Customer Reviews

The Red Scarf

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I started reading this book and was hooked. The storyline, involving a young woman trying to escape (and rescue her friend from) a labor camp in Siberia, was immediately appealing. Well-developed characters, fast-moving plot, detailed historical setting, skillful interweaving of past and present, it had it all.

Unfortunately, the book only went downhill from there.

At face value, it looks good, and The Red Scarf has a lot of potential--so much that I was sorry to see how quickly it devolved. Furnivall has a good grasp of how to write romance if that's what you're looking for, but here, it seems to be at the expense of the plot. Characters' actions have no consequences, so that we have a story set in a brutal world where people are killed or sent to labor camps for little or no reason, yet the main characters can get away with anything, up to and including murder. When misfortune does catch up with them, it usually comes out of the blue, not as a consequence of any of their numerous missteps, only to be too-easily solved. This is exacerbated as the book goes on--I won't spoil it, but at the end we have a couple of bizarre and completely unrealistic events, which Furnivall doesn't even attempt to explain, apparently hoping we won't notice.

Then the magic. Don't get me started. This book is set in a real, historical setting, in Russia during a brutal time. So, how to keep the characters from being arrested and killed or starving to death after the Soviet government confiscates all their food "for the good of the people"? Instead of showing us how real people in this time period dealt with these problems, Furnivall's solution is: bring in a gypsy with mind-twisting powers to save the day! It's a cop-out, and I for one felt cheated.

If you don't mind major plot holes, a series of increasingly unrealistic events, and a love story that quickly becomes nauseating for all but the most hardcore romance-novel fans, then this is the book for you. As for the rest of us, though, I don't recommend it.

This is my first reading of this novelists work, and I was quite disappointed. I have travelled in Russia, and am quite obsessed with the country and its amazing, if chequered, history. The fighting spirit of the Russian soul in many great works of literature has always intrigued me.

But this book disappointed me. The characters were poorly developed, especially Sofia, who felt distant to me. The plot was often confusing, with things seeming to happen before I even realised what was going on. The "relationship" between Sofia and Vasily in their youth (albeit a brief encounter) is glossed over and the allusions to the red scarf of the title were at best, cursory. I was most surprised by a book that I had hoped was grounded in reality of the tragedy of work camps, in its reliance upon the mystical - and even that was not explored in a way to give me satisfaction.

Perhaps if you like your Russian history in its mild, and fantasy form, this might be a book for you. But I prefer my Stalinist era based literature to be more Solzhenitsyn and less Barbara Cartland.

The Red Scarf was an excellent story. I found it to be just as engrossing as The Russian Concubine, but in a totally different way. Furnivall has the rare talent of making each of her novels a completely unique experience for the reader. Amazingly well researched, true to life in its time, I whole-heartedly recommend The Red Scarf.

I am surprised at the favorable reviews for this book since I found it totally unbelievable and ridiculous. The premise is interesting - girl in Russian labor camp escapes to get help for her friend who is spitting up blood and may not last a year. Then she finds the town where her friend's old beau resides so he can help her. OK, so far so good. Keep in mind that her sick friend was twelve the last time she saw the beau and he was fourteen. Everybody is well into their twenties by now. Throw in a gypsy who goes around hypnotizing people and multiple, endless, soul searching episodes of the principal characters staring into each other's eye and I had enough. Could not make it past the halfway point and I am writing this review so nobody wastes an otherwise lovely weekend on such a mind numbing, annoying, trite book.

I wrote this review for Romance Junkies. THE RED SCARF tells the story of prisoners in a Siberian labor camp, two women, fragile Anna Fedorina and practical Sophia Morozova, couldn't survive without each other. Their friendship is tested when Anna falls ill and Sophia escapes to find the only person who can help them, Anna's childhood love.

It's 1933 when Stalin has forced aristocrats into labor camps. Anna Fedorina's act of kindness forges a friendship with another inmate, Sophia Morozova, whose hand has been crushed. While caring for Sophia, Anna entertains her with stories from her childhood that include the love of her young life, Vasily. As Sophia listens, she comes to know the character and charm of Vasily. She also learns that Vasily has hidden family treasures.

The two women are inseparable as they struggle to live through another day at the harsh Davinsky Labor Camp. When Anna becomes ill, the tables are turned. Now Sophia fears her friend won't survive unless she escapes to bring help. When Sophia tells Anna that she is going to escape to find Vasily, Anna hopes that at least one of them will survive. Has Sophia fallen in love with Vasily before she has even met him?

Kate Furnivall's book, THE RED SCARF, is a stunning narrative of loyalty, romantic love, and fear of betrayal. Anna's tender-hearted reaction to care for Sophia during her time of need, and strong-willed Sophia's loyalty toward Anna brought tears to my eyes. I was swept into the Siberian wilderness when Sophia, a tough survivor, escapes to find Vasily in a small village. Masterful storyteller Kate Furnivall spins a cruel world of Soviet Russia. THE RED SCARF was too compelling to put down. I'm telling my friends who love a dark historical to grab this powerful book.

Sofia Morozova is sent to one of Stalin's brutal gulags in 1930s Communist Russia, here she forms a strong bond of friendship with Anna (jailed for her aristocratic background) who recounts her teenage years during the Russian Revolution and her great love for a dashing revolutionary by the name of Vassily. When Anna falls desperately ill Sofia nurses her back to health. Sofia then escapes the labour camp to search for Vassily and comes into the care of a noble and mystical gypsy family, who practice magic to keep her alive and the evils of Stalinist repression at bay.


While this book makes a good romantic read with interesting characters and and fast pace of adventure, a colourful read, it simply comes across as too light for the time and place under discussion. This was a time of politicide, of mass murder , of horrors that had never perhaps been yet experienced in history, and of thought control. The book go's some way to exploring hypocrisy but simply does not get to grips with horrors of Stalinist Russia. Other romances such as The Arbat Trilogy yy Anatoly Rybakov, Mother Russia Pb Doctor Zhivago, and of course the works of Solzhenitsyn have maanged to convey the horrors and evil of the Marxist-Leninist tyranny and terror. In that regard, this book falls short, but as a read for a rainy weekend, or summer holiday, it will not be unentertaining.

I find myself somewhere between disappointment of my original expectations of the book and elation that an elaborate twist and excellent research saved a somewhat awkwardly written story in which the author grasped at straws to save the heroine. The novel had great potential--it seemed like a fantastic storyline. However, Sofia's life-risking desire to find Vasily, a man she has never even seen, to save Anna is a bit ridiculous; a magical gypsy who controls the minds of the Communists is unbelievable; and the descriptions and imagery are trite and cliched.

A turn near the end saved the novel for me--at times, I was ready to put it away. The very ending though was completely foreseeable and cheesy (for lack of a more profound word). I felt the same disappointment and irritation at the end of this novel as I did the end of the movie Bride Wars (You're pregnant? I'm pregnant! You're due on X date? Me too!). The end of The Red Scarf isn't exactly like that, but it's the same predictable, over-used, ending.

The Red Scarf follows in Tom Rob Smith's footsteps in that it does a good job detailing the deprivation, freezing cold, and abundant fear in Stalin's Russia. But, where Smith's plot succeeded in displaying the human capability to endure pain and find an inner strength, Furnival's plot relies heavily on a silly crutch...a gypsy's mystical abilities. I don't know why she felt she needed to use something so amateurish when it's obvious that she is a good writer. How disappointing it was to be caught up in a great Russian story and then stumble across a big misfire in the middle of the book. All of the sudden one of the characters posesses a magical ability. I was dumbfounded. I finished the book, but it was all down hill from there. So disappointing. Let's hope Furnival doesn't make that mistake again in her next endeavor.

In 1933 Sofia Morozova struggles to survive her ordeal in Siberia's Davinsky labor camp. She lives because she has a long term goal of freedom and a short term objective to keep the spirit of frail half-broken Anna Fedorina going; she knows Anna depends on her for her minuscule fading flicker of hope.

When Anna becomes ill, Sofia desperately seeks help, which means leaving the camp. She escapes in hopes of finding Anna's childhood love Vasily a revolutionary allegedly living in Tivil. Sofia meets factory director Mikhail Pashin, whom she believes is Vasily in disguise. As she falls in love with Mikhail, she refuses to act on her feelings because if he is Vasily, as she believes, he belongs to Anna.

This is a deep character driven tale starring two courageous women, a brave man, and the labor camp that is so vividly described it takes on a role of a horror figure. Sofia is wonderful as she survives the same way some people did the Nazi's concentration camps a decade later by making friends to care for, thinking of the happiness in her past in Petrograd and believing in a future life beyond the death prison. The romance takes a back seat though well written and enhancing the overall plot as Kate Furnivall concentrates on a powerful historical that focuses on the horrors of the Siberian death camps.

Harriet Klausner

Furnivall's first book, The Russian Concubine, was fantastic. I wasn't disappointed by this second book, The Red Scarf.
Although the first book contained the theme of the Bolshevik revolution, it was set in China, and thus cultural conflict was a major theme. In The Red Scarf, we are in a country that has been torn apart by inner conflict: it is tearing out the heart of 'Mother Russia'.
I studyed Stalinist Russia in college, and I very much wish that this novel had of been around at the time. Reading the facts and figures on the page of a textbook is one thing, but Furnivall's book brought it to life. It is a fantastic historical novel, with pure facts where they are needed combined with the fictional characters that you can't help but feel empathy for.
The characters that Furnivall has created are so very complex; exactly how I imagine people would have been at the time when your neighbour who you have known your whole life could very well be the person to sign your death warrant.
I would recommend this book to any lover of historical fiction, especially the period of Communist Russia.