The Red Scarf (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: kolkhoz office, barrack hut, Mikhail Pashin, Comrade Morozova, Aleksei Fomenko (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sophia Morozova's relationship with fragile Anna Fedorina begins through a small act of kindness at a 1930s Siberian labor camp. As the two inmates struggle daily to survive, they increasingly rely on each other for hope and comfort; when Anna falls ill, Sophia escapes, intending to find Anna's lifelong love, Vasily, and rescue Anna. Beautiful and charismatic, Sophia quickly becomes a force to reckon with in the town of Tivil, where she hopes to find Vasily, and her connections with powerful gypsy Rafik, the handsome factory director Mikhail Pashin and the stern but unreadable Aleksei Fomenko become satisfying sources of danger and desire. Furnivall (The Russian Concubine) paints a stark picture of rampant scarcity, grim regimentation and blaring propaganda in pre-WWII Soviet Russia. In pushing the limits of Sophia and Anna's love and friendship, she nicely pits small lives against a monolithic state, paradoxically composed of watchful villages. (July)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* As she did in The Russian Concubine (2007), Furnivall again pinpoints a little-known historical setting and brings it vividly to life through the emotions and insights of her characters. Moving somewhere between the romanticized Doctor Zhivago and the grisly Gulag Archipelago, this historical novel portrays the hardships of a Siberian labor camp in 1938 while at the same time dramatizing the philosophical convictions driving both Soviet leaders and the resistance. The story opens with Sofia and her tubercular friend, Anna, slinging sledgehammers in the frozen taiga. Anna’s storytelling relieves the monotony of their existence while revealing her desperate yearning for her childhood friend, Vasily. Vowing to save Anna from certain death in the camp, Sofia lands on a plan to escape: to find Vasily and convince him to rescue Anna. A somewhat unrealistic but nevertheless riveting story follows: of Sofia’s adventures crossing the tundra nearly undetected; her arrival in Tivil, where gypsy partisans shelter her; and her dogged efforts to find—but not to fall in love with—Vasily. Page by page the suspense builds until, with the certainty of doom, the reader races to the astonishing denouement. Beautifully detailed descriptions of the land and the compelling characters who move through a  surprisingly upbeat plot make this one of the year’s best reads. --Jen Baker

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade; 1st Thus. edition (June 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425221644
• ISBN-13: 978-0425221648
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #29,066 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another amazing success for Furnivall!, July 13, 2008

By	A. LaPointe (Oklahoma) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Silly Russian Tale, September 1, 2008

By	Ana T. Menendez-tuckman "rtpana" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed..., February 21, 2009

By	Cath (Melbourne, AUS) - See all my reviews

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.