Part 3 Amazed By Sadness Sparknotes

The third section of this book is the essential element of this form and function argument. While the title, “Part Three: Amazed by Sadness,” does not completely reflect it, this section of the novel explores the facts and assumes an increasingly serious and analytical tone in regards to the incident. For example, one section within this chapter of the novel is “About the Facts”. Vasily Nesterenko, the former director of the Institute for Nuclear Energy at the Belarussian Academy of Science discusses his reaction to the incident, and he includes a greater amount of facts here than anywhere else in the novel. For example, he tells the story of how he tried to call the First secretary of the Central Committee, even though no one would listen
That this was simply the way that telling the story made sense. However, if this is compared to traditional novels or historical pieces, there is a background placed at the beginning of the work to explain what happened to the reader. This background puts all of the events into context and makes it clear. Instead, the author leaves us only the “Historical Notes” before diving into the people’s narratives. While the historical notes introduce quite a few facts: “On April 26, 1986 at 1:23:58, a series of explosions destroyed the reactor in the building that housed Energy Block #4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station…as a result of the accident, 50 million Ci of radionuclides were released into the atmosphere…On April 29, 1986, instruments recorded high levels of radiation in Poland, Germany, Austria, and Romania…” (Alexievich 1-3). These are, indeed, particularly informative pieces of information, however do they truly provide a background to the events at Chernobyl similar to the story of Vasily Nesterenko? Do these individual facts in themselves give the reader a vivid context for the narrative? If anything, they provide more questions. What caused the explosions and what is a Ci of radionuclides? Why is there radiation in Germany? While these facts do not answer these questions, they provide the appropriate sense of knowledge mixed with the confusion that the people in Chernobyl faced. Indeed, they knew the explosions were terrible, yet, at the same time, they didn’t understand just how