sebastian Everard reviews East to West across Russia: The Long Journey Home

Sebastian Everard recently shared his reflective thoughts on East to West across Russia: The Long Journey Home:

“I was recommended to read this book a year ago but I only got round to it over the last few weeks. After completing my reading of it I am not sure what to think. It caught me off guard and left me asking more questions than even answering one. Similar to the author and his protagonist I too have had a love of trains since I was a young boy. It is the mode of transport that most appeals to me and the one that allows me the time and space to make sense of my life and my internal thoughts. I sense at the heart of this book is memory and a longing for moments in the past that meant everything to one but now have sadly passed forever. I admire the protagonist for removing himself from the safe confines of his home to explore a land and terrain that will be very unfamiliar to most people who will read this book. I felt that I was walking alongside the protagonist at many moments especially those moments that he spent in the midst of the spectacular vistas and wilderness of Siberia. I also cannot figure out if this mysterious woman the protagonist only refers to as N is a real life person or symbolic of lost love and a way of life that cannot be relived. Maybe N does exist and is living someplace in this world and if she is then she has been immortalised forever in the sacred depths of Lake Baikal by her great love whom we only know as D.”

Reading Sebastian’s words is something I find myself sitting with quietly. It’s rare to see a reader engage so deeply with not just the journey, but the questions the journey leaves behind. The sense of memory, distance, and emotional searching he describes feels very close to the spirit in which the story was written. And I especially appreciate how he has taken ownership of its mysteries, because some journeys are never meant to fully resolve, only to be felt and reflected upon long after the final page is turned.

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