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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
worthy sequel to The Siege,
By
This review is from: The Betrayal (Hardcover)
WARNING: This review will contain spoilers for The Siege, the first book in this series. If you haven't already, I encourage you to read my review of The Siege.The Betrayal, a sequel to The Siege, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2002, is on this year's Booker Prize longlist. The Betrayal picks up in Leningrad in 1952. Anna and Andrei are happily married and raising her younger brother Kolya as if he were their own. Andrei is a successful doctor, but his values are put to the test when the child of a senior secret police officer comes in for treatment and the prognosis isn't good. I really enjoyed The Siege, and it was wonderful to reconnect with these characters so quickly. In many ways, though, The Betrayal doesn't read like a sequel. Yes, the characters are familiar, and the setting is still Leningrad, but life during the siege and life under Stalin are radically different. Also different in this novel is the narration. Anna's point of view drove the narrative of The Siege, but Andrei took center stage for much of The Betrayal. Dunmore plays with the themes of paranoia, trust and perception beautifully: "We should panic," she says. "People are destroyed because they don't panic in time. They think it won't happen to them." (p. 38) Historical fiction can easily seem too grim or too romanticized. Helen Dunmore manages to convey the atrocities of the place and time while still believing in the power of the human spirit to persevere or perish: They believed in the next world, and no wonder, when this one had given them nothing. But we believed in making this world a better place. (p. 322) Anna's too young yet to know that the past is just as real as the present, even though you have to pretend that it isn't, and carry on towards the future. (p. 323) Perhaps my favorite aspect of this novel was Dunmore's ability to take one story, and a one family, to tell the story of Leningrad itself: Our city is like that, too, think Anna. We love it, but it doesn't love us. We're like children who cling to the skirts of a beautiful, preoccupied mother. (p. 261) Despite being quite different from The Siege, I thoroughly enjoyed The Betrayal. The tale was more familiar to me, and thus less shocking, but I loved following these characters through a different period in their lives. The combination of these two novels provides a nice context for modern Russian history. The Betrayal is a worthy follow-up to The Siege and will appeal to fans of historical fiction and literary fiction.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Claustrophobic Stalinist Russia,
By
This review is from: The Betrayal (Hardcover)
The Betrayal is nominated for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. As I write this, we are a day away from the short list announcement where The Betrayal appears to have a 50-50 chance.Did I like it? Yes, it was tense, moved very well and dealt with a good doctor who just wants to save lives but exists in a totalitarian regime where you need to play by the rules. The rules are that The Party rules and you need to be subservient to The Party and especially to its highest officials. The good doctor in question is Andrei who is sneakily asked by a colleague to examine a child. It is sneaky because the child is the son of high ranking official. Since the boy is sick, the doctor that takes the case will be in great jeopardy. Andrei knows all this and still chooses to get to know the boy and to treat him. This is what Andrei believes he must do as a doctor. Unfortunately, in the time and place he lives, this puts him and his family in great jeopardy. Despite everyone's advice he does what he believes to be the right thing. As the situation deteriorates, Andrei's life gets worse and worse. This is a very tense book and has a very appealing lead character. It captures the paranoia of Stalinist Russia very well. It is a quick and enjoyable read. This is a sequel to a book called The Siege which I have not read. It stands well on its own though I cannot comment on whether my enjoyment would have been enhanced by reading The Siege. On the downside, the book doesn't really add a different perspective to the time and place that it is about. It's a simple story in a complex time and place. I recommend it but don't think it has the substance to win the Booker Award.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Worthy Sequel,
By Miss Melly (Perth, Western Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Betrayal (Kindle Edition)
This is a sequel, but it is not "The Siege II". So if you're looking for another tale of survival and starvation, you need to read another book on the same subject.This novel has moved on from the 90-day seige and takes us into a country stuggling under the new regime. While the first book centred on Anna, this one belongs to Andrei - and his is a worthwhile story. Not quite as good as the first novel, but a good novel in its own right.
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