Book Review: ENCHANTMENTS by Kathryn Harrison

How does a teenager process the fact that her beloved father’s murder signals the death knell of the world she’s known? What part of her old world can she take with her into the ominous new one? And who can she turn to for comfort when her lot in life is to comfort others? These would be difficult enough questions to tackle for any young woman – but for a daughter of the monk Rasputin, the personal turmoil reverberates throughout a country.

Kathryn Harrison’s Enchantments is a beautifully written story about the end of the Romanov dynasty, imagined from the point of view of an actual eyewitness: Matryona “Masha” Rasputina. Novels that present a well-known story from a new standpoint are certainly not uncommon. Still, there is something to be said for “pivoting the table” as my quantitative friends would say, and exploring a tale from a new or unique angle. Harrison uses the tsarina’s desperation at the loss of Rasputin to bring Masha inside the palace as a surrogate healer for her hemophiliac son, Tsarevich Alexander, which gives her narrative a unique insider/outsider perspective on the last days of the royal family – and a turbulent time in history.

The novel centers on the relationship between the tsarevich, known to his family as Aloysha, and Masha. Rasputin led the tsarina to believe that Masha shared his healing powers, but Masha is not convinced, and instead uses her true gift – story telling – to amuse the doomed young man while they wait for they know not what. Ironically, her stories give him an appreciation for a Russia that none of the other Romanovs ever bothered to know, which is the reason why he’ll never rule it.

Harrison’s writing is rich and evocative, as she describes the end of an era:

In the years before the Bolsheviks seized the city, St. Petersburg was a playground in the throes of a kind of decadence – determined, desperate – that presages collapse. As if the aristocracy knew apocalypse was imminent and, also knowing there was nothing to prevent its arrival, stayed up drinking and dancing and inhaling cocaine when they could get their hands on any, distracting themselves by whatever means they found. Spending money in a frenzy of champagne, caviar, jewels, gowns. On parties with full orchestras, themed costume balls excusing all manner of ostentation: hostesses riding through ballrooms on gilded elephants, servants dressed up like gondoliers or Vikings or pharaohs. p. 180

I loved Masha’s voice, but unfortunately the disjointed, asynchronous narrative was not as successful for me. The story jumps from Rasputin’s early life to the family’s time in St. Petersburg to Siberian folk wisdom to Masha’s exile from Russian rather incoherently at times, so that I often didn’t have a handle on the plot. I cared about the characters, but in fits and starts. I also found the “coming of age” portions of the book between Aloysha and Masha squirm-inducing. They seemed to belong more in a YA title than in this one – especially because they were accompanied by high-end philosophical thought on the nature of virtue and morality.

Still, the story was interesting and fast-paced, and it made me rethink what I knew about Rasputin and the Romanovs, so I would highly recommend it to lovers of historical fiction, especially those with an interest in imperial Russia. This title counts toward the Historical Fiction 2012 Challenge, which seems to be the only one I’m tearing up so far this year. Thanks to Historical Tapestry for hosting! I do have some additional books to review, though, so I’m hoping to start really making progress on my reading goals for the year!

I read this book as part of a TLC book tour, and received a copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. For other opinions, check out the links here.

In 140 characters or less:The beginning of adulthood and the end of the world from a Rasputin's perspective.

Book Review: Alina Bronsky's The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

When I dislike the main character in a novel, I usually don’t like the novel. So how can I explain my fascination with Alina Bronsky’s The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine? Rosalinda represents all that is wrong with motherhood – she constructs her relationships with her daughter and later her granddaughter completely strategically, always thinking how she might benefit from their interactions. She’s seems almost completely unaware of how she is viewed by others. It’s totally over-the-top. Which is probably why she’s makes such a compelling unreliable narrator.

Rosalinda is inordinately proud of her Tartar heritage (which comes along with a host of folk medical remedies that are truly hilarious). She’s proud of her beauty and youthful appearance (especially her shapely legs, which she believes men swoon over). She’s proud of her family (or at least she believes she could be, if they’d simply do as she tells them). Her lack of self-awareness has benefits, as she walks around Russia and later Germany convinced of her own important place in the world, even if she’s cleaning someone else’s toilets – or rifling through someone else’s private papers.

Of course, her megalomania has disastrous effects on the people in her life, especially on her daughter Sulfia, who can never quite escape Rosalinda’s sphere of influence and therefore misses every chance at happiness with her own daughter, Aminat. Aminat herself watches Rosalinda with a keen eye, and the reader has the impression that she’s just waiting for her chance to act – she reminded me of a mouse eyeing a big, Persian cat, just waiting for the cat to lower it guard enough for the mouse to make its move.

What Bronksy gives the reader with The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is a true tragicomedy, which succeeds only because Rosalinda is so totally outrageous that it’s funny, in a thoroughly disturbing way. It reminded me of Voltaire’s Candide, but without the main character’s growing realization that perhaps everything wasn’t alright with the universe after all – despite tragedy after tragedy, Rosalinda remains convinced of her own omnipotence from start to finish. This book really worked for me, although I can appreciate that it might not work for everyone. With a good sense of gallows humor, I think the reader will enjoy the novel despite their feelings about the narrator, a pretty interesting feat for Bronsky to pull off, in my opinion.

I was planning on this being a weekend cooking post, but after reading the novel, it doesn’t seem right – the only thing foodie about the book was the title. But it still counts for the Europa Editions Challenge, and I’ll be cross posting this on the Challenge Blog. The semester ends on Friday, so I’m still hopeful I can finish up a couple of the challenges I have lingering before then. If only I had some little elves to do my grading for me, so I could just read my holiday break away!