This has been on our shelf, next to LONDON and SARUM, both of which I'd read and enjoyed, being an Anglophile of long standing. But RUSSKA. . .well, having struggled in the past through Russian novels that required me to keep a running list of the various names, nicknames, and patronymics, somehow, I just continued to ignore this doorstopper (almost a thousand pages) of a book.
Until I didn't. And I really enjoyed it and learned so much about Russian history, from the earliest beginnings to the era of Stalin and a bit beyond. My favorite way to learn history.
Rutherfurd traces two families-one landowners, the other serfs--down through the years, (complete with a handy chart of family tree) showing the ups and downs of each while giving an overview of Russian politics, sociology, religion, and economics. This vast, sprawling country couldn't be contained in a smaller book.
I took it fairly slow and interspersed it with a bit of lighter reading, actually, re-reading--Sharyn McCrumb's earlier Elizabeth MacPherson novels. At the same time, I was toggling between two audiobooks--SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (nowhere near as good as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, though it has its moments) and a continuing re-listen to O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin wonderful series, read by the perfect reader, Parick Tull.
What a delight to leap from a Russian village on the edge of the steppes to a tourist's eye view of modern Scotland to prim and proper Regency England to battles at sea and intrigue in Malta during the Napoleonic era and back to aristocratic life in old St Petersburg!
Books are such a great way to travel.
4 comments:
Long ago I read and loved novels by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and I adored Dr. Zhivago, but I never tackled this one. Somehow I don't think I ever will. 😄 I have enjoyed reading a lot of straight Russian history, though, including accounts of the ill-fated royal family. Such a complex and tumultuous history, and the Russians have ended up right where they started, with a dictatorship.
I believe that I enjoyed London, but Sarum seemed repetitive, so I didn't pursue it.
Long ago I read London. Don't know about Sarum but did read The Forest. Never picked up Russka. I did just finish Cilka's Journey which mostly takes place in a Gulug in Siberia after WWII. It's by Heather Morris who wrote The Tatooist of Auschwitz.
I've got a non-fiction (probably climate oriented) book going as well as a coming-of-age fiction! But I've been shopping used book stores, and now have more and more and more. The stack just keeps getting taller. My friend said I must be preparing for a long winter. Perhaps.
Post a Comment