Customer Reviews

Russian Winter: A Novel (P.S.)

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one of the most beautifully written books I have read in a while. The story was lovely in its simplicity, every description dripping with meaning without being overly sentimental or pedantic. The whole way through I marveled at the language. Despite its length, the book moved at a swift pace. The plot was not one of action, but still I hardly wanted to put the book down. This is masterful writing.

The portrayal of Nina's past in Soviet Russia was fantastic. I have studied the Soviet Union quite a bit, particularly through the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Kalotay did a good job portraying the way Soviet citizens likely felt about their lives. She shows the reverence for Stalin, even in the worst times. Never once does Nina see him as anything but a savior; the problems come from others and he does not know. Shocking though that may be, anything else would probably have been inaccurate. The faith that she had in the country and the small things that lead her to question that are done well. Kalotay confronts rough issues with subtlety, with no overarching need to make her point clear by bashing you over the head with it.

I recommend this one extremely highly (in case that wasn't clear from the above). Do yourself a favor and read this.

Russian Winter is an engrossing fiction novel from Daphne Kalotay that combines personal history with notorious events in human history. Flashbacks from Stalin-era Russia combine with the modern life of a Russian defector, Nina Revskaya, once famous as a Bolshoi ballerina. As she enters her final years, she decides to have a Sotheby's-style auction house sell her gems...purportedly to donate the funds to the Arts. However, it soon becomes clear that she has more personal reasons to divest of the jewelry-some of the pieces harbor memories that are too painful to hold on to.

In the meantime, Drew, the auction house assistant, is charged with the task of determining the provenance of the pieces. A mystery arises as a new pendant is anonymously donated...one that would appear to be linked with Nina's set. The significance is clear: there's more to the story than Nina is willing to reveal. And it is the verification of the jewels history that becomes a story of assumptions and lies, and the betrayals that come as a result from them.

The story was well paced, and plot twists developed that kept the mystery going. I also found the in-depth portrayal of the auction house's job of verifying historical jewelry fascinating. However, I had a few issues with the substance of the novel overall. One, I got the impression almost that a formula was being followed...'reveal this much detail at a time, then hold back, move on, and sprinkle foreshadowing liberally'. It worked, but once completed, the novel felt a bit manipulated. Another thing was I think the author wanted to show two powerful, independent women in action; and yet, both women (Drew and Nina) lacked warmth and were really kind of boring. The men in the story-Grigori and Viktor-were far more interesting and vibrant to read about. The women seemed passive in comparison.

The flashbacks of Russia were of the most basic historical components: poets, vodka, intellectual suppression, mysterious arrests, the ballet, corruption, and poverty. In other words, there was nothing new added that dipped beneath a mere surface knowledge of "Russia 101." I would have loved if the book could have added historical details that would have revealed more complexity to the characters, in the way Vasily Grossman's Everything Flows uncovered a pain that explained its character's actions with more humanity. And yet, to someone unfamiliar with Russian history, they might find it a good introduction to the unique events of the region's history.

The cover of Russian Winter beguiled me, but did not answer the many questions that hammered at my brain as Nina's story unfolded. I paid diligent attention to the carefully spun-out clues in the novel and was spellbound until the end. Sometimes we savor a book--read a bit, then put it away until tomorrow so that it may be pondered. Not so with Russian Winter. I was swept away and contentedly disconnected from the rest of my life for the hours I spent within its pages.

I reveled in author Daphne Kalotay's use of language. She juxtaposes present day Boston with post WW II Soviet Union where artists struggle with their private turmoil and fears behind the iron curtain. Her flashbacks are expertly cast in the present tense. So much of what is beautiful in this world--ballet, poetry, music, love, creative expression, hope--is intertwined with betrayal, fear, loss, poor health. Detailed descriptions of the jewelry to be auctioned are uniquely placed between chapter headings. Kalotay has a way of bringing simple images to life with phrases like "a squadron of hairpins."

"Dancers must remember everything." Retired ballerina Nina Rebskaya, who has defected to the United States and seeks to sell her jewel collection to benefit the Boston ballet, suffers such a fate. Nina, who visualized the optimum performance of the next step in her choreography as she felt the floor beneath her feet, becomes the retired benefactress, body rigid and wheelchair-bound, tracing the lines of the past in her memories.

The career of a ballerina is ephemeral but the value of a gemstone endures. Intrigue seduces. Art is transforming. Ponder all of this in the captivating novel, Russian Winter.

Reviewed by Holly Weiss, author of Crestmont

Daphne Kalotay's 'Russian Winter' is set around the framework of an aged Russian prima ballerina reflecting on her past. Nina Revskaya is offering her fabled jewel collection at auction for the benefit of the Boston ballet. And with each jewel comes a memory or two. We have not only Nina's personal history, but also the story of Russia under Stalin and the effect of the intentional mistrust engendered by the State on its citizens.

Skillfully interwoven with Nina's story is that of contemporary language professor Grigori Solodin, translator of poems written by Nina's late husband and possessor of a valuable amber necklace that may belong to a suite of amber owned by Nina.

Kalotay creates characters of great depth and emotional intensity. And the reader is caught up not only in the mystery of Nina's past and Girgori's present, but also in larger themes of trust and love, mistakes and redemption.

It is to her credit that kalotay's story can be read both as riveting mystery and as a compelling exploration of the human heart.

There are some books that, when you first sit down with them, you're unsure of what is going to happen. Will you fall in love with - or even like - the characters? Will the story move you, or is it simply a way to pass time? Will the tale itself briefly amuse, or will it haunt you like a ghost of the past?

These were my concerns when I first began reading Daphne Kalotay's "Russian Winter". Ostensibly, the book is about th auction of a jewelry collection that belonged to famed ballerina Nina Revskaya. Throughout the novel, the lot numbers detail several important pieces, and the most hyped items are an amber necklace, bracelet, and earrings. However, this is not so much a tale of a jewelry sale as it is a tale about life, love, struggle, betrayal, and the determination of the human spirit. There are two main stories at work here: Nina's life in Stalinist Russia just after World War II as a dancer for the Bolshoi Ballet, and Gregori Solodin's struggle to find out about his past in twenty-first century Boston. We also see Nina as an old woman in Massachusetts, preparing to sell her collection, and learn of Drew Brooks, a young woman from the auction house who is looking to answers for the jewels' secrets.

The book often jumps among all of these stories, and initially I was frustrated by this. I was far more interested in Nina's life in the USSR than any of the other elements. I was fascinated by her life as a dancer, the bleak yet ignorant picture painted of Soviet Russia, the struggles she simply assumed were "normal" in postwar Europe. Her family and friends are so vivid I could see them in my mind, hear their voices, and yet I had a sense of foreboding, as the novel makes it immediately clear that Nina defected to the West in the early 1950s.

The tale of Grigori Solodin, a languages professor in Boston (the actual university is never named), was something that, at first, I didn't understand. The man's obsession with Viktor Elsin, Nina's husband, provided the connection between the two, but every assumption I had about why I was reading Grigori's story proved wrong. And Drew Brooks, while initially a bit of a flat character, gained more depth as the novel wore on.

"Russian Winter" is one of those books that I have a feeling will haunt me for some time. It is vivid, heart-wrenching, and proves that life doesn't always work out the way we want it to. But it is so much richer for that that.

This beautifully written novel is really two stories in one that come together at the end. First of all, it's the story of Nina Revskaya, a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Nina's best friend from childhood, Vera, is also a ballet dancer. While she's still very young, Nina meets and falls in love with a famous poet, Viktor Elsin. Because they are artists, Nina, Viktor and Vera live better than most Russians of that era. Nina and her husband live happily for a few years, until everything falls apart and she decides to escape the Soviet Union on her own. After living in Paris and London, she ends up moving to Boston, where she spends her final days. The book begins with an elderly Nina deciding to auction off her extensive jewelry collection and donate the money to charity. This is also the story of Grigori Solodin, a professor of Russian at a Boston college, and a young woman named Drew Brooks, two lonely souls who meet through Nina's auction.

I'm a ballet lover and I'm also interested in Russian history, so I really expected to love this book. The plot is slow in the beginning and a little hard to get into. But after 75 pages or so, I was totally engrossed in the story and stayed up late one night to read to the end. Throughout the book, the action moves back and forth between Soviet Russia and 21st century Boston. The author clearly did her research and captures the magic of the dance world, as well as what it was like to live under Soviet occupation, when no one could completely trust anyone else--not even their family members or dearest friends. The present day plot, however, didn't do much for me. I couldn't drum up much enthusiasm for either Girgori or Drew, who both seemed very dull and not worthy of so much focus. It's really unfortunate that their story takes away from Nina's.

The ending comes quickly, almost too abruptly. A lot of details in the final chapters are left to the reader's imagination. I appreciate it when an author respects my intelligence and doesn't spell everything out. But too many unanswered questions remain. We never really find out exactly how Nina escaped the Iron Curtain, who helped her, what her life was like after she left Russia, how she came to live in the U.S. or who Grigori's biological father was. But most of all, I found it unsatisfying that Nina's story becomes Grigori's story in the end. Nina is a far more interesting character that Grigori and should have remained front and center throughout. By the end of the book, Nina remains a mystery, and I was left feeling vaguely disappointed and wishing there was more.

I felt swept away in the history and glamor. I enjoy Russian literature. Add romance, friendship, jewelery, ballet and intrigue to the mix of Russia and I quickly belonged to the book. The story of Nina Rebskaya a dancer who can not dance any more and who has defected to the United States, is selling off her jewelery collection through an auction house and piece by piece her own history unravels through her jewelery. The characters are rich and intriguing, you both love, dislike and pity Nina. This story will sweep you in to it. I was sad that it ended.

The writing is beautiful and poignant. The humanity believable.

I loved this book , maybe because I am an aging dancer myself..The detail was excellent and the writing flowed....the plot was intricate but engrossing.It is a keeper.......

Daphne Kalotay's debut novel is a stunning and moving portrayal of love, loss, betrayals, and the enduring human spirit. It celebrates life and art and the bond between them. Nina Revskaya is a former Bolshoi ballerina, living out her last days in Boston. As the story progresses, it is clear that much of the time, however, her mind and her heart are back in Stalin's Russia.

Nina's decision to sell her amazing collection of jewelry, amassed through the decades, to benefit the Boston Ballet, opens up old wounds and transports Nina to her past. Kalotay superbly interweaves the storyline from past to present, Moscow to Boston, allowing the reader a window into the events that shaped the dancer's life and determined her ultimate fate. As the young jewelry auction executive Drew tries to trace the history and origin of several pieces of amber jewelry, Nina becomes alternately withdrawn and agitated. A person of mysterious origin claims to have a matching necklace that could link him to Nina, a possibility she refutes at every turn. The mystery and intrigue will keep the reader pressing on for answers. The lyrical and beautiful prose depicting a different life and time will mesmerize.

In Nina's Russia, the reader meets her husband, the famous poet; his associate, the rebellious composer; and Nina's fellow dancers. In that time and place, one's occupation, even that of the artist, was defined by the state; it determined where one lived and how well--and even how one might die. Politics and art were inextricably linked. When the system was threatened, chaos reigned and Nina's life is changed forever.

As the story moves seamlessly from Boston to Moscow, there is an almost cinematic detail in the settings portrayed that is at once informative and entertaining. One can imagine the cold practice halls of the Bolshoi, the cramped living quarters of even the best of the artistic community, the constant fear and paranoia that was present at every encounter, the inability to know who could be trusted. This serves as a grim reminder that while art in all its forms should be a free flowing expression of self and a celebration and sharing of free ideas and ideals, it has not always been so. Thankfully, even in the midst of that cruel existence, Kalotay also observes and honors the enduring qualities of love and family and friendship, which can transcend the worst of circumstances.

Russian Winter is a story of vast proportion, not so much in its size, but in its scope. Kalotay is very much at home with both her Russian and her American characters and their locales. They are very real. The details of the story ring true, and indicate a wealth of background knowledge and study. Her prose, filled with anguish and passion and humor, is a delight to read. If this book is any indication of what might be forthcoming from this author, I am already looking forward to her next offering.

by Susan Ideus
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

About halfway through "Russian Winter" one of the main characters - a woman in her thirties working at an auction house - contemplates her insular, intellectual existence and thinks "it was also true that the internal world was an expansive one, always growing, full of possibilities that the real one did not necessarily offer."

"Russian Winter" is that rare book that grants respect to the lives lived inside its' characters' minds. In this book, people are allowed to love words, to feel passionate about research and dance and literature and feel longing for a vanished world without the usual nihilism of contemporary fiction.

That care and compassion is just one mark of this beautiful, well-considered book but it also made me pause, feeling somewhat lost at the end. I allowed a day to pass between finishing "Russian Winter" and starting this review. The contemplative tone of Kalotay's novel actually pushed me into doing something I don't normally do when reading a book I enjoy - I read slower. I paused between chapters to consider the characters and their situation.

Perhaps this was due to Kalotay's handling of time - you never notice that she's skipping between eras with barely a transition, with almost no differentiation between past and present. In this world, they are all happening at once and even though we know how some moments must end because of how they will bring us into the present of the book, it feels like they're being lived again with the opportunity for change.

This method enhances the book, mingling past with present with no distinction, allowing the one to constantly shape the other. You never notice that the present-day story is told in past tense and the story set in the past is told in present tense - in Kalotay's hands it becomes more than a literary trick, it's what we all suspect deep down when our memories feel closer than the present day.

The old woman looking back on her life, heavy with regret, is a wildly overused fictional conceit. In Kalotay's novel it becomes a rare opportunity to see life from a new perspective. She guides us through an old woman's memories, reminding us that hope, irritation and curiosity don't disappear with age. I was almost relieved about a hundred pages into the book when I realized that Kalotay would not allow the underlying mystery to consume the narrative as happens in so many other historical novels with a central mystery at their core. Her gaze is always firmly on the people and their wants and needs.

Kalotay succeeds at the one thing every historical novelist must master - the telling detail in a sea of research, the human moment in a larger panorama - from the harsh whisking sound of housewives' brooms as they sweep the streets of Moscow to the silence of snow and a crumpled brown leaf on an old womens' windowsill.It is rare to read a novel that captures physical exertion - in this case, the challenges of ballet dancing - without descending into cliché or overblown metaphor.

For me, the great surprise of this book is how vibrantly the supporting characters live on the page - from the Hungarian poet Zoltan to Grandma Ritti to Nina's mother-in-law - these people feel like characters living the book of their lives while briefly touching on the main characters in this book. It's a testament to Kalotay's skill that I closed the book wanting to know more about all of them. From a historical fiction perspective, I particularly appreciated the way Nina's attitudes toward Stalin were handled carefully and changed quite subtly through the book - he is always the all-seeing father figure and, depending on the situation, he can be a benevolent presence or a terrifying specter in Nina's life. "Russian Winter" wears its' author considerable research lightly - the ultimate compliment in historical fiction.

Ultimately, I think that's why I paused and waited to review "Russian Winter" - I felt a certain sense of incompletion, it felt odd to leave these characters and their lives. "Russian Winter" is by no means perfect. The beginning felt slow - you can sense Kalotay putting the pieces into place and the first few encounters with the main characters feel rushed as if she's is trying to bring the reader up to speed on everyone's secret hurts and longings before setting them all in motion. Oddly, the ending feels just slightly rushed as well - there's no warning that we are leaving Nina Revskaya for the last time, no neat tying up of the ultimate mystery.

These ragged ends make the book and its' tragedies more realistic and more potent - life in the world of the book just keeps moving forward. Personally, I look forward to Kalotay's next work and hope that she considers historical fiction for her next novel - the genre needs authors such as these to treat memory and the past with respect and compassion.

Disclosure: This book was an ARC, sent to me by the publisher for review purposes.