Mother by Maxim Gorky gives a broad and generalized picture of life in Russia on the eve of the Revolution of 1905. The narrative is based on events which took place in the town of Sormovo.
'Mother' is considered a turning point in the history of Russian literature. In the words of perhaps the greatest thinker and political figure of the 20th century, Vladimir Lenin, "It is a book of the utmost importance; many workers, who have joined the revolutionary movement impulsively, without properly understanding why, will begin to comprehend after
reading Mother".
Mother has the distinction of being the only major Russian literary work written in the USA, being written when the author was in exile there in 1906. It is a tale of the purity of the revolutionary soul opposed to the infinitely corrupt and historically wrong soul of the capitalist oppressor. The Mother in the novel is a loving, old Russian mother who you cheer for when she begins to understand the fire that burns within her children, and how uniting this fire that burns hypocrisy. It flows mostly very smoothly and is a easy read for a Russian novel.
