Customer Reviews

Rasputin: The Saint Who Sinned

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The book started out mimicking the marvelous book by Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, with Moynahan creating the atmosphere that Rasputin walked into. Right off the bat, it became clear that this book was based on the sources that include a more sensationalised account of Rasputin's life, and having read Edvard Radzinsky's book first, that made some things in this book a bit contradictory for me.

I think what threw me was in the middle of this book, Moynahan suddenly turned absolutely vitriolic and was shockingly scathing about Rasputin - and I really felt the obsenities were a bit over the top. There is no doubt Rasputin was just a wee bit manipulating and destructive in the actions he took to preserve his position as the Tsarina's right hand man, but I felt Moynahan drifted a bit there! A beautiful narration is one thing, obsenities are another and all rather lacked the nice professional tone that the book opened with.

However, towards the end of the book, Moynahan settled down again and got somewhere more polite about the whole tragic death. For all Rasputin did, he was just a focus of the frustration the people felt at the hardships being imposed upon them by a Tsar who seemed to be disconnected from his people. Moynahan did convey ratehr well that the prevailing atmosphere in which Rasputin was assisinated was one where you could tell it wasn't going to make any difference to the Russian Empire.

Its up to you whether you read this book - if you believe Radzinsky's sources for his book, then possibly his book is more accurate, however for a largely well-written book about Rasputin based on what the world knew for 70-odd years, this is a pretty good book (apart from the bit in the middle!)

Rasputin is a figure pretty well everybody has heard of. The popular mind thinks of him as a drunken rake who got into the confidence of the Russian imperial family by a mixture of his guile and their predilection for religious fervour, coupled to their concern for their hemophiliac son and obsession with preserving the autocracy. As this gripping book tells us, that image is not wrong, but it is incomplete. Rasputin was also a devoted family man and did much to help a lot of people. Brian Moynahan makes a good job of showing us this in a steady narrative which only occasionally loses its footing and takes care to put this bizarre figure in context. There are weaknesses. The conclusions are crushed into a couple of pages and I would have liked more on what happened after Rasputin's death and the revolution which followed. But this is an excellent piece of work for anyone interested in Russia at the time. And if the book is sensationalist, well, Rasputin was sensational figure. He was instrumental, albeit possibly unwittingly, in bringing down one of Europe's grand old dynasties. You don't get much more sensational than that.

...but worthless as a historical biography. This book is a collection of the most salacious gossip from the latter days of the Romanov Empire. It is both entertaining and gives some insight to the "mood" of St. Petersburg at that time, but is filled with "inaccuracies", from references to Rasputin's youth as a time of living in primitive poverty to refering to him as a monk to descriptions of a life style of unrestrained, wild debauchery. In fact, his father was a land owner, Rasputin grew up in a nice home in a town that benefited from being located by rivers (making commerce an important part of the town), was never a monk, remained married to the same woman, brought his two daughters to live with him in St. Petersburg so they could have an education, and for a complex set of reasons, allowed himself to be a scapegoat. While he admitted to "falling into sin", those incidents were a very small part of a very complex and interesting person/life.

There used to be (or still is if you are a conspiracist) a lot of mystery surrounding Rasputin and the collapse of the Russian Empire during WWI. I became intrigied after seeing the HBO version of Rasputin and swept away by the magic of Rasputin in Edvard Radzinsky's account (be it true or false...). I felt compelled to find out more and this book came highly recmmended at Amazon so...

Moynahan starts off with the clear, descriptive and simple writing style of the brilliant book on the last Romanov's by Robert K. Massie. Then somewhere in the middle of the book, he descends abruptly into a vitrilic foul-mouthed tirade at Rasputin - which is in shocking contrast to the start of the book. As the chapters kept on unfurling with this pure vitriol, my respect for the biographer and patience with the book deteriorated. Then suddenly, towards the end, Moynahan suddenly finds compassion for Rasputin in his (sensationalised) theory for Rasputin's death. However, Moynahan had lost my respect by then and the book was thrown into the bin - I couldn't bring myself to even subject it to the people at my local library where I usually donate books.

... If you want to read a masterpiece on a good biographer turned bad - this is the book for you. If you want to learn about Rasputin, there are other books on the market which are infinetely more informative!

The book has a few dead spots but Brian Moynahan does a great job of describing the life and times of Rasputin. He capably tells the history surrounding the czarina's close confidante and teases the reader with bits of "gossip" (read the book and you'll see!) I found the book to be very thorough and well written. Rasputin is one of the most mysterious characters in the history of the world and this book does him justice. For any person who enjoys reading about mythical figures like Rasputin should pick this book.

This book is very good because of Moynahan's account of all things happening to and around Rasputin at the time. It is a wonderful story - outrageous and compelling. Moynahan did an excellent job in his portrayal of early 20th century Russia. The vivid accounts of the Romonov family is the true reason the novel commands so much attetion from the reader. At parts it seems to become redundant, possibly because of Rasputin's tireless exploits. This book is a revealing, and fascinating look at Russia during that period. For that reason alone it is well worth the time.

Although this book provided much insight onto the early life and background of Gregory Rasputin, I found it to be generally lacking in historial facts. I felt that Moynahan treated Nicholas and Alexandra with an unfair disdain, and lacked the appropriate documentation to make his arguments stick in this area.

Although it has its errors, this is an engrossing biography about Rasputin. Full of new information and little-known facts, it's not afraid to shy away from the nitty-gritty, it's not afraid to give us the dirt on this guy, without all the false romanticism about Rasputin being so saintly and such. But this is an honest portrait of Rasputin, giving him credit where credit is due. I like this gritty lurid style of writing, which doesn't downplay or leave out the salacious sensationalistic stuff. There is no doubt that you will be convinced of Rasputin's iron hold on the Russian royal family due to his supposed supernatural powers, which included healing the Tzar's hemophiliac son and heir to the throne, Alexei. But, alas, there would never be a new Tzar, as through his scandalous public and priavte life Rasputin unwittingly contributed to the Romanov dynasty's fall. I recommend this book especially to people who enjoy reading a good bio about unusual personalities from the past.

David Rehak
author of "Love and Madness"

Grigorii Rasputin has entered the symbology of Western civilization as shorthand example of the unreasoning nature of religion and the excesses that arise from religious fanaticism coupled with hypocrisy. Say "Rasputin" and you conjure up an icon-wielding hustler who managed to take a whole empire down with him. But Rasputin himself -- and the impact he had on Russia -- was far more complex than popular memory either remembers or can understand. Probably more than anyone else, Grigorii Yefimovich Rasputin was a living metaphor for the Russia of his era.

Brian Moynahan does a good job of exposing the contradictions at the root of Rasputin's life -- the Siberian peasant who embraced Russian Orthodoxy, but could not resist the lure of the secular city; the impoverished starets who could not contain his overwhelming lust for wine, women and influence; the powerful physical presence coupled with an almost incoherent world view that was, at best, shallow and mawkish; the born grafter and village ne'er-do-well who made little personal gain out of his machinations, yet managed to undermine the tsarist regime entirely by placing incompetent thieves at its highest levels; the staunch monarchist whose powerful skills of persuasion, observation and analysis were never able to grasp the need to democratize the tsarist system in order to preserve it. Rasputin, during much of his adult life, was a tangled ball of conflicts and motives. Those same conflicts mirrored those present in Russian society and culture at the time.

While certainly not white-washing Rasputin's many high crimes and misdemeanors, Moynahan's treatise renders the starets as a somewhat pitiable character. Ultimately consumed by his basest desires, Grigorii Yefimovich squandered the opportunity his influence over the Romanovs provided him to rise to greatness in the eyes of his countrymen and history. A less dissolute and corrupt Rasputin might have been able to move the tsar away from the slow drift to war with Germany and Austria-Hungary and wean the tsarina from her disastrous fixation on absolute autocracy at all costs.

Moynahan's book doesn't deserve the severe condemnation heaped on it in the New York Times review. It does have its limitations, particularly the awkward English renditions of the original Russian quotes of many of the participants in Rasputin's story. The starets' murder almost certainly included the active participation of the Okhrana and courtiers close to Nicholas II, yet Moynahan breaks no new ground in revealing who those people were and how they fit into the conspiracy.

Brian Moynahan tells Rasputin's story with flair and compassion. In doing so, he reveals a nation torn between the best and worst of human behavior and inclination. Russia was no better than Rasputin and vice versus. And in that moral equivalence lay the destruction of an empire and the genocide of several generations that followed the October Revolution.

Let it be said that Mr. Moynahan is very exhaustive in his research. He did a good job in covering as much as he could about the mad monk. I don't know if it was the subject matter or his writing style that made this book a tough read. It was certainly not bad by any means, but not 5 star material. I will have to read more about Grigory to have anything to compare it to. I am still somewhat facsinated by the subject matter and wont hesitate to try another book.