If somebody ever doubts the power of literature to become a source of inspiration for revolution, I can say he/she hasn't read Mother by Maxim Gorky. A Heart touching story is been told with sharpest of words which penetrate reader's heart to bleed it till the humanity come out of him/her. No wonder it has inspired millions and millions in the last 100 plus years of existence. If Russian revolution was a beginning the book became a source for any kind of revolution which needs human sacrifice, good or bad. The merit of Mother is that even when it calls for bloodshed, in the spirit it remains peaceful. The philosophy of Maxim Gorky is that, "if you are to tear blood, it should be your blood and not the one of the enemy's with their blood, the mother earth will only get damaged but with your blood it will be flourished." That doesn't mean that you suffer humiliation.
What is holding people from joining revolution? Illiteracy, ignorance or is it fear? Maxim Gorky calls the suffering humanity to get enlightened by knowledge, courageous by faith, knowing the self and to become human by helping others to live in peace and justice. 'You use your brain before using your hand', Maxim Gorky says, and the book express the need of good literature. Literature that will enlighten the masses and that will move them for action. Mother seems shows the way and one light was enough though many followed. “Give me your help! Let me have books — such books that when a man has read them he will not be able to rest. Put a prickly hedgehog to his brains. Tell those city folks who write for you to write for the villagers also. Let them write such hot truth that it will scald the village, that the people will even rush to their death.”
“She is probably the first mother who has followed in the footsteps of her son — the first.”
Maxim Gorky's classic novel Mother shows us the foot prints they have traveled to make Russian peasants to the happier people as they are today. Illiterate, ignorant and suffering mother, she is the true representative of Mother Russia. Her husband used to beat her up. When he dies, her loving son, Pavel thought of acting like his father but in search of truth, humanity finds him and takes him to miles. He get into a revolutionary group and start learning and start spreading the revolution literature. The slave like life in the industrial colony was a perfect ground for breeding the revolution horses and they do give birth to many a running horse. Mother watches her son's deeds and gets attracted to it. She learns to read and write and then to understand their literature. Awareness made her eyes open and her son shows her the beauty of courage. When her son is been taken to jail, she acts as hands of her son, outside the jail. Beauty of Maxim Gorky books is the power of strong life saving messages in each turning page. "Mother" is a resource book for such quotes to encourage people for action. This is not done by simply calling revolutionary slogans but by reflecting life's truth before the reader.
The writing style of Gorky is simple and easily readable. The visual images he creates are fantastic. Too little words are been used to give vivid images to the reader's mind. Beauty! Then, the simplicity in description doesn't prevent him from giving out serious life lessons in it. The book reflect and debate Politics, Social Justice and religion in it. The discussion is based on equal distribution of wealth. My only point of discrepancy with Maxim Gorky's thought is that he is all focusing on the distribution of wealth where distribution of wealth is not the ultimate solution of solving the social problems, including poverty. Even when wealth distribution helps poor to recover for some time, to maintain the status the other factors too had to be repaired, including corruption, lawlessness, illiteracy, ignorance, lethargy etc. Without that distribution of wealth is only a temporary solution but it is a temporary solution.
The book worth a hundred books or more if we randomly take 100 plus books from the new generation. Means, the book is a must read. And yes, you can see the seed of 'Crime And Punishment' in this novel and no need to say Mahashweta Devi's 'Mother' too is inspired from it like many others. I am not elaborating the review, but just saying, 'go for it', which I hope, tells it all. Let me add some quotes from the book for the readers and for my future reference as well.
“There is no measure to the desires of man; and his power is inexhaustible,”
"Why must we go hungry when there is so much of everything? And how much intellect there is everywhere! Nevertheless, we must remain in stupidity and darkness."
“People live expecting some good, and if there’s nothing to expect, what sort of a life is it?”
“Don’t lie. This isn’t the city. No need of lies.”
"Our goal is far, far away, and the crown of thorns is near!"
"It’s easy to die — but let the people rise to life again! That’s a different thing! Let them rise up in rebellion!"
"if you keep adding copper bit by bit to a child’s food, you prevent the growth of its bones, and he’ll be a dwarf; and if from his youth up you poison a man with gold, you deaden his soul."
“My dear, how good it is when you know that light for all the people already exists in life, and that there will be a time when they will begin to see it, when they will bathe their souls in it, and all, all, will take fire in its unquenchable flames.”
“Don’t fly up into the air at once, Pavel! Your flight will knock you up against the belfry tower and break your wings,”
"Man is not a unit. It is God that makes him a unit, that makes him a round, circular thing. God always makes things round. Such is the earth and all the stars and everything visible to the eye. The sharp, angular things are the work of men."
“This fear is what is the ruin of us all. And some dominate us; they take advantage of our fear and frighten us still more. Mark this: as long as people are afraid, they will rot like the birches in the marsh. We must grow bold; it is time!"
"The church is destroyed, but God is immortal.”
“Ah, life! Five times in the day you laugh and five times you weep. All right. Well, are you through, Ignaty? Go to bed and sleep.”
“Fertilize me with seeds of reason and truth; I will return them to you a hundredfold.”
"She’s right when she says that the price a man has is according to his own estimate of himself — and this is an affair in which you must set a high value on yourself when once you take it up."
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