Ice Road C [Paperback]

Slovo Gillian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2004

Leningrad. 1933. Loyalties, beliefs, love and family ties: all are about to be tested to the limit in a fight to see who will survive one of the most crushing moments the world will ever know. Boris Ivanov, the father who understands politics and pragmatism; his daughter Natasha, a carefree, delightful girl who will be almost crushed because of political compromises; Anton, Boris's oldest friend, who in an uncharacteristic moment saves a skinny little orphan he finds on the Moscow train; Anna, that tough intriguing child. And watching it all is the marvellous Irina. Wry, wise, ironic, Irina understands that simple loyalty to an individual may well be more powerful than blind loyalty to an idea.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

South African novelist and playwright Slovo--Red Dust (2001)--delivers a chilling historical novel about a group of Soviets living in Leningrad between the world wars. The tale opens with the observations of Irina Davydovna, a simple cleaning woman who survived the sinking of the Chelyuskin (an actual research ship that became ice-bound on its way to the Arctic in 1933). Irina delivers devastating descriptions of the Soviet Union--Stalin's military purges, the murder of Leningrad Chief Sergei Mironovich Kirov, the desperation of citizens in the clutches of an oppressive political regime. The novel loses steam when it switches to third-person narrative, highlighting the precarious personalities that populate Irina's life. Among them: her employer Boris Alexsandrovich, a government official torn between loyalty to his family and loyalty to the state; moody intellectual Anton Antonovich; and a fearless orphan named Anya. While Slovo's narrative may be uneven, her prose is luminous, evoking a landscape as cold and deadly as an ice pick to the heart. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

A deep and satisfying read. -- Sarah Dunant, author of The Birth of Venus

Powerful and moving...[its] epic scope never obscures the individual lives that are lived in the shadow of great events. -- Pat Barker, author of the Booker Prize-winning The Ghost Road

Readers will not easily forget this novel, nor should they. It has something to teach us all. -- Jay Parini, author of The Apprentice Lover --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown Hardbacks (a & C) (March 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316727482
• ISBN-13: 978-0316727488
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,647,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, September 9, 2005

By 

Lena (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ice Road: A Novel (Paperback)

Actually, it's a pity that this book got so little attention in North America. I can not be really objective, being born in Leningrad and living there for the first 20 years of my life. So, reading the "Ice road" returned me to the good - and not so good - old times in Russia. But this is not the only, and not even the main reason for me to enjoy the book. First of all, it is a real story. Well, it is real in a sense, that this story truly has happened to many people - and all of them had to go through grief, losses, betrayal, doubts... and this was the system that broke the people down. Read the book, and you understand how it works - something that will help you to discover one of those infamous "Russian mysteries".
Secondly, I was truly amazed to see that Slovo, who never has been in Russia, was able to find the right words, to paint the right atmosphere and describe all these Soviet hard idealists better than most Soviet writers that I know. This is a very impressive thing to perform from South Africa.
Bottom line? Highly recommended. If you want to read a really good book, which will make you both to turn the pages at 2am, to cry and to think, pick this one.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deft, brilliant portrait of Stalinist Russia, July 21, 2006

By 

S. A. Waggoner "pettacom" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ice Road: A Novel (Paperback)

I read this books six months ago and am still thinking about it -- and still dismayed that it seems not to have gotten the attention it deserves. Without being pedantic or sacrificing a wonderful and readable story, the author does a phenomenal job of capturing the paranoia and everyday cruelty of Stalinism, and gives us a harrowing glimpse of life during the Seige of Leningrad.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "...and all the world is buried deep.", March 28, 2005

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ice Road: A Novel (Paperback)

In 1934, Irina Davydovna is sent on a fated Artic expedition, along the coast of Siberia and back. Trapped in the Arctic ice with her shipmates, the author perfectly captures Irina's sense of isolation, the eerie crackling sound of the ice floes pressing against the ship and the helplessness of their predicament in this frozen, indifferent world: "I have grown heavy with hope and with belief. I have dared to dream." In an enormous rescue effort, most of the crew is saved, including Irina, although the ship is lost to the depths of the ocean.

Later, Irina finds employment in the household of Anton Antonovich Abramov, once a close friend of Boris Aleksandrovich, and his adopted daughter. Although the orphan child, Anya, never warms to her more welcoming circumstances, Irina is content to have a place in the home of a respected man after the terrifying, near-fatal experience in the Arctic. Irina watches the metamorphosis of her nation, a woman given to obedience and respect for those in power. But these are dangerous times, neighbor spying on neighbor as those of questionable motives join the ranks of the disappeared.

The vital Natasha, daughter of Boris Aleksandrovich Ivanov, is in love with Kolya and eager for marriage. Natasha is in the bloom of youth, beautiful and covertly watched by many male admirers, her father's favorite child. The couple is married and has a child, Katya, when Kolya is arrested.

Natasha is bereft when Kolya is arrested, her life now precarious, a social outcast. Natasha marries the jealous, uninspired Dmitry Fedorovich, the epitome of an inflexible Stalinist regime, her one opportunity to secure her future and that of her daughter. Desperately unhappy, Natasha is riddled with questions about Kolya's fate, but fearful of her husband's power. In her distress, Natasha turns to her friend Irina, living alone with Anya since Anton's untimely death.

As Russia hurtles towards its date with destiny, the Germans mass on the Russian border. Leningrad prepares for a devastating siege and soldiers desperately dig trenches to protect the city from assault. Hitler is eager to subdue this massive country, while a flustered bureaucracy is decimated by those who flee from the city. The great experiment is in turmoil, under attack and unprepared, without provisions in a brutal winter.

With uncanny insight, Slovo defines society through the eyes of the women in this vast, white world where ideas are as rigid as the ice-covered terrain, proving there is room for passion, love and tenderness. It is the women who reflect the true changes in society, showing astonishing emotional growth, made stronger by their trials, losing the passive obedience of long habit. In spite of personal danger, Irina and Natasha form a bond that sustains them where others, fathers, husbands, have failed. Slovo's characters are surrounded by peril, betrayal and intrigue, but when survival is at stake, the women breathe life into the future, buoyed by loyalty and compassion. Luan Gaines/ 2005.