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The Seven Who Were Hanged is barely more than a novella, and I read it in two afternoons, about three weeks apart. It's sparse on plot: seven people are going to be hanged (surprise), five for attempted political assassination, two for various quite violent murders. We meet each of them, we hear about their circumstances, a little, and their trials. Most of the book, however, is about the hours of freefall between sentence and execution, the end of life and the beginning of death. The reason I loved this book so much is that it is about seven different depictions of fear.

It's quite obviously a treatise against capital punishment, but really, it's a very good exploration of why capital punishment is such an inhuman punishment. Is it the death, or is it that gap, immediately before death, where you know there's no way to avert it?

'[T]he words "I am afraid" were uttered by him only because there were no other words, because no other conceptions existed, nor could other conceptions exist which would grasp this new, un-human condition.'

We follow how seven people try (and sometimes fail) to come to terms with the loss of their own dignity - in the sense of their physical integrity, freedom, and potential to be listened to or taken seriously by the people around them. That's difficult to read, and as fascinating a delivery of this argument as I've found anywhere. Andreyev deals with numbness, feelings of being apart from oneself, trying to rationalise away terror in various ways. It's unremittingly bleak. But incredibly interesting. We empathise with all of the characters. They all feel familiar. This book tacitly invites you to examine your own view on capital punishment, and how it might be to be in that place, and slot it in with the experiences of the characters. It's very compelling. Interestingly, there is no mention of religion, or an afterlife. It's very much grounded in the here and now, and I think that has probably contributed to its impact lasting a century so well.

Then, there is the question of fault. All of the seven who are to be hanged have done something wrong - they have killed people, or tried unsuccessfully to kill people. Is it their fault that they're in this position? Is it the fault of the prison guard? The state?

'Although the jailers were extremely kind, even too kind. It was as if they tried partly to show themselves humane and partly to show that they were not there at all, but that everything was being done as by machinery. But they were all pale.'

Seven people who have had their humanity stripped from them are then killed deliberately by people suppressing their own humanity. To me, that feels as wrong as any other aspect of this story. There is so much in here to think about, to mull over - I read it with a pencil and paper in hand, and it's definitely influenced my worldview, at least a little bit.

It's not pleasant, but it's beautifully written, with layer upon layer of glorious subtlety. It's very deftly handled, and it's extremely Russian. Highly recommended - and I think the more thought you put in to reading The Seven Who Were Hanged, the more you'll get out of it.