Book Mourning

Every so often, I read a book that fills me with dread--about finishing it.  I mourn the loss of my ability to dive into the story, to hang out with the characters, to be in that space and time.  Sashenka, by Simon Montefiore, is the world I am now mourning.

The novel tells the story of a dutiful Communist, Sashenka, who became a bolshevik before the Revolution, and was a devoted Commie for several decades, marrying a party comrade, and having two children, Snowy and Carlo, before being devoured by Stalin's horror, disappearing forever.  It doesn't sound all that gripping, but it's well-told and Sashenka comes alive, despite the somewhat awkward sex scenes.  Like, uh, this:  "Oh my God, after twenty years of being the most rational Bolshevik woman in Moscow, this goblin had driven me crazy! . . .  She lost all sense of time and place and decorum.  He made her forget she was a Communist..."  Apparently, the book came in second in a British contest for Bad Sex Writing.

Still.  Still, the descriptions of Russia before and during the Revolution, then during the Lenin/Stalin era, is gripping.

"..She prided herself on her cleanliness, but by now all three of them were dirty, the children's clothes stained with food, grease and piss.  She had a plentiful supply of rubles for food, but Snowy and Carlo, delicate eaters, were used to fine cooking and hated the watery vegetable soup, black bread and dumplings in thin tomato sauce that were the only things available in the canteen."

This is a story of several generations, including the lost children's generation, Snowy and Carlo, who never know their parents.  It's a story about discovering the truth.  It's a good story, even with the stilted sex stuff.  After all, it was written by a British historian, a Stalin expert, and an almost-Boomer (born in 1965).

Comments

[Rach]

i hope you bought it so you can bring it to me! :)