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The Revolution of Marina M. #1
The Revolution of Marina M.
From the mega-bestselling author of White Oleander and Paint It Black, a sweeping historical saga of the Russian Revolution, as seen through the eyes of one young woman.
St. Petersburg, New Year's Eve, 1916. Marina Makarova is a young woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life, a life about to be violently upended by the vast forces of history. Swept up on these tides, Marina will join the marches for workers' rights, fall in love with a radical young poet, and betray everything she holds dear, before being betrayed in turn.
As her country goes through almost unimaginable upheaval, Marina's own coming-of-age unfolds, marked by deep passion and devastating loss, and the private heroism of an ordinary woman living through extraordinary times. This is the epic, mesmerizing story of one indomitable woman's journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century.
St. Petersburg, New Year's Eve, 1916. Marina Makarova is a young woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life, a life about to be violently upended by the vast forces of history. Swept up on these tides, Marina will join the marches for workers' rights, fall in love with a radical young poet, and betray everything she holds dear, before being betrayed in turn.
As her country goes through almost unimaginable upheaval, Marina's own coming-of-age unfolds, marked by deep passion and devastating loss, and the private heroism of an ordinary woman living through extraordinary times. This is the epic, mesmerizing story of one indomitable woman's journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century.
816 pages, Hardcover
First published November 7, 2017
692 people are currently reading
19714 people want to read
About the author
Janet Fitch
25 books88.9k followersJanet Fitch was born in Los Angeles, a third-generation native, and grew up in a family of voracious readers. As an undergraduate at Reed College, Fitch had decided to become an historian, attracted to its powerful narratives, the scope of events, the colossal personalities, and the potency and breadth of its themes. But when she won a student exchange to Keele University in England, where her passion for Russian history led her, she awoke in the middle of the night on her twenty-first birthday with the revelation she wanted to write fiction. "I wanted to Live, not spend my life in a library. Of course, my conception of being a writer was to wear a cape and have Adventures." She has acquired a couple of capes since then, and a few adventures. And books.
Her current novels, THE REVOLUTION OF MARINA M. and CHIMES OF A LOST CATHEDRAL paint a portrait of a young poet coming of age during the Russian Revolution. Her last novel PAINT IT BLACK was made into a feature film, available on NETFLIX. Her novel WHITE OLEANDER was an Oprah Book Club pick and made into a motion picture.
Her current novels, THE REVOLUTION OF MARINA M. and CHIMES OF A LOST CATHEDRAL paint a portrait of a young poet coming of age during the Russian Revolution. Her last novel PAINT IT BLACK was made into a feature film, available on NETFLIX. Her novel WHITE OLEANDER was an Oprah Book Club pick and made into a motion picture.
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October 1, 2023
This is where I've been for the last decade--working on one novel, The Revolution of Marina M.
If you know me from my first two books, White Oleander and Paint It Black, both set in my home town of Los Angeles, you might be surprised to see a book set during the Russian Revolution. But as Toni Morrison once advised writers: “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
I majored in history, Russian was my language, the current political situation had me reexamining torrential historical change. No one who knows me well was at all surprised to hear I was writing a historical novel set during the Russian Revolution.
And if you've read one of my earlier books, you know that the inner lives and moral development of women is my greatest obsession. How the decisions a young girl makes, the actions she takes based upon the conclusions she draws, create the woman she becomes. I fiercely admire the strength that young women bring to their search for self. The Revolution of Marina M. is the story of a girl's coming of age during one of the most turbulent historical upheavals in the modern epoch.
To those major impulses, add a third—my love of poetry and admiration for its practitioners.
My protagonist, Marina Makarova, is a young poet the same age as the century, fiery and headstrong with an enormous love of life. We meet her in 1916, in the midst of the First World War, as Russia sinks further and further into military disaster, economic stress and social unrest. The daughter of a liberal intelligentsia family, Marina comes to champion the cause of the suffering underclass. As the old world begins to unravel, she finds a new freedom in which to explore a new self, testing the boundaries of her life, both politically and personally.
But when the October Revolution sweeps away the short-lived liberal government in which her father is a member, the girl who has itched to break free of all constraints finds herself forcibly expelled from her family, to live at 17 as an independent woman and a poet among poets, a citizen among citizens in a time of chaos and possibility.
Her inner contradictions lead her to relationships with two very different men-- one from the past, her older brother’s best friend who scoffs at the revolution and claims allegiance to a country of one – and the second, an openhearted radical poet with whom she lives the life of the revolution. Each man responds to a different side of her nature, and there is no easy solution to a nature at war with itself. Love, friendship, loss, betrayal, possibility, realism and idealism, these are some of the themes of the book.
I love a big, intense book. I want to be immersed completely in its fictional world. I've loved the years I've spent with Marina, and I hope you find it as satisfying to read as it was to create.
This novel is the first volume of two. The second volume of the duet--Chimes of a Lost Cathedral--continues Marina's journey until to the end of the revolution. They can be read in either order, as novel and sequel or novel and prequel.
If you'd like to know more, read an excerpt, see maps, photographs and learn a bit about the research behind it, please visit my website at www.janetfitchwrites.com.
If you know me from my first two books, White Oleander and Paint It Black, both set in my home town of Los Angeles, you might be surprised to see a book set during the Russian Revolution. But as Toni Morrison once advised writers: “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
I majored in history, Russian was my language, the current political situation had me reexamining torrential historical change. No one who knows me well was at all surprised to hear I was writing a historical novel set during the Russian Revolution.
And if you've read one of my earlier books, you know that the inner lives and moral development of women is my greatest obsession. How the decisions a young girl makes, the actions she takes based upon the conclusions she draws, create the woman she becomes. I fiercely admire the strength that young women bring to their search for self. The Revolution of Marina M. is the story of a girl's coming of age during one of the most turbulent historical upheavals in the modern epoch.
To those major impulses, add a third—my love of poetry and admiration for its practitioners.
My protagonist, Marina Makarova, is a young poet the same age as the century, fiery and headstrong with an enormous love of life. We meet her in 1916, in the midst of the First World War, as Russia sinks further and further into military disaster, economic stress and social unrest. The daughter of a liberal intelligentsia family, Marina comes to champion the cause of the suffering underclass. As the old world begins to unravel, she finds a new freedom in which to explore a new self, testing the boundaries of her life, both politically and personally.
But when the October Revolution sweeps away the short-lived liberal government in which her father is a member, the girl who has itched to break free of all constraints finds herself forcibly expelled from her family, to live at 17 as an independent woman and a poet among poets, a citizen among citizens in a time of chaos and possibility.
Her inner contradictions lead her to relationships with two very different men-- one from the past, her older brother’s best friend who scoffs at the revolution and claims allegiance to a country of one – and the second, an openhearted radical poet with whom she lives the life of the revolution. Each man responds to a different side of her nature, and there is no easy solution to a nature at war with itself. Love, friendship, loss, betrayal, possibility, realism and idealism, these are some of the themes of the book.
I love a big, intense book. I want to be immersed completely in its fictional world. I've loved the years I've spent with Marina, and I hope you find it as satisfying to read as it was to create.
This novel is the first volume of two. The second volume of the duet--Chimes of a Lost Cathedral--continues Marina's journey until to the end of the revolution. They can be read in either order, as novel and sequel or novel and prequel.
If you'd like to know more, read an excerpt, see maps, photographs and learn a bit about the research behind it, please visit my website at www.janetfitchwrites.com.
October 28, 2022
“At first I saw nothing. Then, way up at the end of Nevsky, a black dot appeared. A bit of red. As I watched the dot grew into a bobbing mass, adorned with small smears of scarlet. Now a noise, faint, like the whispering of waves on a pebbly beach, a low gravelly chatter, arose and soon echoed off the buildings and rolled down the boulevard. The marchers were chanting but we weren’t close enough to hear the words…Varvara squeezed my arm. I squeezed back. We felt the shimmering possibility that things could be different. No – they were different. This column of black coming toward us felt like history itself…”
- Janet Fitch, The Revolution of Marina M.
This is why I read.
There are many reasons to pick up a book. To learn. To understand. To be moved. To be entertained.
You read, of course, to be transported. But this rarely happens. It takes a special book to do that.
Janet Fitch’s The Revolution of Marina M transported me. It took me off the morning train, and brought me to Russia on the brink of – and during – the fateful Russian Revolution.
This is a massive epic, as is typical with novels about Russia. In exactly 800 pages, we learn the story of Marina Makarova, a young poet from a liberal-bourgeois family in St. Petersburg. Save for an unnecessary prologue set in California in 1932, the storyline stretches from 1916 (with Russia getting battered in World War I, and unrest stirring in the streets) and ends in 1919, at the end of the Red Terror. She begins as an enthusiastic supporter of socialism, as the autocracy of Nicholas II is overthrown and the Bolsheviks seize power, promising peace and bread and power to the workers. Her story ends, and is set up for the sequel, with Marina attempting to survive the ruthless process of a revolution eating its own.
This is a fascinating book in several respects. In heft, in weight, in page count, in setting, this puts one in mind of War and Peace or Dr. Zhivago (especially with the poetry angle). But The Revolution of Marina M. mostly eschews a broad canvas. The largest part of the drama takes place in and around St. Petersburg. There are no scenes of battle. There are no major set pieces. A lot of historical fiction traffics in the “ordinary-extraordinary” character, the man or woman who rises to a position from which history can be viewed. An aide to a president, an adjutant of a general. In point of fact, these characters, by dint of their access to power, are not really ordinary at all, but extraordinary by definition.
Here, Marina really is ordinary. She isn’t Lenin’s mistress or Trotsky’s proofreader. She never rises in the ranks of the reds. Accordingly, the perspective is very limited. We only learn what Marina learns, and Marina only learns what she can read in the newspapers, hear on the streets, or learn from gossip and hearsay. This makes a tough on a reader who doesn’t at leave have a historical framework to use as a point of reference. Still, I thought it was incredibly refreshing. I get so exhausted with the tired cameos of famous personages trotted out by hack authors searching for authenticity. I don’t mean to single out Ken Follett, but his “Century Trilogy” is a great example of lazily conceived historical figures used as a shortcut to verisimilitude. Finch neatly avoids that pitfall by avoiding real-life characters (with the exception of some speeches that Marina attends).
The choice of Marina as the narrator is also inspired, though it may toy with your expectations. She is not the usual hero you find in stories such as this. She is not a soldier. She does not march into the thick of the action. Her ties to the revolution are tenuous, mostly driven by her youthful passions and lusts. She spends far more time gauging potential sexual conquests than she does reading Engels or Marx. (Finch definitely plays with the double standard for female characters who are viewed as sluts if they pursue sex, in comparison to a male characters who is simply doing what men do).
I am on the record as disliking first-person narrators, for a number of reasons. I feel like it compresses a novel’s scope. It is stingy, in that it only allows us the viewpoint of one person, rather than a swath of humanity. Here, it also decreases a lot of tension. From the beginning, we know that Marina survives the Russian Revolution (hence the disutility of that prologue). No matter what kind of scrapes Marina gets into – and there are plenty – we know she will ultimately be relatively okay. The first-person narrator has the ultimate plot armor – the armor of a person who is fated to survive.
Nevertheless, Marina proves an exceedingly interesting Virgil of the Bolshevik coup. She is not always likeable. Indeed, she can be terribly unlikable, meaning she is a representative sixteen year-old. She can be vain, selfish, self-centered, arrogant, fatuous, and breathtakingly disloyal. (I'm reading Gone With the Wind right now, and there are shades of Scarlett O'Hara in Marina). To Finch’s credit, she understands that Marina is not always a great human being. She also uses Marina’s gender to explore topics beyond those usually found in historical fiction. The Revolution of Marina M. is filled with meditations on womanhood, on youth and aging, on the different ways the world views you based on your sex.
Speaking of sex, there is a lot of it. It is super graphic. Some of it is tender. Some of it is passionate. Some of it is sick. There is one scene of sexual violence in particular that is tough to read (though it’s tough to read because it is so powerfully presented).
The Revolution of Marina M. has a Dickensian way of populating its world with brilliant supporting characters. None of them have great depth or dimension, because we never get inside their heads. But, like Dickens, they tend to burn with memorable intensity. There is Ukashin, a charismatic cult leader; Arkady, a merciless smuggler into S&M; and Anton, a hilariously dour anarchist living in a squalid commune. Even the briefest players tend to get at least a single memorable moment. For instance, there is an exceptional little scene in which Marina’s parents have tea with two aging relatives who are about to escape abroad. One of the relatives, Cousin Masha, is incisively drawn as “a small homely woman with the rabid self-righteousness of someone who’d taken up plainness as a cause.”
The best historical fiction goes where the historical record does not. It helps us to know what history felt like, looked like, smelled like (Finch has a keenness for describing scents). For example, I recently read a book about Rasputin, which described the Mad Monk’s controversial proclivity for mixed-sex bathing in bathhouses. The book, though, never gave me a clue about what a bathhouse was or what role it played in Russian communities. Finch, though, takes us right inside, with a vivid description:
I used to be a part of the best book club that ever existed. The Eastern Nebraska Men’s Biblio & Social Club. Some of my best friends, some of the best people I’ve ever met, were part of that club.
But I wouldn’t have recommended this.
I loved this book, but it is a tough sell. The views are polarized, to say the least.
I am objective enough to note the flaws. The prose can get incredibly purplish and overheated (one can only groan when Marina describes her hoo-haw as “the plush of my Venus moun”). The dialogue can be pretty bad, studded with phrases that seem anachronistic. Marina herself can be insufferable at times. For someone as plucky as she is, imbued with the survivors sense, she makes really dumb decisions, decisions that are dictated by the need to get her from one adventure to the next.
The good, I feel, vastly overwhelms the bad. For every leaden line of exposition, there is a graphic and visceral visit to the execution rooms of the Cheka. For every sex scene that maybe gets a bit too florid, there is a heart-stopping sequence that puts a face, an emotion, to one of the largest crimes in history. There is, for example, a moment when Marina describes the death of a child from dysentery, as his astronomer-father watches helplessly:
So, no, I would not recommend this to my former book club. I won’t recommend it to you. However, I’m in a new book club now. It’s called the Metro-Link-Book-Club-of-One. And when I read The Revolution of Marina M., it did what the rarest books do. It took me off the noisy, clattering, shuddering train, and it brought me somewhere else. For a time, I lived in Marina’s world.
I read for those moments.
- Janet Fitch, The Revolution of Marina M.
This is why I read.
There are many reasons to pick up a book. To learn. To understand. To be moved. To be entertained.
You read, of course, to be transported. But this rarely happens. It takes a special book to do that.
Janet Fitch’s The Revolution of Marina M transported me. It took me off the morning train, and brought me to Russia on the brink of – and during – the fateful Russian Revolution.
This is a massive epic, as is typical with novels about Russia. In exactly 800 pages, we learn the story of Marina Makarova, a young poet from a liberal-bourgeois family in St. Petersburg. Save for an unnecessary prologue set in California in 1932, the storyline stretches from 1916 (with Russia getting battered in World War I, and unrest stirring in the streets) and ends in 1919, at the end of the Red Terror. She begins as an enthusiastic supporter of socialism, as the autocracy of Nicholas II is overthrown and the Bolsheviks seize power, promising peace and bread and power to the workers. Her story ends, and is set up for the sequel, with Marina attempting to survive the ruthless process of a revolution eating its own.
This is a fascinating book in several respects. In heft, in weight, in page count, in setting, this puts one in mind of War and Peace or Dr. Zhivago (especially with the poetry angle). But The Revolution of Marina M. mostly eschews a broad canvas. The largest part of the drama takes place in and around St. Petersburg. There are no scenes of battle. There are no major set pieces. A lot of historical fiction traffics in the “ordinary-extraordinary” character, the man or woman who rises to a position from which history can be viewed. An aide to a president, an adjutant of a general. In point of fact, these characters, by dint of their access to power, are not really ordinary at all, but extraordinary by definition.
Here, Marina really is ordinary. She isn’t Lenin’s mistress or Trotsky’s proofreader. She never rises in the ranks of the reds. Accordingly, the perspective is very limited. We only learn what Marina learns, and Marina only learns what she can read in the newspapers, hear on the streets, or learn from gossip and hearsay. This makes a tough on a reader who doesn’t at leave have a historical framework to use as a point of reference. Still, I thought it was incredibly refreshing. I get so exhausted with the tired cameos of famous personages trotted out by hack authors searching for authenticity. I don’t mean to single out Ken Follett, but his “Century Trilogy” is a great example of lazily conceived historical figures used as a shortcut to verisimilitude. Finch neatly avoids that pitfall by avoiding real-life characters (with the exception of some speeches that Marina attends).
The choice of Marina as the narrator is also inspired, though it may toy with your expectations. She is not the usual hero you find in stories such as this. She is not a soldier. She does not march into the thick of the action. Her ties to the revolution are tenuous, mostly driven by her youthful passions and lusts. She spends far more time gauging potential sexual conquests than she does reading Engels or Marx. (Finch definitely plays with the double standard for female characters who are viewed as sluts if they pursue sex, in comparison to a male characters who is simply doing what men do).
I am on the record as disliking first-person narrators, for a number of reasons. I feel like it compresses a novel’s scope. It is stingy, in that it only allows us the viewpoint of one person, rather than a swath of humanity. Here, it also decreases a lot of tension. From the beginning, we know that Marina survives the Russian Revolution (hence the disutility of that prologue). No matter what kind of scrapes Marina gets into – and there are plenty – we know she will ultimately be relatively okay. The first-person narrator has the ultimate plot armor – the armor of a person who is fated to survive.
Nevertheless, Marina proves an exceedingly interesting Virgil of the Bolshevik coup. She is not always likeable. Indeed, she can be terribly unlikable, meaning she is a representative sixteen year-old. She can be vain, selfish, self-centered, arrogant, fatuous, and breathtakingly disloyal. (I'm reading Gone With the Wind right now, and there are shades of Scarlett O'Hara in Marina). To Finch’s credit, she understands that Marina is not always a great human being. She also uses Marina’s gender to explore topics beyond those usually found in historical fiction. The Revolution of Marina M. is filled with meditations on womanhood, on youth and aging, on the different ways the world views you based on your sex.
Speaking of sex, there is a lot of it. It is super graphic. Some of it is tender. Some of it is passionate. Some of it is sick. There is one scene of sexual violence in particular that is tough to read (though it’s tough to read because it is so powerfully presented).
The Revolution of Marina M. has a Dickensian way of populating its world with brilliant supporting characters. None of them have great depth or dimension, because we never get inside their heads. But, like Dickens, they tend to burn with memorable intensity. There is Ukashin, a charismatic cult leader; Arkady, a merciless smuggler into S&M; and Anton, a hilariously dour anarchist living in a squalid commune. Even the briefest players tend to get at least a single memorable moment. For instance, there is an exceptional little scene in which Marina’s parents have tea with two aging relatives who are about to escape abroad. One of the relatives, Cousin Masha, is incisively drawn as “a small homely woman with the rabid self-righteousness of someone who’d taken up plainness as a cause.”
The best historical fiction goes where the historical record does not. It helps us to know what history felt like, looked like, smelled like (Finch has a keenness for describing scents). For example, I recently read a book about Rasputin, which described the Mad Monk’s controversial proclivity for mixed-sex bathing in bathhouses. The book, though, never gave me a clue about what a bathhouse was or what role it played in Russian communities. Finch, though, takes us right inside, with a vivid description:
Twenty, twenty-five naked women crowded together in a large wet wooden washroom. A hideously fat woman scrubbed her neighbor’s bony back. A toothless granny held up the flab of her stomach to get at her hairless ʐhenshichinost’. Wrinkled, contorted feminine forms of every variety…I wanted to run for the door, but I’d already paid my hard-earned ruble…The sight of them blistered my eyes. I’d seen a hundred paintings entitled In the Bath, where rosy beauties waded knee-deep in picturesque rivers and washed their long hair. Brown soap never appeared in Rubens. This was the thing itself, the squalor of human life. Age and decay. It was one thing to see bent backs under brown shawls, sagging stomachs faintly suggested by full dresses, breasts swinging low under bodices and aprons, genitals quite invisible, and another to see them revealed in their horrific variety. Bodies covered with wounds, with sores, rashes, bruises, welts, and worse. Bandages kicked into a corner…This one – expanded like overyeasted bread. That one – contracted like a fallen soufflé. Emptied out, gouged like clay, clawed, bruised, imprinted with the devastation of gravity and years…
I used to be a part of the best book club that ever existed. The Eastern Nebraska Men’s Biblio & Social Club. Some of my best friends, some of the best people I’ve ever met, were part of that club.
But I wouldn’t have recommended this.
I loved this book, but it is a tough sell. The views are polarized, to say the least.
I am objective enough to note the flaws. The prose can get incredibly purplish and overheated (one can only groan when Marina describes her hoo-haw as “the plush of my Venus moun”). The dialogue can be pretty bad, studded with phrases that seem anachronistic. Marina herself can be insufferable at times. For someone as plucky as she is, imbued with the survivors sense, she makes really dumb decisions, decisions that are dictated by the need to get her from one adventure to the next.
The good, I feel, vastly overwhelms the bad. For every leaden line of exposition, there is a graphic and visceral visit to the execution rooms of the Cheka. For every sex scene that maybe gets a bit too florid, there is a heart-stopping sequence that puts a face, an emotion, to one of the largest crimes in history. There is, for example, a moment when Marina describes the death of a child from dysentery, as his astronomer-father watches helplessly:
[The child had] been convulsing, become too weak to drink. The water seeped out from between his lips. Then it was over…Have you ever heard a man sob for love of a child? Have you seen his tears? [I] stood aside and let him crouch between them. He’d studied the stars, but everything he loved was lying right here on this earth…
So, no, I would not recommend this to my former book club. I won’t recommend it to you. However, I’m in a new book club now. It’s called the Metro-Link-Book-Club-of-One. And when I read The Revolution of Marina M., it did what the rarest books do. It took me off the noisy, clattering, shuddering train, and it brought me somewhere else. For a time, I lived in Marina’s world.
I read for those moments.
July 6, 2022
5 "sweeping, miraculous, deliriously delicious" stars !!
The 2021 Gold Award (Mostest favorite Read)
Since September 2020 I have had this beautiful hardcover book on my nightstand. Bought for me by my beloved a number of years ago. I took it off the bookshelf and placed it by my side and downloaded an e-copy which is much better for my aging eyes. Ten months later I have completed this huge tome but I will not yet put this book on the shelf as I am not yet ready to let Marina go.
I do not know how to impart to you how wonderful and amazing this book was to me. As I read, I felt the years sink away and my experience of losing myself in literature from childhood. I fell madly in love with impetuous, contemptuous, adventurous Marina M. Through her eyes I experienced not just the Russian revolution of 1914-1918 but experienced again the magic of first love, poetry, photography, ideals and friendship. Delicious food, art and sex. Cold frosty winters.
Beloved brothers and best mates. Romance, passion, heartache and the creation of a new world order. Poverty, destitution, cunning and cruelty. Science, mysticism, nature and the beautiful moon. Nothing is left out of this most perfect book.
Ms. Fitch has written a work that appealed to all my senses, my intellect and my beating heart. The work is vast (and the first of two volumes) and we experience Marina and her world through the eyes of idealized youth. This book was sheer magic to me and is so deeply etched into my consciousness that I feel that Marina M. has become part of me, my world.
This is a book that will stay with me forever and Marina M. will remain one of my best friends.
From the bottom of my heart Ms. Fitch I thank you for your resilience, creativity and passion.
You have written a book that will forever be one of my finest reading pleasures.
The 2021 Gold Award (Mostest favorite Read)
Since September 2020 I have had this beautiful hardcover book on my nightstand. Bought for me by my beloved a number of years ago. I took it off the bookshelf and placed it by my side and downloaded an e-copy which is much better for my aging eyes. Ten months later I have completed this huge tome but I will not yet put this book on the shelf as I am not yet ready to let Marina go.
I do not know how to impart to you how wonderful and amazing this book was to me. As I read, I felt the years sink away and my experience of losing myself in literature from childhood. I fell madly in love with impetuous, contemptuous, adventurous Marina M. Through her eyes I experienced not just the Russian revolution of 1914-1918 but experienced again the magic of first love, poetry, photography, ideals and friendship. Delicious food, art and sex. Cold frosty winters.
Beloved brothers and best mates. Romance, passion, heartache and the creation of a new world order. Poverty, destitution, cunning and cruelty. Science, mysticism, nature and the beautiful moon. Nothing is left out of this most perfect book.
Ms. Fitch has written a work that appealed to all my senses, my intellect and my beating heart. The work is vast (and the first of two volumes) and we experience Marina and her world through the eyes of idealized youth. This book was sheer magic to me and is so deeply etched into my consciousness that I feel that Marina M. has become part of me, my world.
This is a book that will stay with me forever and Marina M. will remain one of my best friends.
From the bottom of my heart Ms. Fitch I thank you for your resilience, creativity and passion.
You have written a book that will forever be one of my finest reading pleasures.
July 6, 2021
”MIDNIGHT, NEW YEAR’S EVE, three young witches gathered in the city that was once St. Petersburg. Though that silver sound, Petersburg, had been erased, and how oddly the new one struck our ears: Petrograd. A sound like bronze. Like horseshoes on stone, hammer on anvil, thunder in the name—Petrograd. No longer Petersburg of the bells and water, that city of mirrors, of transparent twilights, Tchaikovsky ballets, and Pushkin’s genius. Its name had been changed by war—Petersburg was thought too German, though the name is Duth."
"Petrograd. The sound is bronze, and this is a story of bronze."
As this story really begins, it is on the eve of the New Year, 1916, and when dawn breaks, a new year will begin. 1917, will be a year to be remembered, the beginning of great change in Petrograd. As the New Year’s Eve begins, Marina Makarova is on the verge of sixteen, with “hair the red of young foxes crossing a field of snow”her younger brother, Seryozha, a year younger, still, her older brother, Volodya, an officer in the cavalry off fighting in Bohemia. For now, Marina is surrounded by her friends, Varvara and Mina, while they wait to see their fortunes cast over a basin of water in the children’s nursery of Marina’s home.
”It seems like a scene in a glass globe to me now. I want to turn it over and set the snow to swirling. I want to shout to my young self, Stop! Don’t be in such a hurry to peel back the petals of the future. It will be here soon enough, and it won’t be quite the bloom you expect. Just stay there, in that precious moment, at the hinge of time…but I was in love with the Future, in love with the idea of Fate."
Marina Dmietrievna Makarova is a daughter of privilege, her father has done well, and her parents are well thought of among their peers. Marina’s thoughts, when she is not writing her poetry, seem to center around love, and handsome young men. Dancing. A kiss. Perhaps more. With the tide rising against those families who have more than their fair share, Marina chooses to dip her toes into the waters of the Revolution that is growing, but still in the stages of its infancy. At first it isn’t much, some poetry readings where she meets other poets, hears new ideas. Eventually she joins in the marches for workers’ rights, a move that gains her some new friends. A dangerous move.
Marina isn’t always the most likeable of characters. There are parts of her story that are beyond heartbreaking, and there are some that had me question where her part of this story was going. Marina seems easily swept away, without much thought or real commitment, and rarely with any thought of potential consequence. Then again, she is still relatively young. It is through Marina that we see much of the Revolution, from the “February Revolution” which took place from 8-16 March 1917, followed by the “October Revolution” from 7-8 November 1917, and through the Russian Civil War.
Part coming-of-age story, this is a story of relationships tested by the division of right and wrong, the division of those who have and those who never have. War. Friendship. Betrayal. Familial Love. Romantic Love.
Several years ago I read, and loved, Janet Fitch’s “White Oleander” . I have not read her novel ”Paint it Black . I wanted to read ”The Revolution of Marina M.” because I had found “White Oleander” to be incredibly beautifully written. I can’t say that I was equally as mesmerized with all of ”The Revolution of Marina M.” although the writing is still beautiful. The length of this is somewhat daunting to contemplate, but once you begin reading this, I found it to be a pleasurable read, overall – although I do think it would have benefitted from some healthy trimming on, at least, one of the side stories.
November 2017, which will also be the month of the publication, will be the 100th ‘anniversary’ of the Russian Revolution.
Published: 07 Nov 2017
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Little, Brown and Company
December 13, 2017
I'm grateful to BOTM for sending me an ARC of this book. I have to say, I feel like the only person in the world who didn't fall head over heels for this novel. I loved White Oleander, and I fully expected the same clarity of voice, the same forward drive of the story as Fitch displayed in her seminal work. Unfortunately, all of that was completely lacking for me. I found the story rambled from chapter to chapter, and while Fitch did an EXTRAORDINARY job relating the events and feelings of the Russian Revolution, her extensive research and the historical aspect were the only things that got me through 800+ pages of zero character development. Marina's transition from a bourgeoisie to a Bolshevik really isn't a transition at all, because throughout the entire book, she simply follows and echoes other people's thoughts and actions. Her words are empty, her actions are meaningless, and she never fully developed into her own woman... at least not for me. Her CONSTANT drivel over Kolya, and then Genya, and then Kolya again seriously made me want to throw the book against the wall and scream "ENOUGH!" She never learns any lessons, she's completely faithless, and though she pantomimes regret, it's completely disingenuous. And the Rasputin-esque cult at the end? Seriously? I almost laughed out loud. It made zero sense and contributed to the forward progress in no way whatsoever. I understand that this is meant to have a sequel... I will not be reading it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 16, 2018
350 pages into an 800 page tome and I'm throwing in the towel on this one. Want to know what it's like? It's as if Twilight's Bella Swan were put down in St Petersburg in 1917 - she wants oh so desperately to be a revolutionary (despite, or because of, her bourgeois, super-comfortable background) but in reality all she can do is shuttle between her two love interests, wringing her hands and wittering on about Kolya's hairy chest and honey scent...
I should have known from the start when we have an overly schematic set-up: three girls, one blonde, one brunette, one redhead; one a science geek, one a revolutionary, one a wannabe poet (she self-publishes her first volume of poetry at 16 - sheesh!). And the two love interests are an aristocratic Army officer (he of the hairy chest and honey scent) and a working-class poet. Could you get any more clichéd? Well, yes, because soon Marina chops off her hair and masquerades as a boy...
Fitch apparently spent 10 years researching and writing this and, to be fair, there's a good background to the events of the Revolution. Sadly, though, it's just that - background. The foreground is Marina's ridiculous story. It's just impossible to believe, for example, that a well-brought up 16 year old schoolgirl is free to roam around St Petersburg alone having secret sex in various bedrooms - not just is it 1917, but there's a war on, and a Revolution brewing on the streets, but our Marina still manages to get felt up erotically in a sleigh!
I have been very accommodating, I feel, with this book, hoping that Marina would grow up, drop the insta-love (not just once, but twice) and become a serious narrator - but nearly halfway through and she's still just... silly. So I'm cutting my losses - which is a shame. Only after starting this did I find out from other reviews that this 800 page volume is the first of two - Marina's sexual odyssey through the Revolution is going to have to continue without me, I fear.
I should have known from the start when we have an overly schematic set-up: three girls, one blonde, one brunette, one redhead; one a science geek, one a revolutionary, one a wannabe poet (she self-publishes her first volume of poetry at 16 - sheesh!). And the two love interests are an aristocratic Army officer (he of the hairy chest and honey scent) and a working-class poet. Could you get any more clichéd? Well, yes, because soon Marina chops off her hair and masquerades as a boy...
Fitch apparently spent 10 years researching and writing this and, to be fair, there's a good background to the events of the Revolution. Sadly, though, it's just that - background. The foreground is Marina's ridiculous story. It's just impossible to believe, for example, that a well-brought up 16 year old schoolgirl is free to roam around St Petersburg alone having secret sex in various bedrooms - not just is it 1917, but there's a war on, and a Revolution brewing on the streets, but our Marina still manages to get felt up erotically in a sleigh!
I have been very accommodating, I feel, with this book, hoping that Marina would grow up, drop the insta-love (not just once, but twice) and become a serious narrator - but nearly halfway through and she's still just... silly. So I'm cutting my losses - which is a shame. Only after starting this did I find out from other reviews that this 800 page volume is the first of two - Marina's sexual odyssey through the Revolution is going to have to continue without me, I fear.
January 13, 2018
“End of Book 1”. I only just now realized that this epic story is not the end of our journey together with Marina M. I’m not exactly sure how to feel about that, but for now let’s just focus on this the first book.
“The Revolution of Marina M.” is the story of Marina growing up in Russia and going through her own revolution parallelled to the Russian revolution of 1917. Marina is a dynamic character who starts out as a giggly, studious and passionate girl growing up in the aristocracy of Petrograd. However, she ends up as a completely different girl, devastated and changed for life by the ongoing revolution.
This book comes with beautiful language that oftentimes took my breath away. I think that the chapters that worked the best were the chapters in which the author zooms in on the characters or a dialogue or an event taking place in Marina’s life, whereas the chapters that give you an overview of the time and the society were a bit weaker. But some scenes were amazing!
I have to say that a few scenes are extremely vivid and not for the faint-hearted, but those were also the scenes that made the biggest impact on me.
This book is long. It will provide you with many hours together with our heroine Marina. But in the end, it’s worth the whole as it provides you with both an insight into the Russian revolution, but also with an amazing story about growing up amongst chaos and passions.
“The Revolution of Marina M.” is the story of Marina growing up in Russia and going through her own revolution parallelled to the Russian revolution of 1917. Marina is a dynamic character who starts out as a giggly, studious and passionate girl growing up in the aristocracy of Petrograd. However, she ends up as a completely different girl, devastated and changed for life by the ongoing revolution.
This book comes with beautiful language that oftentimes took my breath away. I think that the chapters that worked the best were the chapters in which the author zooms in on the characters or a dialogue or an event taking place in Marina’s life, whereas the chapters that give you an overview of the time and the society were a bit weaker. But some scenes were amazing!
I have to say that a few scenes are extremely vivid and not for the faint-hearted, but those were also the scenes that made the biggest impact on me.
This book is long. It will provide you with many hours together with our heroine Marina. But in the end, it’s worth the whole as it provides you with both an insight into the Russian revolution, but also with an amazing story about growing up amongst chaos and passions.
July 1, 2023
Oof. I love Janet Fitch so this is a hard review to write but this book was painfully dull. I started with high hopes. Marina is a very likable character and the Russian revolution is a vibrant and electric setting for a coming-of-age story. The beginning of the novel was well done, with our young heroine naively living the good life, sharing her expectations for her future, engaging in a youthful love affair, dreaming of a fancy life with her friends. And then everything goes to shit, literally. By the second hundred pages I was already feeling the slog. There was so. Much. Detail. It filled every sentence, paragraph, and page. I know Janet Fitch did an extensive amount of research for this novel, which I appreciate, but I didn't need every bit of it included in the novel. That's not an exaggeration. She included everything, in a bad way. Marina became the narrator of events that only marginally related to her and did nothing to forward her story, which is the story I wanted to read. Instead Marina's story was more like a pantomime, a one-dimensional composite of the experiences of the people during the revolution. It wasn't complex or interesting, it made for flat storytelling, and even flatter character development. Marina was just the lens through which Janet Fitch wrote what she really wanted, which was a history of the Russian revolution. She should have just done that and skipped the fiction part. It would have made for a better read.
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
February 12, 2018
“There are points in one’s life where it’s possible to turn back, and we know them when they come, even when we don’t choose to take that option.”
It is at the halfway point of the book that Marina Makarova makes this statement, but even as I read it, I already knew her as a young woman who burns with a blazing inner intensity.
Some rely on reason when making crucial life decisions, others gravitate to the safe and predictable answers, and of course there are those who allow others to make most of their decisions for them – whether they may realize it or not. As I got to know Marina, I realized she was different – it is her passions, more than anything else - that guide her – for Marina, it is the person, cause or situation that most aggressively stokes the fire burning within her that ultimately determines which way she will turn, which path she will take.
As the story unfolds, Janet Fitch takes care to remind us that Marina is a soulfully sexual creature. We learn this not only from her encounters, but also her thoughts, memories and even the kind of person she dreams of being with. This part of Marina’s character is very well developed and seems to be a good fit for her as I considered the force of her personality, and the unrestrained and raging circumstances surrounding her. This part of Marina’s life causes her some of the greatest pleasures and joys and also the greatest heartbreak, loneliness, and even terror. A kind of “passion barometer” for her. As the chapters flew by, I found myself wishing happiness for her in her love life, somehow guessing that fulfillment in this area would prove to be a kind of charm that would cast warm light into the other dark corners of her life.
One of Marina’s character strengths is how consistently she exhibits these hot-blooded traits as the story unfolds. She’s true to herself, even though she often does this by instinct. It affects all areas of her life, her creativity (expressed through poetry), her work life, her relationship with her family, her politics, her friendships, her interests, even, as mentioned, her romantic relationships. As a result, she finds herself in a variety of fantastic situations, side-by-side with characters who range from eccentric, to peculiar, to compassionate and….to absolutely horrifying.
And as if Marina isn’t intriguing enough on her own, her spellbinding story occurs right in the eye of the political hurricane of one of the most tumultuous political, social and cultural upheavals in world history.
As impressive as all of this is, it still wasn’t the best part. What I really appreciated is that I believed all of it. Even as amazing as it all was, it still felt authentic and genuine. In my opinion, it is rare to find a story that combines all of these elements, in the case of this book, everything was woven together so incredibly well and each episode logically followed the other.
This book was 800 pages long, but I enjoyed every part of it, and, in the end it felt as though it was so much shorter.
Great characters and an unforgettable story. I highly recommend Janet Fitch’s “The Revolution of Marina M.”
It is at the halfway point of the book that Marina Makarova makes this statement, but even as I read it, I already knew her as a young woman who burns with a blazing inner intensity.
Some rely on reason when making crucial life decisions, others gravitate to the safe and predictable answers, and of course there are those who allow others to make most of their decisions for them – whether they may realize it or not. As I got to know Marina, I realized she was different – it is her passions, more than anything else - that guide her – for Marina, it is the person, cause or situation that most aggressively stokes the fire burning within her that ultimately determines which way she will turn, which path she will take.
As the story unfolds, Janet Fitch takes care to remind us that Marina is a soulfully sexual creature. We learn this not only from her encounters, but also her thoughts, memories and even the kind of person she dreams of being with. This part of Marina’s character is very well developed and seems to be a good fit for her as I considered the force of her personality, and the unrestrained and raging circumstances surrounding her. This part of Marina’s life causes her some of the greatest pleasures and joys and also the greatest heartbreak, loneliness, and even terror. A kind of “passion barometer” for her. As the chapters flew by, I found myself wishing happiness for her in her love life, somehow guessing that fulfillment in this area would prove to be a kind of charm that would cast warm light into the other dark corners of her life.
One of Marina’s character strengths is how consistently she exhibits these hot-blooded traits as the story unfolds. She’s true to herself, even though she often does this by instinct. It affects all areas of her life, her creativity (expressed through poetry), her work life, her relationship with her family, her politics, her friendships, her interests, even, as mentioned, her romantic relationships. As a result, she finds herself in a variety of fantastic situations, side-by-side with characters who range from eccentric, to peculiar, to compassionate and….to absolutely horrifying.
And as if Marina isn’t intriguing enough on her own, her spellbinding story occurs right in the eye of the political hurricane of one of the most tumultuous political, social and cultural upheavals in world history.
As impressive as all of this is, it still wasn’t the best part. What I really appreciated is that I believed all of it. Even as amazing as it all was, it still felt authentic and genuine. In my opinion, it is rare to find a story that combines all of these elements, in the case of this book, everything was woven together so incredibly well and each episode logically followed the other.
This book was 800 pages long, but I enjoyed every part of it, and, in the end it felt as though it was so much shorter.
Great characters and an unforgettable story. I highly recommend Janet Fitch’s “The Revolution of Marina M.”
July 2, 2018
I am so grateful this novel is finished. I actually committed my Sunday night (of a long, holiday weekend no less) into finishing this book. I was too far along to DNF it and I have so many more exciting novels to get to. Needless to say, mission accomplished.
I am a huge fan of Janet Fitch, in general. “White Oleander” and “Paint it Black” are both poignant and powerful novels that gripped me from the first page. The only thing these two novels have in common with Fitch’s new endeavour, “The Revolution of Marina M.”, was the strong, female protagonist.
In St. Petersburg, during the early 2oth century, Marina Makarova is a young girl of sixteen, desperate to break free from the constraints of her rich and privileged life. Marina joins forces with revolutionaries, falls in love with a poet, and defies her parents at every turn- which leads to them, eventually, disowning and abandoning her. While the war goes on around her and the countryside she is used to changes so drastically, Marina now must reinvent herself in a world she no longer recognizes.
The character of Marina is wonderful. Strong and stubborn while still being vulnerable, Marina embodies the female protagonist that Fitch is known for. Marina struggles through heartbreak, betrayal and violence, all while living in an unstable country rife with war and death.
“Revolution” itself was not all bad. Parts of it were entertaining and I was invested enough in Marina’s character to be interested in the outcome. The novel is definitely historical fiction, and although this is normally a genre I enjoy, this novel was really long and really historical.
Although this novel did immerse me into St. Petersberg, Russia, during wartime (a situation I am not learned in) which allowed me to learn a few things, the characters were plentiful, and when they all have Russian names (and reappear at different points in the novel, long after I had forgotten their initial appearance) , it was often difficult to follow the plot.
Fitch is definitely a talented writer, and this novel is most assuredly well-researched. However, it could have done with fewer pages and fewer characters. A sequel is in the works and that is absolutely unnecessary, as Marina’s story could very easily have been finished within the 800 pages the novel provides.
Overall, the character of Marina will win over hearts as she struggles to maintain her independence as a female in 20th century Russia. However, the novel was just too long and I was more excited to finish it than I have been with any other book in quite some time.
I am a huge fan of Janet Fitch, in general. “White Oleander” and “Paint it Black” are both poignant and powerful novels that gripped me from the first page. The only thing these two novels have in common with Fitch’s new endeavour, “The Revolution of Marina M.”, was the strong, female protagonist.
In St. Petersburg, during the early 2oth century, Marina Makarova is a young girl of sixteen, desperate to break free from the constraints of her rich and privileged life. Marina joins forces with revolutionaries, falls in love with a poet, and defies her parents at every turn- which leads to them, eventually, disowning and abandoning her. While the war goes on around her and the countryside she is used to changes so drastically, Marina now must reinvent herself in a world she no longer recognizes.
The character of Marina is wonderful. Strong and stubborn while still being vulnerable, Marina embodies the female protagonist that Fitch is known for. Marina struggles through heartbreak, betrayal and violence, all while living in an unstable country rife with war and death.
“Revolution” itself was not all bad. Parts of it were entertaining and I was invested enough in Marina’s character to be interested in the outcome. The novel is definitely historical fiction, and although this is normally a genre I enjoy, this novel was really long and really historical.
Although this novel did immerse me into St. Petersberg, Russia, during wartime (a situation I am not learned in) which allowed me to learn a few things, the characters were plentiful, and when they all have Russian names (and reappear at different points in the novel, long after I had forgotten their initial appearance) , it was often difficult to follow the plot.
Fitch is definitely a talented writer, and this novel is most assuredly well-researched. However, it could have done with fewer pages and fewer characters. A sequel is in the works and that is absolutely unnecessary, as Marina’s story could very easily have been finished within the 800 pages the novel provides.
Overall, the character of Marina will win over hearts as she struggles to maintain her independence as a female in 20th century Russia. However, the novel was just too long and I was more excited to finish it than I have been with any other book in quite some time.
June 8, 2017
I fell in love with Marina M.—the book and the character. The research Janet Fitch must have done! She has great ability to make this character relatable—Marina M. had experiences and thoughts that I felt were torn from my teenage diary. The book is long but the story is fast paced, it takes you on a really fun journey. I was reading it at the same time I was watching THE AMERICANS, which I felt enhanced it. Thank you for this book, Janet! I'm so glad to have another book from you, and this exceeded my expectations.
Read
November 12, 2017Should I DNF a book at 600 pages? This is the question I am currently facing.
Ultimately, despite how much time I have devoted to this book, I'm going to answer yes. I was loving it for the first quarter, but at three quarters of the way through, I don't care very much for what is happening and I do not feel motivated to continue. I really like the juxtaposition of the coming of age story and the birth of the Russian Revolution. I find how Janet Fitch weaves the history into Marina's life to be compelling and interesting. However, I feel like this novel is too long, and Marina's insistence on repeating the same mistakes over and over are growing a bit tiresome. They don't feel genuine, especially coming off the heels of several extremely graphic scenes of torture and sexual violence. I am done.
I loved White Oleander so so much, perhaps my expectations for this were just too high.
Ultimately, despite how much time I have devoted to this book, I'm going to answer yes. I was loving it for the first quarter, but at three quarters of the way through, I don't care very much for what is happening and I do not feel motivated to continue. I really like the juxtaposition of the coming of age story and the birth of the Russian Revolution. I find how Janet Fitch weaves the history into Marina's life to be compelling and interesting. However, I feel like this novel is too long, and Marina's insistence on repeating the same mistakes over and over are growing a bit tiresome. They don't feel genuine, especially coming off the heels of several extremely graphic scenes of torture and sexual violence. I am done.
I loved White Oleander so so much, perhaps my expectations for this were just too high.
December 21, 2020
Set during WWI in St Petersburg, Russia, Marina Makarova is a young woman whose sheltered privileged life made her ignorant of her surroundings and its less fortunate people. But everything changes when she meets Varvara. She introduces Marina to the life of less privileged. Together, they explore poorer parts of the city, witnessing suffering of the people.
In summer 1916, Marina volunteers by assisting the British embassy with its program of distributing parcels to wounded Russian soldiers returning home. As she takes census from soldiers she learns about poor conditions of soldiers at battlefields.
The city becomes a picture of hopelessness with food shortages and longer lines, strikes break out on regular basis, violence arises. The war enters the city.
The story touches upon the Brusilov Offensive, June –Sept. 1916, which was the Russia’s greatest feat of arms during WWI and among the most lethal offensives in world history.
When the story builds up (first 15% of the book), with Marina awakening to seeing the suffering of the people, the story is very interesting. Once the strikes, the break-ins take the center stage, the story loses its appeal.
In summer 1916, Marina volunteers by assisting the British embassy with its program of distributing parcels to wounded Russian soldiers returning home. As she takes census from soldiers she learns about poor conditions of soldiers at battlefields.
The city becomes a picture of hopelessness with food shortages and longer lines, strikes break out on regular basis, violence arises. The war enters the city.
The story touches upon the Brusilov Offensive, June –Sept. 1916, which was the Russia’s greatest feat of arms during WWI and among the most lethal offensives in world history.
When the story builds up (first 15% of the book), with Marina awakening to seeing the suffering of the people, the story is very interesting. Once the strikes, the break-ins take the center stage, the story loses its appeal.
abandoned
January 15, 2018DNF @ 20% (loc 2464) I enjoyed the history and politics. Sixteen-year-old Marina was bland and insufferable. I was far more interested in her revolutionary friend Varvara. When Marina meets up with the poet Genya, and I found out this was just Book 1 of 2, I realized that I couldn’t spend 600+ more pages with her. She’s an empty vessel who flits from one thing to another. On an emotional level, I didn’t understand how she became so eager to shed her privilege and why she was so invested in overthrowing the system. She doesn't come across as an overly empathetic person. (I appreciated a similar story arc with wealthy-girl-turned-revolutionary Jisun in Everything Belongs to Us, especially in contrast with her poor friend Namin who didn’t want to be saved.)
It’s possible that everything falls into place as the story continues, but I stopped caring before I had a chance to find out. The writing is beautiful and the time period is fascinating, so I might try this again if the mood strikes.
____________
I received this book for free from NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. It's available now!
It’s possible that everything falls into place as the story continues, but I stopped caring before I had a chance to find out. The writing is beautiful and the time period is fascinating, so I might try this again if the mood strikes.
____________
I received this book for free from NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. It's available now!
December 26, 2017
****Spoiler alert****
I just finished this 1100 page beauty of a book after 48 hour holiday reading bender. I have been with Marina through her father, Genya, the archangel, Varvara, Volya and Ukashin, all these people who want to tell this independent, smart, free spirit of a girl what or who she should be. I just got to the last page of this sweeping lovely scary addictive story and I want resolution to the revolution of Marina M. Yet, I get to the end to find "end of book 1." The author is working on Book 2. What frustration! This is how I know I am reading a fantastic book. I want to know. I need to know now. I want Marina to succeed. Historical fiction when it is done right, feels like this. It is sweeping and grand. It is personal and emotional. I love this book and I hope many of you make the leap and read this 1100 page treasure. BTW, I won this book from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review but I would have gladly paid the cover price.
I just finished this 1100 page beauty of a book after 48 hour holiday reading bender. I have been with Marina through her father, Genya, the archangel, Varvara, Volya and Ukashin, all these people who want to tell this independent, smart, free spirit of a girl what or who she should be. I just got to the last page of this sweeping lovely scary addictive story and I want resolution to the revolution of Marina M. Yet, I get to the end to find "end of book 1." The author is working on Book 2. What frustration! This is how I know I am reading a fantastic book. I want to know. I need to know now. I want Marina to succeed. Historical fiction when it is done right, feels like this. It is sweeping and grand. It is personal and emotional. I love this book and I hope many of you make the leap and read this 1100 page treasure. BTW, I won this book from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review but I would have gladly paid the cover price.
August 14, 2017
Edit: I had originally said it was 4.5 stars due to the abrupt ending but the ARC I was reading didn't indicate that it's actually part 1 of a 2 part series. Definitely the full 5!
I actually savored it and read it slowly even though I was dying to know what was coming because I was captivated all throughout. It is an excellent read and has me wanting to read more about life during the Russian revolution. Although the life and background of Marina are vastly different, I could still see a little Astrid and Josie in her.
I actually savored it and read it slowly even though I was dying to know what was coming because I was captivated all throughout. It is an excellent read and has me wanting to read more about life during the Russian revolution. Although the life and background of Marina are vastly different, I could still see a little Astrid and Josie in her.
November 4, 2017
So, this book. I'm settling on 3.5 stars, although I know Goodreads won't honor the half!
Thanks to Little Brown for the ARC of the title.
I dedicated 6 days of my life to all 804 pages of it and am attempting to pull all of my thoughts together.......and then I read the Goodreads and BookPage interviews with the author that explains that this is book 1 of 2 volumes, and that muddled all of my previous thoughts! I really wonder why that wasn't more heavily publicized??? Ultimately, I'm glad I read this book because it was a perfect slow-down from the frenetic reading schedule I have been on lately. And although it drove me crazy at times and I wanted to shake Marina at times, I grew to care deeply about what happened to her and how her story ended..........
I don't want to include spoilers here, so I'll just do bullet-pointed ramblings........
* I can not begin to critique the historical accuracy of the story given my limited knowledge of this historical setting and events, but from what is said in the interviews, Fitch spent a large amount of time IN Russia researching this book and met with historical experts in Russia to ensure things are accurate. I was fascinated with the political and historical storylines, although I honestly couldn't keep everything straight - I didn't let my confusion bog me down, though, and just resolved to read more about this time period.
* There is a LOT of sex in this book. Lots of graphic sex. I think the NYT Review says it best - "For all her progressive defiance, Marina is still treated by the more politically empowered men in her life as merely an object for degradation — the details of which are perhaps a little crass even for the most jaded reader." She is sexually empowered because she acknowledges her desires and seeks out satisfaction, but........oh my LORD does she get imprisoned and taken advantage of by horrible men so so so so so often!
* I would have given this 5 stars based on the first 670 pages. However, pages 671-800 were WAY trippy and out there and took this story in a direction that I in no way saw coming or wanted to have occur. If had been editing this book, I would have strongly, strongly recommended that this strange storyline either change or be completely left out of the book, but of course, that's just me! I do know the length of the book overall will probably deter some readers.
* The fact that I stuck with the book is impressive given its length, so there is a lot to be said for the author's storytelling and the sense of suspense she built - especially given the prologue in Carmel, CA in 1932. I read feverishly at times to figure out how. the. hell. she. got. there. However, without knowing ahead of time that there is supposed to be a volume 2 (and it appears neither did any of the major trade reviewers???), I almost threw this book out the window when I got to the ending. My final verdict will have to be given once I read the next book, I guess.........
If you are into doorstop historical epics, you may enjoy this one. If you love Russian history, pick this up. If you want a satisfying ending to your untold hours of reading..........maybe wait until you know for sure that volume 2 is on its way.
Thanks to Little Brown for the ARC of the title.
I dedicated 6 days of my life to all 804 pages of it and am attempting to pull all of my thoughts together.......and then I read the Goodreads and BookPage interviews with the author that explains that this is book 1 of 2 volumes, and that muddled all of my previous thoughts! I really wonder why that wasn't more heavily publicized??? Ultimately, I'm glad I read this book because it was a perfect slow-down from the frenetic reading schedule I have been on lately. And although it drove me crazy at times and I wanted to shake Marina at times, I grew to care deeply about what happened to her and how her story ended..........
I don't want to include spoilers here, so I'll just do bullet-pointed ramblings........
* I can not begin to critique the historical accuracy of the story given my limited knowledge of this historical setting and events, but from what is said in the interviews, Fitch spent a large amount of time IN Russia researching this book and met with historical experts in Russia to ensure things are accurate. I was fascinated with the political and historical storylines, although I honestly couldn't keep everything straight - I didn't let my confusion bog me down, though, and just resolved to read more about this time period.
* There is a LOT of sex in this book. Lots of graphic sex. I think the NYT Review says it best - "For all her progressive defiance, Marina is still treated by the more politically empowered men in her life as merely an object for degradation — the details of which are perhaps a little crass even for the most jaded reader." She is sexually empowered because she acknowledges her desires and seeks out satisfaction, but........oh my LORD does she get imprisoned and taken advantage of by horrible men so so so so so often!
* I would have given this 5 stars based on the first 670 pages. However, pages 671-800 were WAY trippy and out there and took this story in a direction that I in no way saw coming or wanted to have occur. If had been editing this book, I would have strongly, strongly recommended that this strange storyline either change or be completely left out of the book, but of course, that's just me! I do know the length of the book overall will probably deter some readers.
* The fact that I stuck with the book is impressive given its length, so there is a lot to be said for the author's storytelling and the sense of suspense she built - especially given the prologue in Carmel, CA in 1932. I read feverishly at times to figure out how. the. hell. she. got. there. However, without knowing ahead of time that there is supposed to be a volume 2 (and it appears neither did any of the major trade reviewers???), I almost threw this book out the window when I got to the ending. My final verdict will have to be given once I read the next book, I guess.........
If you are into doorstop historical epics, you may enjoy this one. If you love Russian history, pick this up. If you want a satisfying ending to your untold hours of reading..........maybe wait until you know for sure that volume 2 is on its way.
March 9, 2019
OK....so much to say....I think this is the wordiest review I have ever written,...so here goes....
When I started writing this review, I had no idea there will be a sequel!!!!!
This was one very long and beautifully written and well researched book about the Russian revolution, which has been in the making for over 10 years, wow!!!!
It helped a lot that I was born and raised in Leningrad (I know it is St. Petersburg now, but I was born and raised in Leningrad), and all the neighborhoods are familiar to me, which felt like I was walking them again with this book.
The poetry, the beautiful poetry, the breathtaking poetry - not sure if it has the same soul when translated. I remember them all by memory, we all have the poetry imbedded in our memories since we are little little kids.
And the Russian words transliterated into English, were probably hard to read and get the full meaning, unless one is fluent in Russian.
So, with all above said, I had the privilege to enjoy the book immensely, and now I cannot wait for book 2 to be published! I wonder why that wasn't more heavily publicized.
I facilitate a few book clubs, and might add this one to the book list. I wonder if the ladies in my groups will love me or hate me for adding a very lengthy book, but I will take that chance.
When I started writing this review, I had no idea there will be a sequel!!!!!
This was one very long and beautifully written and well researched book about the Russian revolution, which has been in the making for over 10 years, wow!!!!
It helped a lot that I was born and raised in Leningrad (I know it is St. Petersburg now, but I was born and raised in Leningrad), and all the neighborhoods are familiar to me, which felt like I was walking them again with this book.
The poetry, the beautiful poetry, the breathtaking poetry - not sure if it has the same soul when translated. I remember them all by memory, we all have the poetry imbedded in our memories since we are little little kids.
And the Russian words transliterated into English, were probably hard to read and get the full meaning, unless one is fluent in Russian.
So, with all above said, I had the privilege to enjoy the book immensely, and now I cannot wait for book 2 to be published! I wonder why that wasn't more heavily publicized.
I facilitate a few book clubs, and might add this one to the book list. I wonder if the ladies in my groups will love me or hate me for adding a very lengthy book, but I will take that chance.
October 5, 2017
Janet Fitch is a little pretentious and so are her characters, but, like, in an endearing way. This is an over-simplification but Marina is like a Russian Astrid and the book itself is like a Russian-lit version of White Oleander. Family, love, abuse, with the added intrigue of Russian history. It's a huge book but doesn't feel huge. Recommended for anyone with a big imagination and a need to snuggle into a book like a bear hibernating in winter.
August 14, 2017
I would have given it 5 stars, but I hate books that end like that.
Amendment: Love this book and can't wait for the sequel!!
Amendment: Love this book and can't wait for the sequel!!
June 18, 2018
I’ve just spent a week in the throes of Marina M’s revolution. What a rollicking ride it has been.
Janet Fitch has made remarkable use of research, describing the 1916-19 streetscapes of the Russian Revolution and the technical aspects of everything from photography to railroads. She shows you how the black markets work and how the revolution came to villages. She can describe a room, a forest, clothing and a table like no other. Fitch can also write poetry that might be typical of what young poets of the time created and poems that perfectly fit the mood and experience of the heroine.
In the first half of the book, I wondered how the “Best of” lists of 2017 missed this book. The depiction of Marina’s life as a poetry loving teen in a bourgeoisie home, her rebellious friend, her first sexual experience, her emotions in the demonstrations, her father’s work with the Kerensky government and her first visit to her reappropriated home are literature.
The second half devolves into something like a (female) picaresque without the humor. There is an overly sordid captivity, an unbelievable respite and reconnections with her parents that don’t fit their original profiles. With the exception of the episodes as Marina experiences village life, the second half does not rise to the level of the first.
Despite the weaknesses I stayed glued – even through the inordinately long (150 pages) experience with a Gurdjieff style commune. Janet Fitch is the ultimate story teller throughout.
This book covers 1916-19, but begins in 1932 in California. I will most likely read book 2 to see how Marina M. got to Carmel by the Sea.
Janet Fitch has made remarkable use of research, describing the 1916-19 streetscapes of the Russian Revolution and the technical aspects of everything from photography to railroads. She shows you how the black markets work and how the revolution came to villages. She can describe a room, a forest, clothing and a table like no other. Fitch can also write poetry that might be typical of what young poets of the time created and poems that perfectly fit the mood and experience of the heroine.
In the first half of the book, I wondered how the “Best of” lists of 2017 missed this book. The depiction of Marina’s life as a poetry loving teen in a bourgeoisie home, her rebellious friend, her first sexual experience, her emotions in the demonstrations, her father’s work with the Kerensky government and her first visit to her reappropriated home are literature.
The second half devolves into something like a (female) picaresque without the humor. There is an overly sordid captivity, an unbelievable respite and reconnections with her parents that don’t fit their original profiles. With the exception of the episodes as Marina experiences village life, the second half does not rise to the level of the first.
Despite the weaknesses I stayed glued – even through the inordinately long (150 pages) experience with a Gurdjieff style commune. Janet Fitch is the ultimate story teller throughout.
This book covers 1916-19, but begins in 1932 in California. I will most likely read book 2 to see how Marina M. got to Carmel by the Sea.
January 23, 2018
Do you love Russian literature? Do you think an American can measure up in writing a book of historical fiction set in Russia? I am here to tell you, she can!!
So many things made this one of the best books I read in 2017. It is a story of the Russian Revolution told through the eyes and heart and mind of a budding teenage poetess. I don't think that has been done very often, if ever. It is Janet Fitch's homage to Tolstoy, Pushkin and Russian poets.
Marina M! What a character. She explodes and emotes throughout the novel. It is as though Astrid from White Oleander and Josie from Paint It Black were merely writing exercises to prepare for the creation of Marina. You will either love her to distraction or find her annoying beyond belief. She is Bella from Twilight, Katniss from The Hunger Games, torn between two men but with the intellectual and political soul of the Russian greats. She is a poet, dangerously sensuous, daring, plucky, and ultimately as brave and resourceful as any male hero. She is only 16 at the beginning of the story and 19 at the end.
There is much more to this novel though than romance and heroics. It is a study in revolution with all its counterparts: idealism, too rapid change, violence, suffering, political infighting. The age old conundrum of how to upset a fixed order, how to create a just society, what it actually takes to run a country and a society, freedom, oppression, and all those gray areas where crime takes advantage of disorder to profit. All told from the viewpoint of one of "the people," not the leaders.
Although I suppose I knew better, I realized that all my life I have thought of revolution as an event that takes place over a few days. I realized that, like getting the news from sound bites and twitter posts, revolutions are taught by means of the "definitive event." The Boston Tea Party, The Storming of the Bastille, The Abdication of Czar Nicolas II, etc, etc.
In fact, a revolution takes years. As does a revolution in one's personal life. There is the day you walk out, of a family, a job, a marriage, but the new life you are trying to build takes years to come about and your former life trails you like a ghost or a nightmare.
There were countless women who participated in the changes from the Czarist autocracy of Russia to the Communist regime of the Soviet Union. There were as many female poets in 1917 as there were male. The story we have always gotten though is primarily male, from the leaders to the poets to the writers. Of course! Janet Fitch has elevated herself, in my opinion, to the ranks of those women who tell their own stories and the stories of their female predecessors. Like Svetlana Alexievich (Voices From Chernobyl), Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex), and so many more. With this novel she shows the truth about the personal being the political.
I don't predict that many men will read The Revolution of Marina M, or that those who do will totally get it. I sincerely hope that many women will read it. Even if they find stuff to criticize (and being women they will-:) we all know this is a story for us, that gets to the heart and mind of the second sex, that shows the consequences of freedom for us but also for all of humanity.
I know. It is 800 pages and is only part one of a two volume tale. That's fine. Do yourself a favor. Take a week off and read it. This is an extremely subversive work.
So many things made this one of the best books I read in 2017. It is a story of the Russian Revolution told through the eyes and heart and mind of a budding teenage poetess. I don't think that has been done very often, if ever. It is Janet Fitch's homage to Tolstoy, Pushkin and Russian poets.
Marina M! What a character. She explodes and emotes throughout the novel. It is as though Astrid from White Oleander and Josie from Paint It Black were merely writing exercises to prepare for the creation of Marina. You will either love her to distraction or find her annoying beyond belief. She is Bella from Twilight, Katniss from The Hunger Games, torn between two men but with the intellectual and political soul of the Russian greats. She is a poet, dangerously sensuous, daring, plucky, and ultimately as brave and resourceful as any male hero. She is only 16 at the beginning of the story and 19 at the end.
There is much more to this novel though than romance and heroics. It is a study in revolution with all its counterparts: idealism, too rapid change, violence, suffering, political infighting. The age old conundrum of how to upset a fixed order, how to create a just society, what it actually takes to run a country and a society, freedom, oppression, and all those gray areas where crime takes advantage of disorder to profit. All told from the viewpoint of one of "the people," not the leaders.
Although I suppose I knew better, I realized that all my life I have thought of revolution as an event that takes place over a few days. I realized that, like getting the news from sound bites and twitter posts, revolutions are taught by means of the "definitive event." The Boston Tea Party, The Storming of the Bastille, The Abdication of Czar Nicolas II, etc, etc.
In fact, a revolution takes years. As does a revolution in one's personal life. There is the day you walk out, of a family, a job, a marriage, but the new life you are trying to build takes years to come about and your former life trails you like a ghost or a nightmare.
There were countless women who participated in the changes from the Czarist autocracy of Russia to the Communist regime of the Soviet Union. There were as many female poets in 1917 as there were male. The story we have always gotten though is primarily male, from the leaders to the poets to the writers. Of course! Janet Fitch has elevated herself, in my opinion, to the ranks of those women who tell their own stories and the stories of their female predecessors. Like Svetlana Alexievich (Voices From Chernobyl), Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex), and so many more. With this novel she shows the truth about the personal being the political.
I don't predict that many men will read The Revolution of Marina M, or that those who do will totally get it. I sincerely hope that many women will read it. Even if they find stuff to criticize (and being women they will-:) we all know this is a story for us, that gets to the heart and mind of the second sex, that shows the consequences of freedom for us but also for all of humanity.
I know. It is 800 pages and is only part one of a two volume tale. That's fine. Do yourself a favor. Take a week off and read it. This is an extremely subversive work.
December 4, 2017
Janet Fitch is generous to writers and generous to her readers. This is most apparent in her newly released third novel, The Revolution of Marina M. which interweaves the Russian Revolution and the personal journey of the protagonist, a young poet Marina.
If you start books the way I do, and read the Acknowledgments first, you'll see the depth of original research in Russia and the States that gives rigor and authenticity to this tale. And if you then open somewhere in the middle, say, on p. 409, you'll see the immediate world so concrete it doesn't seem fictive-- where flour is measured into a sack "sewn from a pair of Mother's underwear" and hung from Marina's belt inside her coat, and the absence of tools makes life difficult, though "nails were easy. Every bit of wood came with some --all you had to do was burn it. Everyone's bourgeoika stove was full of them." Winter's here--the perfect season to enter Marina's world.! Enjoy!
If you start books the way I do, and read the Acknowledgments first, you'll see the depth of original research in Russia and the States that gives rigor and authenticity to this tale. And if you then open somewhere in the middle, say, on p. 409, you'll see the immediate world so concrete it doesn't seem fictive-- where flour is measured into a sack "sewn from a pair of Mother's underwear" and hung from Marina's belt inside her coat, and the absence of tools makes life difficult, though "nails were easy. Every bit of wood came with some --all you had to do was burn it. Everyone's bourgeoika stove was full of them." Winter's here--the perfect season to enter Marina's world.! Enjoy!
August 21, 2020
It's been several days since I finished this, & I'm still struggling to compose a decent review. So...this will be less about specifics & more about my general impressions.
It's a riveting, exhausting read, set in another country 100 years ago & yet strangely illuminating to our present. It never tries to disguise or ignore the problems inherent in its cultural underpinning, yet much of the conflict is extremely personal & would be just as painful in any other setting. It takes place during a massive sociological & political upheaval, but the first-person narration ensures these sweeping problems are continually narrowed to a personal, understandable level. It has strong elements of old-skool 70s epics, with plenty of sex, rape, improbable adventure, violence, perilous near-death escapes, & rollicking through an extreme historical backdrop; it also explores delicate emotional nuances with intimate minutiae.
In short: it's ANNA KARENINA + ZANZARA + Joyce Carol Oates. Truthfully, it's a bizarre combo...but the results are beautiful. :D I love when lit-fic marries bodice-shredding potboilers--because when it's done right, you end up with something like this. The first few chapters are a bit slow, but once things get moving it's hard to put aside & go to bed.
So. 5 stars overall. 🙃 I picked this up on a whim; it had been relegated to the Walmart deep discount shelf with some James Patterson & a couple Left Behind paperbacks (how fitting), but this is one bargain-bin rescue that paid off. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It's a riveting, exhausting read, set in another country 100 years ago & yet strangely illuminating to our present. It never tries to disguise or ignore the problems inherent in its cultural underpinning, yet much of the conflict is extremely personal & would be just as painful in any other setting. It takes place during a massive sociological & political upheaval, but the first-person narration ensures these sweeping problems are continually narrowed to a personal, understandable level. It has strong elements of old-skool 70s epics, with plenty of sex, rape, improbable adventure, violence, perilous near-death escapes, & rollicking through an extreme historical backdrop; it also explores delicate emotional nuances with intimate minutiae.
In short: it's ANNA KARENINA + ZANZARA + Joyce Carol Oates. Truthfully, it's a bizarre combo...but the results are beautiful. :D I love when lit-fic marries bodice-shredding potboilers--because when it's done right, you end up with something like this. The first few chapters are a bit slow, but once things get moving it's hard to put aside & go to bed.
So. 5 stars overall. 🙃 I picked this up on a whim; it had been relegated to the Walmart deep discount shelf with some James Patterson & a couple Left Behind paperbacks (how fitting), but this is one bargain-bin rescue that paid off. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
November 25, 2017
I was so excited to read this book. I thought a story about a member of the Russian bourgeoisie joining the Russian Revolution would be so exciting! But it wasn't. Marina was NOT a likable character at all. She's extremely spoiled and selfish, and it seems she only supports the Revolution because her friends do. She never really seems to understand what the Revolution was about, and uses it as an excuse to hurt her parents more than anything. And then the story just rambles through weirdness...failed love affairs, a kidnapping, living with astronomers...the last third of the book, with its weird cult, was over the top ridiculous. I only kept reading because I figured I had already read 800-some pages, I might as well suffer through 200 more. This book is supposed to have a sequel, and I will NOT be reading it. Very disappointed.
December 16, 2017
It took me three weeks but I did it!
This book is huge, and is all about a young woman during the Russian revolution. It reads a little like a classic, but with a contemporary viewpoint - kinda like when Sofia Coppola did the Marie Antoinette film.
It is a big, baggy book that is almost plotless... Or there is plot, but it doesn't really go anywhere.... It's just like we are following someone's life, episode by episode. So not much happens in a sense, but also, so much happens.
I really loved Marina's relationships with men, but I also liked how strong and independent she was.
There is so much in this book, I slightly feel overwhelmed by it, but I loved being consumed by this story and, because I spent so long with her, how real Marina felt to me. It's made me want to read all the Russians.
This book is huge, and is all about a young woman during the Russian revolution. It reads a little like a classic, but with a contemporary viewpoint - kinda like when Sofia Coppola did the Marie Antoinette film.
It is a big, baggy book that is almost plotless... Or there is plot, but it doesn't really go anywhere.... It's just like we are following someone's life, episode by episode. So not much happens in a sense, but also, so much happens.
I really loved Marina's relationships with men, but I also liked how strong and independent she was.
There is so much in this book, I slightly feel overwhelmed by it, but I loved being consumed by this story and, because I spent so long with her, how real Marina felt to me. It's made me want to read all the Russians.
December 29, 2017
Review to come
November 8, 2017
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'My younger self looks up. She senses me there in the room, a vague but troubling presence, I swear she catches a glimpse of me in the windows reflection- the woman from the future, neither young nor old, bathed in grief and compromise, wearing her own two eyes. A shudder passes through her as a draft.'
One of my favorite books of all time is White Oleander by Janet Fitch, which I intend to review and post here, as I read it recently again. For now, it’s time to finally post my review. With this, her fresh new novel, the reader gets inside the mind of Marina Makarova, a privileged young woman who wants to free herself from the demands of polite society. History is going to grant her wish for freedom, poetry and love but on the precipice of becoming a woman, everything she imagines as adventurous and beautiful will be anything but.
Ripe for the picking, seduced by poetry of the moment, to young Marina, the Russian revolution goes against everything her family stands for, and it beckons to her young, wild heart. Headstrong to a fault, first she is all Kolya’s Shurov’s and in losing her innocence wants to shed the role of ‘well bred school girl.’ He has stirred her passions, opened her to the erotic. Where her family is loyal to country, Marina is concerned about the starving workers, but doesn’t really notice how far she is from ever understanding such a life. The first dissension between the lovers, the question of honor, and the reality of dying for a cause one doesn’t believe in takes root. Kolya returns to his regiment, Mina soothes her but it’s the fire in her friend Varvara that changes her fate. Witness to massacre, the rise of mutiny, and the start of revolution Marina is entrenched in the changing world. Tying herself to the threat of danger in Varvara cannot be helped and her friend won’t let her flirt with an idea, one is either all in or out.
Marina falls in with poets, and Gena Kuriakin in particular. To think that as she lived in another world, and never noticed him nor his group of poets, how much of the times she had truly been cut off from in her cushy place. She and her family, everything Gena would despise, the shame of it all. Marina is awakening, but she is led every which way, sadly more by her heart than her head, still cursed by the stupidity of youth and naivete. Beside Gena the reality of poverty shocks her with a death, and leads to her father’s fury. ” All those years of care and you throw yourself away with both hands.” Though it’s an old story, a young woman growing out from under her father’s vision of her as virginal, with the country going to war with it’s sisters and brothers, overthrowing one’s own family can be fatal. There are many times the reader is irritated by her carelessness too. Marina has far more choices than the others, whose fights she longs to shoulder as her own. Naturally, her father is just as wrong, having faith in more ‘honorable’ men who would and have soiled her as much as a ‘hooligan’ would. Her gentle brother Seryozha is forced into a life like their elder brother Volodya, an officer away and fighting. Though he is more an artist than a fighter, it could make a man of him yet, or see him to an early grave, and for her father’s belief in honor, she is horrified to see her beloved youngest brother sacrificed. As much as she no longer believes in the war, she has blinders when it comes to those without privilege. When discussing Keats with Lyuda, when she is sent away, “He doesn’t believe in the war.” Lyuda tells her ” Who does, it’s just our lot can’t get away with it.” Throughout the novel, she is exposed because as much as she has fight in her blood, she isn’t suffering the way the workers and peasants do, bowed by the work they must do to keep the likes of her fat and fed. She is still playing a part, until grief becomes reality.
She betrays everyone, and by her own hand loses everything for the Bolsheviks, for love. The best moments happen when women wiser than her laugh at her. Because she really doesn’t know half as much about life and men as they do. On page 264, the women act as a mirror and it’s my favorite moment of clarity for Marina, who has spent so much time thinking herself separate from all the other doomed women. She wanted life, and her it is in all it’s horrifying glory.
Marina returns to find her mother, to save her, even while having aided in bringing down her life. “People hate the bourgeoisie, period.” Her mother says, and it really is a country of peasants done with having the dainty feet of the rich pining them down. I don’t know nearly enough about Russian history, I’ve read books, I’ve listened to different elders in my family well schooled in European history and still… I was learning as I went along. Starvation, poverty, spilled blood, honor and loyalty verses change, the reader gets to be a fly on the corpse of history for a time. Marina is frustrating, because I am reading her coming of age when I myself am older and therefore her green ideas seem so far away and yet, she is perfectly written because of those youthful flaws.
Part V is my favorite, elders, insect eaters, scientists, it’s such a peculiar welcome journey. “In any Earthly Idyll, time and events will invariably intrude’ and thus happens while reading this book of 804 pages. How does Janet Fitch carry such a story and keep it going? Marina is many people in every incident of her life, as we all are. She will not get through her changing country without blood on her own hands. There are lulls, but I kept reading, I wanted to know how it all turned out. The last half of the novel is a strange, dreamlike return to home, a sort of Ionian spell and also an explanation in some ways of why people give up their power and chose to be acolytes to religions, rules, ideas or a leader. I’ll leave you with that.
Available Now!
Little, Brown and Company
'My younger self looks up. She senses me there in the room, a vague but troubling presence, I swear she catches a glimpse of me in the windows reflection- the woman from the future, neither young nor old, bathed in grief and compromise, wearing her own two eyes. A shudder passes through her as a draft.'
One of my favorite books of all time is White Oleander by Janet Fitch, which I intend to review and post here, as I read it recently again. For now, it’s time to finally post my review. With this, her fresh new novel, the reader gets inside the mind of Marina Makarova, a privileged young woman who wants to free herself from the demands of polite society. History is going to grant her wish for freedom, poetry and love but on the precipice of becoming a woman, everything she imagines as adventurous and beautiful will be anything but.
Ripe for the picking, seduced by poetry of the moment, to young Marina, the Russian revolution goes against everything her family stands for, and it beckons to her young, wild heart. Headstrong to a fault, first she is all Kolya’s Shurov’s and in losing her innocence wants to shed the role of ‘well bred school girl.’ He has stirred her passions, opened her to the erotic. Where her family is loyal to country, Marina is concerned about the starving workers, but doesn’t really notice how far she is from ever understanding such a life. The first dissension between the lovers, the question of honor, and the reality of dying for a cause one doesn’t believe in takes root. Kolya returns to his regiment, Mina soothes her but it’s the fire in her friend Varvara that changes her fate. Witness to massacre, the rise of mutiny, and the start of revolution Marina is entrenched in the changing world. Tying herself to the threat of danger in Varvara cannot be helped and her friend won’t let her flirt with an idea, one is either all in or out.
Marina falls in with poets, and Gena Kuriakin in particular. To think that as she lived in another world, and never noticed him nor his group of poets, how much of the times she had truly been cut off from in her cushy place. She and her family, everything Gena would despise, the shame of it all. Marina is awakening, but she is led every which way, sadly more by her heart than her head, still cursed by the stupidity of youth and naivete. Beside Gena the reality of poverty shocks her with a death, and leads to her father’s fury. ” All those years of care and you throw yourself away with both hands.” Though it’s an old story, a young woman growing out from under her father’s vision of her as virginal, with the country going to war with it’s sisters and brothers, overthrowing one’s own family can be fatal. There are many times the reader is irritated by her carelessness too. Marina has far more choices than the others, whose fights she longs to shoulder as her own. Naturally, her father is just as wrong, having faith in more ‘honorable’ men who would and have soiled her as much as a ‘hooligan’ would. Her gentle brother Seryozha is forced into a life like their elder brother Volodya, an officer away and fighting. Though he is more an artist than a fighter, it could make a man of him yet, or see him to an early grave, and for her father’s belief in honor, she is horrified to see her beloved youngest brother sacrificed. As much as she no longer believes in the war, she has blinders when it comes to those without privilege. When discussing Keats with Lyuda, when she is sent away, “He doesn’t believe in the war.” Lyuda tells her ” Who does, it’s just our lot can’t get away with it.” Throughout the novel, she is exposed because as much as she has fight in her blood, she isn’t suffering the way the workers and peasants do, bowed by the work they must do to keep the likes of her fat and fed. She is still playing a part, until grief becomes reality.
She betrays everyone, and by her own hand loses everything for the Bolsheviks, for love. The best moments happen when women wiser than her laugh at her. Because she really doesn’t know half as much about life and men as they do. On page 264, the women act as a mirror and it’s my favorite moment of clarity for Marina, who has spent so much time thinking herself separate from all the other doomed women. She wanted life, and her it is in all it’s horrifying glory.
Marina returns to find her mother, to save her, even while having aided in bringing down her life. “People hate the bourgeoisie, period.” Her mother says, and it really is a country of peasants done with having the dainty feet of the rich pining them down. I don’t know nearly enough about Russian history, I’ve read books, I’ve listened to different elders in my family well schooled in European history and still… I was learning as I went along. Starvation, poverty, spilled blood, honor and loyalty verses change, the reader gets to be a fly on the corpse of history for a time. Marina is frustrating, because I am reading her coming of age when I myself am older and therefore her green ideas seem so far away and yet, she is perfectly written because of those youthful flaws.
Part V is my favorite, elders, insect eaters, scientists, it’s such a peculiar welcome journey. “In any Earthly Idyll, time and events will invariably intrude’ and thus happens while reading this book of 804 pages. How does Janet Fitch carry such a story and keep it going? Marina is many people in every incident of her life, as we all are. She will not get through her changing country without blood on her own hands. There are lulls, but I kept reading, I wanted to know how it all turned out. The last half of the novel is a strange, dreamlike return to home, a sort of Ionian spell and also an explanation in some ways of why people give up their power and chose to be acolytes to religions, rules, ideas or a leader. I’ll leave you with that.
Available Now!
Little, Brown and Company
December 5, 2017
2.5
If sheer weight earned stars, then this might be a 3 or 4. Lots of gushing and hyperbole on the Big Publisher Jacket Copy, donated by Inhouse Authors Eager To Comply. Don't you believe it. Sometimes the 800 page emperor isn't wearing clothing.
The tale is a large set piece for telling the history of the soviet revolution of 1916 in a very linear fashion and including bits we might not want to hear. Just like castor oil. No redemption comes from having a main character who pops up in every possible setting except a battlefield ---though wait, there is a sequel coming and the Reds are still fighting the Whites at the end of Vol. One. Speaking of Reds, this novel curiously made me long to see the film again. Just had to throw that in. It is definitely the sort of project that makes your mind wander. Eventually one resolves to finish it. Just like castor oil.
It would have helped if the narrative voice was truly convincing, but the female protag alternately whines like a modern shopping mall rat and rants like a feminist who cannot get free sanitary products from the comrades, never mind how many comrades get shot. When the heroine, Marina, isn't spouting names of Yank authors like Zane Grey or Jack London, she is using modern Yank idioms to express herself. Edit: on page 360 the author has the heroine refer casually [ altogether carelessly] to a 'rocket ship'. Oh dear, that is the wrong World War . No rocket ships yet in 1916. ----Periodically there are a few pages of really awful poetry, perhaps to remind us that the literary agent involved on behalf of Ms. Fitch fancies himself to be literary. An Oprah pick, you know.
Don't look for subtlety in the politics or the action. Like I said, it's a big book. Anyone else care to weigh in ? (pun)
If sheer weight earned stars, then this might be a 3 or 4. Lots of gushing and hyperbole on the Big Publisher Jacket Copy, donated by Inhouse Authors Eager To Comply. Don't you believe it. Sometimes the 800 page emperor isn't wearing clothing.
The tale is a large set piece for telling the history of the soviet revolution of 1916 in a very linear fashion and including bits we might not want to hear. Just like castor oil. No redemption comes from having a main character who pops up in every possible setting except a battlefield ---though wait, there is a sequel coming and the Reds are still fighting the Whites at the end of Vol. One. Speaking of Reds, this novel curiously made me long to see the film again. Just had to throw that in. It is definitely the sort of project that makes your mind wander. Eventually one resolves to finish it. Just like castor oil.
It would have helped if the narrative voice was truly convincing, but the female protag alternately whines like a modern shopping mall rat and rants like a feminist who cannot get free sanitary products from the comrades, never mind how many comrades get shot. When the heroine, Marina, isn't spouting names of Yank authors like Zane Grey or Jack London, she is using modern Yank idioms to express herself. Edit: on page 360 the author has the heroine refer casually [ altogether carelessly] to a 'rocket ship'. Oh dear, that is the wrong World War . No rocket ships yet in 1916. ----Periodically there are a few pages of really awful poetry, perhaps to remind us that the literary agent involved on behalf of Ms. Fitch fancies himself to be literary. An Oprah pick, you know.
Don't look for subtlety in the politics or the action. Like I said, it's a big book. Anyone else care to weigh in ? (pun)
September 24, 2017
I just couldn't get into this book and was not going to invest my time in reading an 800 page book I didn't enjoy. It's not often I don't finish a book, but as I get older, I find sometimes you just have to give up. So, maybe the two star is unfair, since I didn't finish it.
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