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Devil's Acre: A Russian Novel by Jonathan Bastable (15-Sep-2013) Paperback
Devil's Acre is a novel about love, Russia and forbidden architecture. Moscow, 1982. The oppressive Soviet regime is solidly in place; Leonid Brezhnev is praised to the skies for the brilliance of his unreadable memoirs; and the KGB is keeping a watchful eye on the weary and demoralised masses.Vadim, a young Leningrader, is headed to the capital to begin his journalism studies at MGU, Moscow State University. But he has a research project of his own in mind. He wants to find out about the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour – built close to the Kremlin as a memorial to Russia’s victory over Napoleon, but demolished in 1931 to make way for an immense Palace of Soviets. The Palace was intended to be the largest building in the world, a beacon of communism. But like communism, it never materialised. As for the lost church, it became a taboo subject, and the mere mention of the Cathedral of Christ was an act of anti-Soviet propaganda. Vadim knows this, but proceeds with his quest anyway. And when he enlists the help of Rachel, an American exchange student, his passion draws them both into a sinister and dangerous vortex…
Unknown Binding
First published October 1, 2013
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About the author
Jonathan Bastable
19 books4 followersIn 1982, just after I turned 20, I went to live in Leningrad for a year. I was cold and hungry most of the time, and most of my Russian friends were miserable or scared or both. The winter was dark and long, and the regime was oppressive. It was by far the happiest year of my life.
That year, and subsequent years spent at Moscow University as a postgrad, provided much of the core material for Devil's Acre. But I wasn' t then a writer, not yet. After returning to Britain I got a job as a feature writer on The Sunday Times Magazine, and in 1991 I was sent back to Moscow as the newspaper's Russian Affairs correspondent. I covered the slapstick Yeltsin years, and was present at the shelling of the Russian parliament building in 1993 – the moment when Russia's last best hope of a democratic future went up in smoke.
I have written many works of non-fiction, including a history of the Battle of Stalingrad based on eyewitness accounts. I am now, among other things, a travel writer, and I often go back to Russia on assignment for Conde Nast Traveller and other magazines. Devil's Acre is my first novel, and my proudest achievement.
That year, and subsequent years spent at Moscow University as a postgrad, provided much of the core material for Devil's Acre. But I wasn' t then a writer, not yet. After returning to Britain I got a job as a feature writer on The Sunday Times Magazine, and in 1991 I was sent back to Moscow as the newspaper's Russian Affairs correspondent. I covered the slapstick Yeltsin years, and was present at the shelling of the Russian parliament building in 1993 – the moment when Russia's last best hope of a democratic future went up in smoke.
I have written many works of non-fiction, including a history of the Battle of Stalingrad based on eyewitness accounts. I am now, among other things, a travel writer, and I often go back to Russia on assignment for Conde Nast Traveller and other magazines. Devil's Acre is my first novel, and my proudest achievement.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 22, 2013
This is the story of a young man, Vadim in 1982 USSR, raised in Leningrad but off to study at the Moscow State University, and his obsession with finding out the story the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, and how with the assistance of a beautiful and clever American student, Rachel among others, he is able to find that information in the parts of the university reserved for foreign students.
There is romance and a sinister vibe throughout the novel because you are ever aware that the authorities are watching, be it 1982: will the guests at parties Vadim attends report negative and rebellious talk; good Leninists in his dormitory watching for infractions, or the KGB who leave their cigarette butts in the toilet bowls of dorm rooms they have apparently "have not visited". OR leap back 150 years to the 19th century: watch the patrons and naysayers of the Tsarist courts of Russia in 1812 and beyond play chess with one another or watch when one architect falls out of favour at the death of the Tsar. Vadim's research into a building for religious worship, even one that no longer exists, can be considered as working against a State that has no religion except communism and is one his family hopes to discourage as they have spent time in the gulags for lesser crimes.
For the first 112 pages, the author nicely alternates chapters telling the tale of Vadim and Rachel in 1982 with the planning and construction of the cathedral throughout the 19th century. However at page 112, the author introduces himself and projects his omnicient view of the events, introducing a third way to move the story along. It was jarring to have the author editorialize all of a sudden and to explain his interruption (because it was done by John Fowles in "The French Lieutenant's Woman" made it okay to do this in this book), and that, we the reader, should bare with the author in his deciding to tell the tale this way. The problem I has was the reading of the book was all going along swimmingly when all of a sudden I was taken out of the story, not just once or twice but continually for the rest of the telling of the book, almost as if the Author had put down the manuscript for a few years and didn't know what to do with the story at that point so tried a literary trick. Because I had won the book through Goodreads, I felt compelled to finish it as a courtesy to the Author (normally I would have put it down at this point and not bothered finishing it). So for the next seventy-five pages or so, I battled with getting back into the story only to have the author interrupt again and again and pull me out.
Here's the thing, I got used to it, wishing that the Author had started out this way, that he'd alternated his omniscient self between chapters from the very beginning, because the story was interesting, the telling was good, his projections didn't end up bothering me after a while.
It is excellent treatise of the dreaming, planning, designing, construction and ultimately the deconstruction of the Cathedral, and all the comforts of 20th century Russian architectural planning. I felt the intrusion of the politics into every aspect of the characters lives, 19th and 20th century; the cold he described always felt real; I wanted to drink the vodka when the characters were toasting to everything; I liked the 'comradely' atmosphere when the characters knew they were plotting to fool the KGB; I liked the nuggets of description eg: the chief surveyor of 1838 being described as being "a hamster in a frock coat"; and I felt the discomfort and pain like nails on a chalkboard as Vadim's grandfather extracted shards of WWII German shrapnel from his limbs. I was glad that I read the book through to the end because it doesn't end in the way you suppose and I did really want to know what happened.
This has all the makings of a good, good story: it's atmospheric, you know who the bad guys are, you root for the good guys and you get a little history in the process, but because of my frustration around the issue of the structure of the book, did it miss out on a substantive edit somewhere or was the author just trying something a little different that didn't execute as well as it could have, I can't give the book a better rating than 3.5/5 stars, except I can't figure out how to do that here, so have given it 3/5 because the story is good and I learned lots but the execution just didn't do it for me. I'm sorry, I think it needed a substantive edit but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to someone I think might be interested but with the caveat that the structure of the book goes off the rails a third of the way through but if they can get through that, go for it.
There is romance and a sinister vibe throughout the novel because you are ever aware that the authorities are watching, be it 1982: will the guests at parties Vadim attends report negative and rebellious talk; good Leninists in his dormitory watching for infractions, or the KGB who leave their cigarette butts in the toilet bowls of dorm rooms they have apparently "have not visited". OR leap back 150 years to the 19th century: watch the patrons and naysayers of the Tsarist courts of Russia in 1812 and beyond play chess with one another or watch when one architect falls out of favour at the death of the Tsar. Vadim's research into a building for religious worship, even one that no longer exists, can be considered as working against a State that has no religion except communism and is one his family hopes to discourage as they have spent time in the gulags for lesser crimes.
For the first 112 pages, the author nicely alternates chapters telling the tale of Vadim and Rachel in 1982 with the planning and construction of the cathedral throughout the 19th century. However at page 112, the author introduces himself and projects his omnicient view of the events, introducing a third way to move the story along. It was jarring to have the author editorialize all of a sudden and to explain his interruption (because it was done by John Fowles in "The French Lieutenant's Woman" made it okay to do this in this book), and that, we the reader, should bare with the author in his deciding to tell the tale this way. The problem I has was the reading of the book was all going along swimmingly when all of a sudden I was taken out of the story, not just once or twice but continually for the rest of the telling of the book, almost as if the Author had put down the manuscript for a few years and didn't know what to do with the story at that point so tried a literary trick. Because I had won the book through Goodreads, I felt compelled to finish it as a courtesy to the Author (normally I would have put it down at this point and not bothered finishing it). So for the next seventy-five pages or so, I battled with getting back into the story only to have the author interrupt again and again and pull me out.
Here's the thing, I got used to it, wishing that the Author had started out this way, that he'd alternated his omniscient self between chapters from the very beginning, because the story was interesting, the telling was good, his projections didn't end up bothering me after a while.
It is excellent treatise of the dreaming, planning, designing, construction and ultimately the deconstruction of the Cathedral, and all the comforts of 20th century Russian architectural planning. I felt the intrusion of the politics into every aspect of the characters lives, 19th and 20th century; the cold he described always felt real; I wanted to drink the vodka when the characters were toasting to everything; I liked the 'comradely' atmosphere when the characters knew they were plotting to fool the KGB; I liked the nuggets of description eg: the chief surveyor of 1838 being described as being "a hamster in a frock coat"; and I felt the discomfort and pain like nails on a chalkboard as Vadim's grandfather extracted shards of WWII German shrapnel from his limbs. I was glad that I read the book through to the end because it doesn't end in the way you suppose and I did really want to know what happened.
This has all the makings of a good, good story: it's atmospheric, you know who the bad guys are, you root for the good guys and you get a little history in the process, but because of my frustration around the issue of the structure of the book, did it miss out on a substantive edit somewhere or was the author just trying something a little different that didn't execute as well as it could have, I can't give the book a better rating than 3.5/5 stars, except I can't figure out how to do that here, so have given it 3/5 because the story is good and I learned lots but the execution just didn't do it for me. I'm sorry, I think it needed a substantive edit but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to someone I think might be interested but with the caveat that the structure of the book goes off the rails a third of the way through but if they can get through that, go for it.
October 3, 2013
A novel of history, architecture and obsession
Being obsessed with something in Soviet Russia wasn’t necessarily a *good* thing.
That is the utmost message that I took away from reading this fascinating book, which mixes fact with historical fiction and tells the story of Vadim, a young student from Leningrad who commences his own research project into a lost church- The Cathedral of Christ The Saviour. In a country where such a subject matter is taboo, Vadim knows that engaging in his project is risky, yet is unable to cast aside his longing to know what really happened to the piece of lost architecture, no matter the cost…
This was a much better read than I anticipated, particularly as I have read some quite heavy-going books lately and wasn’t sure if I could handle another serious subject matter so soon! I can sometimes be wary of historical fiction for the risk it may read like a text book in places, though thankfully this was not the case here. The plot was interposed against three different timelines (though two were really given most of the focus) and I was keen to see how they would all tie together. The author’s research into the subject matter shines through and I got a real sense of how life must have been in 1980’s Moscow.
The descriptions in this book are beautifully done and though I have never been to Russia (yet), I could clearly envisage some of the buildings and places described in my mind’s eye, both in the twentieth century timeline and further in the past. Along with these evocative descriptions, the storyline gave me a real sense of the paranoia that the inhabitants of 1980’s Russia must have continually faced: the constant sense of being watched by the KGB for supposed ‘untoward’ acts of liaising with foreigners and the sense that even carrying out something so basic such as reading a book that was banned (like the bible), would perhaps put them under suspicion of being subversive and acting against the government.
The writing flowed well for the most part and was nicely paced, though I must confess that I wasn’t particularly sure about the ‘author’s notes’ that appeared in the middle of the story. I understand why they were there and they did give gravitas to the story overall and explained some facts pertinent to the story, but I personally found them a bit distracting as a reader and they did pull my attention away from the plot somewhat.
Though I had a few niggles with regards to some of its narrative aspects, casting those to one side I really enjoyed learning more about Russian history, its architecture and politics from a writer who is clearly both passionate and knowledgeable about his subject matter. This was an engaging piece of historical fiction from an author that I would certainly read more from in future.
**Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.**
Being obsessed with something in Soviet Russia wasn’t necessarily a *good* thing.
That is the utmost message that I took away from reading this fascinating book, which mixes fact with historical fiction and tells the story of Vadim, a young student from Leningrad who commences his own research project into a lost church- The Cathedral of Christ The Saviour. In a country where such a subject matter is taboo, Vadim knows that engaging in his project is risky, yet is unable to cast aside his longing to know what really happened to the piece of lost architecture, no matter the cost…
This was a much better read than I anticipated, particularly as I have read some quite heavy-going books lately and wasn’t sure if I could handle another serious subject matter so soon! I can sometimes be wary of historical fiction for the risk it may read like a text book in places, though thankfully this was not the case here. The plot was interposed against three different timelines (though two were really given most of the focus) and I was keen to see how they would all tie together. The author’s research into the subject matter shines through and I got a real sense of how life must have been in 1980’s Moscow.
The descriptions in this book are beautifully done and though I have never been to Russia (yet), I could clearly envisage some of the buildings and places described in my mind’s eye, both in the twentieth century timeline and further in the past. Along with these evocative descriptions, the storyline gave me a real sense of the paranoia that the inhabitants of 1980’s Russia must have continually faced: the constant sense of being watched by the KGB for supposed ‘untoward’ acts of liaising with foreigners and the sense that even carrying out something so basic such as reading a book that was banned (like the bible), would perhaps put them under suspicion of being subversive and acting against the government.
The writing flowed well for the most part and was nicely paced, though I must confess that I wasn’t particularly sure about the ‘author’s notes’ that appeared in the middle of the story. I understand why they were there and they did give gravitas to the story overall and explained some facts pertinent to the story, but I personally found them a bit distracting as a reader and they did pull my attention away from the plot somewhat.
Though I had a few niggles with regards to some of its narrative aspects, casting those to one side I really enjoyed learning more about Russian history, its architecture and politics from a writer who is clearly both passionate and knowledgeable about his subject matter. This was an engaging piece of historical fiction from an author that I would certainly read more from in future.
**Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.**
December 25, 2013
This is the story of Vadim, a young Leningrader, who is obsessed with learning the truth about Russia’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which is built near the Kremlin as a memorial to Russia’s victory over Napoleon. The church was demolished to make way for an immense Palace of Soviets. The Palace was intended to be the largest building in the world, a beacon of communism. However, it never materialized. The lost church became a taboo subject, and the mere mention of the Cathedral of Christ was an act of anti-Soviet propaganda. Nevertheless, Vadim pursues his research of the church with the help of Rachel, an American exchange student. Their pursuit of these answers draws them into an intricate web of mystery, history and politics. Remember, this is Russia in 1982, when fear of the ever-watching “Big Brother” were everywhere and definitely impacted everything citizens, well-intentioned or not, did. The story progressed along well, until the author chose to intersperse his “notes” into the story, which sort of threw me off for a bit. The story resumes and is again periodically interspersed with notes. I am not sure whether I like this or not, and it did somewhat interrupt the story for me. The story does provide an excellent overview of the Russia of the times, along with a history of the Communist era and all its trappings. In addition, the background of Russian architecture and of the politics of the time was indicative of the author’s interest in and pursuit or accuracy in researching and writing the novel. Anyone interested in reading a historical novel of Russia during this era and of reading a good story intermixed with this would find this novel fascinating. Unlike so many other novels, this one is true to history and yet written in such an engaging manner that the reader does not really realize just how much history and how many facts about Russia he/she is picking up un until the end. I received this from Library Thing to read and review.
April 15, 2014
The historical details of this story are grounded in fact but the characters and their storyline are distinctly fictitious. If you don't like novels that switch between time periods then you're not going to be a big fan of this book. I don't mind a bit of time jumping but I like the time periods to be easily distinguishable which wasn't always the case with this novel. I think it would have flowed better if the chapters flip flopped back and forth rather than within the chapters themselves. Also, the author utilized a writing technique that further confused things: he injected himself into the novel as a type of narrator about a quarter of the way through. Again, I don't mind this technique if it's unmistakable to the rest of the narrative. There was so much jumping around that I didn't really feel comfortable until about halfway through. Now as to the story itself, I found the plot interesting (I'm always interested in a bit of history/mystery) but I finished somewhat dissatisfied with the state of affairs. I was hoping for a bit more character resolution and it just never materialized. If you want to delve into the history of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour then this book is for you. If you want a story that sweeps you away on a cloud that you never want to emerge from well...I don't make any guarantees.
March 3, 2016
The architecture aspects of the novel were interesting but other than that it was fairly predictable and did much more telling rather than showing.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews