By Tessa Carman. Simone Weil recognized “the need for roots”; Czeslaw Milosz named our age as one of homelessness. Both remind us that our work is always rooted in who we are.

Andrei Platonov’s experimental apocalyptic novel about the collectivization of the Soviet countryside should remind readers of today of what can happen when social reform, no matter how needed, takes precedence over people.