A modestly intriguing pastime for royalty buffs, though one requiring a certain willing suspension of disbelief.
Another Romanov steps out of the shadows—and this time it appears to be the genuine article.
Himself part of that storied, noble clan (“my grandmother, the grand duchess Olga, was a Romanov”), Prince Michael of Greece (a novel, Sultana, 1983; The Empress of Farewells, 2002, etc.) relates a suitably improbable tale: when he was attending the 1998 funeral of Nicholas and Alexandra and their children, murdered by Bolsheviks 80 years earlier, Michael was enchanted by the presence of a regal, 82-year-old relative with the sturdy name Natalya Androssov Iskander Romanov, who claimed descent from the black sheep of the Romanov family, “Nicholas Konstantinovich, your grandmother Olga’s brother.” Nicholas, according to Natalya—who had survived the Soviet years while working as a motorcycle acrobat—had been stricken from history for having scandalized all Russia with his carryings-on, not least his affair with an American gold-digger named Fanny Lear. Prince Michael brings a certain Barbara Cartlandish sensibility to his invented description of the first encounter between these star-crossed lovers: “It was his mouth that drove Fanny wild with desire. Rather large, with red lips whose curve cast a spell over her, a smile now caressing, now ardent.” The prose toughens up a little when, on the one hand, Nicholas begins to catch on that Fanny is a little less than virtuous, and, on the other, when the royals finally boot her out of the country, having implicated both her and Nicholas in an elaborate scheme to spirit away rare jewels and fund an anti-tsarist revolution therewith. Fanny fades away into history, having failed in her effort to cash in with a memoir published in France (“the imperial government, once alerted, managed to get the French Republic to confiscate the book and deport its author”). Nicholas was shipped off east of the Urals, where he distinguished himself as a geographer and explorer, still nursing his love for Fanny.
A modestly intriguing pastime for royalty buffs, though one requiring a certain willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-87113-922-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.
In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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