Sashenka [Paperback]

What British historian could ever tell me, the former USSR citizen, about Russia and its history, especially Soviet history?

This is what I thought before opening the book. I do not quite like historical novels in the first place. And after reading all range of Russian authors from Tolstoy to Shalamov I thought to have a right to be skeptical.

I was wrong.

Montefiore's book sucked me in like a giant black hole. Frankly, I have never read any "foreign" book about Russia that is so true in events, details, characters and language.
When I read the first chapter I was almost shocked by incredible style of Simon's writing. I could not believe I was reading an *English* text. I do not understand the magic, I do not know how it is done, but if you want to get an impression how original Tolstoy's text would *feel* in Russian - just read the first chapter of Sashenka.

Interestingly, Simon keep changing the writing style as story progress in time eventually making it more and more "soviet", but original chapter's style is unbeatable.

Another moment I want to mention - Simon mixes real and fictional heroes in this novel. Some heroes are 100% real and under their real names, some others (like Sashenka herself) are mix of several people, many of which are easily recognizable if you know this historical period and finally some characters are completely fictional. I ended up Googling some of fictional characters to make sure they were fictional, because Simon made them so incredibly realistic.

And, of course not only characters are alive, the every page of the book is. Simon managed to take tons of dusty yellow pages from almost (and up to date) inaccessible KGB archives and resurrected them to tell us their stories. Well, this is all merged into one story, the story that is just not possible to characterize in a short review. Just read the book, it's brilliant.

Simon Sebag Montefiore's grasp of the Stalinist era is masterful, and it's that historical detail that makes this book work. Alas, he is less adept at the art of fiction.
Still, this novel, as the author himself notes in his conclusion/afterword, admirably fulfills his goal of making the horrors of the Stalinist Terror live for the contemporary reader, particularly those who aren't likely to pick up Sebag Montefiore's superb books about Stalin himself, Young Stalin or Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. For those who have read the superb book about the impact of these years on ordinary Soviet citizens, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, this provides a fictional counterpart, one where imagination takes over and the reader following Sebag Montefiore's plot can transport themselves into the world his lead character, Sashenka, inhabited. Fortunately the reader, unlike Sashenka, can also escape this closed and paranoid world.
Sebag Montefiore's strength is portraying that world, from the corrupt decadence of the final years of Tsarist rule (which takes the reader from palaces to prisons) and the claustrophobic paranoia of the 1930s, which Sashenka herself displays almost without realizing it when she discovers that Stalin and his leaders, including Lavrenti Beria, have honored her dacha with a visit on the eve of May Day -- a visit that, on the surface a triumph, will hold unexpected and disastrous consequences for Sashenka and everyone around her.
Unfortunately, it's not until that point that the narrative really picks up and starts moving. While the characters and dramas of the first part do prove necessary to the plot (in ways that aren't apparent until much later), at the time they simply feel annoying and superfluous. And however necessary they ultimately become, the initial section is far too long, and many of the characters are too wooden and the dialogue stilted or unbelievable. Had this section been shorter and more tightly written, it would have contributed to the drama without serving as a drag.
Leaping forward from 1916, when Sashenka, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish industrialist, is first arrested as she leaves her boarding school and imprisoned for her Bolsheik views, the second part of the book deals with 1939, when she and her Bolshevik husband their two young children appear to have reached the pinnacle of success in Stalinist Russia.
This is where the plot and characters alike suddenly grip the reader and don't let go. I read the final 40% of this book in a single sitting, late into the night/early morning. Only days after the May Day party at her dacha, Sashenka's world starts crumbling around her and she can't understand why. Is it her fledgling affair with a Jewish writers who doesn't toe the Party line -- an unprecedented deviation from being the perfect Party loyalist and exemplar of Soviet womanhood? Or is there something in her family's or husband's past that is returning to haunt her?
The third section -- told through the eyes of a young historical researcher -- is perhaps the best of the three, however. There are few surprises in what is discovered -- except for the true, relatively mundane cause of the downfall of Sashenka and her husband. It is here that Sebag Montefiore finally wraps up the narrative in one neat package. Had he approached the story from the same persepctive throughout and used flashbacks to explore the historical dimensions, this would have been a far stronger novel, I believe.
Still, as it stands, this is an excellent plot that is written adequately, despite Sebag Montefiore's difficulties with character. (Shifting points of view are distracting, and even Sashenka doesn't emerge as a real character until quite late in the 1939 section -- the reader can identify with her intellectually or generally, but the real test -- could you imagine how she looked or how her voice sounded, how she would react in a situation not described in the book? -- of whether a character "lives" isn't one she could pass. (Just apply that standard to Scarlett O'Hara, for instance, and you'll see what I mean.)
Very much worth reading, especially for anyone who is interested in the emergence of modern Russia, how and why Communism took root there for 70 years, and the lives of Russians during and after that period, and who would rather read an impeccably-researched novel than a non-fiction work.

Montefiore is a very talented nonfiction writer and has been in the forefront of the Stalin years winning several book awards with Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar and Young Stalin. In Sashenka, the author attempts to weave a story of fiction into the historical backdrop of three different time periods of tremendous change in Russia/Soviet history: 1916, 1935 and 1994. It might have been too much of a time frame to write about in just 500 pages. I do think that the story suffered from a lack of depth in the characters and the basic background of Russian history in the time periods for this story. I did not feel catapulted into the story (such as with The Alienst); and I expected more from this excellent historian.

The first part (1916) is a very well thought out storyline that follows the tale of the Zeitlin family. The father had bourgeois sentiments while the daughter had Bolshevik interests and then disavows her family in pursuit of these Communist tendencies. This part of the story is well done, even if the writing is only adequate. Part II is less a storyline but instead sets up the dramatic ending of the book. Part III is a follow up to uncover the secrets that are not told early in the story and to close the gaps in the plot. This is an excellent technique and it is used very well by Montefiore.

Montefiore might someday become a master story teller. He has already accomplished that in the world in nonfiction. However, his ability to find the right word or phrase or rhythm for the reader is just not there. There is no artistry in the prose. The writing is flat and lifeless much of the time. There are moments of truly good writing, but not the consistency that is needed to carry the book to a 5 star rating. It is difficult to move between writing styles and while this reader was certainly entertained by Montefiore's plot, I was disappointed in the execution. However, I look forward to his next fiction attempt and I hope that we see it soon.

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