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46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Beautiful Romance Set Against The Siege Of Leningrad, March 10, 2004
This review is from: The Bronze Horseman (Mass Market Paperback)
"The Bronze Horseman" is more than a beautiful love story set against the backdrop of WWII Leningrad, where author Paullina Simons was born and raised. Ms. Simons portrays here, with great sensitivity and realism, the terrible suffering that the citizens of Leningrad experienced during the Nazi siege and their struggle to survive. She also probes the intricacies of family relationships, the ties that bind, especially in times of terrible hardship. Simons alludes frequently to Alexander Pushkin's tragic epic poem, "The Bronze Horseman," from which this novel takes its title. Seventeen year old Tatiana Metanova was wearing her "splendid white dress with red roses" and enjoying an ice cream cone when she looked up and saw a soldier staring at her with "an expression she had never seen before." Thus begins the intense and complex relationship between Tatiana and her Alexander (Shura) Belov, a First Lieutenant in the Soviet Army. Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin's Foreign Minister, had announced the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union only a few hours before the two young people meet for the first time. Tatiana lives in a tiny two room flat with her sister and best friend Dasha, her twin brother, parents and grandparents. Her sense of family is very strong, especially since she has never had a truly close relationship with anyone other than her kin. When Tatiana brings Alexander home for the first time she discovers that her sister Dasha had already met him in a club and had bragged about him as her new boyfriend. Dasha takes what had been a casual romance very seriously and believes she is in love. Alexander does not reciprocate her feelings, however. Tatiana has been very sheltered by her family and is quite naive and very innocent. Slight, blonde and lovely, she is thought to be the most fragile member of the family. Tatiana and Alexander continue to see each other, keeping their relationship a secret from everyone. As the love and friendship grows between the couple, Tatiana becomes determined to sacrifice her own happiness for her sister's. The consequences of war, bombings, starvation and death, overwhelm the city, and take a terrible toll, especially on Tatiana's family. Alexander tries his best to protect them but he has a terrible secret that must be kept at any price, and this secret complicates the intertwined relationships even more. This is an epic tale that I found almost impossible to put down. It takes unexpected twists and turns that highlight the horrors of war and the inner strength of Tatiana and Alexander, as well as the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the characters. At first I was impatient with Tatiana's obsession to "give" Alexander to her sister. However, as Ms. Simons continues to develop her character the motivation becomes more clear and does make sense. The author writes with great passion of love, war and survival. Ultimately I think this novel is as much about the human spirit's will to survive as it is about love. The dialogue between Tatiana and Alexander, as well as their love scenes are beautifully written. I will admit to sobbing more than a few times before the final page. I highly recommend this wonderfully romantic and tragic historical novel.
JANA
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52 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I must go against the flow of Vodka-I did not like this book, April 23, 2009
This review is from: The Bronze Horseman (Mass Market Paperback)
I like it when people recommend books for me to read. Quite a lot of people have recommended "The Bronze Horseman" for me, and because I like big, epic stories a while ago I put it in my stack and a few days ago I tried to read it. Notice the word tried.
This is a book that could have been great. The premis is great-love triangle between two sisters and a soldier during the siege of St. Petersburg (then known as Leningrad) with secrets on the soldier, is nearly classic. Tatiana and her older sister Dasha live together with their parents and grandparents, and Tatiana's twin brother in two bedrooms and Tatiana had just turned 17 when she and Alexander meet in a romance filled haze. War against Germany was announced only a few hours before and Tatiana is supposed to be buying food for her family-but it's nearly impossible to find. Alexander helps her buy food at the army supply store and he and his creepy friend Dimitri carry them home for her. But it turns out that Dasha already knew Alexander and thinks she's in love with him.
Tatiana, not wanting to hurt her sister, refuses to stand up for her relationship with Alexander, which continues to advance in secret through the siege. The rest of the novel is hardship and terrible times-people surviving on no food with no heat and bombs bursting overhead all the time. The author manages to capture the desperation and the terrible, tired acceptance of the war conditions in the city very well.
But her writing style is so annoying! I have never, ever, read a book that had as much day to day detail as this one did. You could almost pull out a calendar and write down what the family ate for each meal, each day, for months. I never knew so much about Russian food before-anfd I'm half Russian! The same thing happens with Tatiana's thoughts, and very occasionally, at completely random intervals, Alexander's. And the way they focus on their relationship-during a WAR-is almost crazily self centered. Dimitri comes off as more a menace than the Germans, more than hunger even!
I really wanted to like this book-I already had the two sequels lined up and everything but it got to the point where I just could not go on reading of Tatiana and Alexander obsessing and fighting and making up and cooking cabbage pie and blueberry ice cream and marinating mushrooms and drink vodka....This author doesn't know how to skim over anything. It was tiring, exhausting to read. Still some part of me wants to get the book back out and see if we can make it work. It did have an appeal, even if it was an exhausting one.
I know almost everyone who starts this book loves it so no doubt I will get hate mail and un-helpful votes for daring to say a bad thing about it and I do almost feel I should apologize for my feelings about it but I must tell the truth.
Two stars. I really didn't like this. (There, I said it.)
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a story! (Even with its flaws!), February 22, 2005
This review is from: The Bronze Horseman (Mass Market Paperback)
How can I not give a novel that kept me up until 3:30 a.m. (and not later than that only because I finally fell asleep over the book) five stars? [And started me reading it again by 9:00 next day?]
It's not a perfect novel. I could wish that the author had developed the pathos of Dasha's situation more: in love with Alexander, and never realizing that he actually loved her sister, until the last days of her life. The reader's only given tiny hints of the reasons why Tania loves her sister enough to sacrifice her love for Alexander to her; aside from these hints, Dasha comes across as a selfish and empty character. Also, I never believed that Dasha really "loved" Alexander; from the first instant, it simply seemed liked she had an infatuation that would ultimately pass if he'd only stopped seeing her altogether!
The emotional flatness of most of the people around Tatiana & Alexander makes a reader work at filling in their backstories. For instance, Tania's mother makes a brief mention of Dasha's reaction to Tania's and her twin brother's birth: Dasha says that the parents could keep the boy (who, indeed, they favor) but that Tania was Dasha's baby. From that hint, a reader has to imagine a whole backstory of Dasha's protectiveness & love of Tania; a background which we are just not given. If this little hint had been explored, then Tania's sacrifice (concealing her love for Alexander, and tolerating his relationship with Dasha) would make that much more sense. As it is, the reader is frustrated by it, because the Dasha depicted here is just not worth that kind of sacrifice.
Yet, the beauty of the book is -- while one is wishing for fully-fleshed characterizations of Dasha; Pasha the only son (who just disappears from the story), and Tania's parents; all which would have enriched the book considerably -- the love story between Tatania & Alexander is so strong, and the amazing secret that twists Alexander's life is so compelling, you ultimately forgive all that isn't there and relish their love, which just gets stronger & stronger as the story proceeds.
The chapters on the Leningrad siege; Tania's reunion with Alexander, and Tatiana's ultimate escape from Russia, are extremely powerful. Tatiana matures from a girl who lies across her bed reading a book instead of doing the emergency food shopping her father asks her to do, into a woman who can escape from a frozen wasteland in Finland into Sweden. That's quite an accomplishment, and long before the author got her there, I was completely absorbed in this woman's story.
Despite its faults, this is a story that stays with you after you close it, and that's no mean accomplishment either. Now I'm off to locate a copy of the sequel, because these two characters, Tatiana & Alexander, live & breathe for me; I HAVE to know what happens next. I can't remember when that's happened last. That's one damn good book.
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