Russka: The Novel of Russia

 

Russka: The Novel of Russia – by Edward Rutherford

If you miss the late great James Michener, I would argue that Edward Rutherford is a worthy successor.  Is he as good as Michener?  Well, I’m not sure, but that really shouldn’t be the point.  In fact, this is only my second book I’ve read by Rutherford.  I enjoyed the first (‘London’) but I enjoyed this one so much more. ‘London’, I felt, had a tad too much history and not enough story.  This one I felt, was the opposite.  Since I don’t really read novels for history, though, I would argue that this was actually a good thing.  True, Michener seemed to do the best job when it came to balancing both history and story, but I prefer to grade this book on what it is as opposed to what it is not.   And what this is, is simply a great story.

Like the majority of James Michener books that are named after a geographical location, this book takes place over 1800 years.  The locations are the same, but the characters obviously are new in each chapter.  The majority of the players are descendants of early characters from earlier chapters, and it could be a bit challenging to remember who was related to whom.  It’s always helpful when the author includes a family tree in the front of the book (which Rutherford does) but one still gets a bit lost after a while.  I simply didn’t really care, though, as the vast majority of these stories were so wonderfully told. Although many of the chapters (or ‘sections’ might be a better description) are named after a well-known Russian leader (Ivan, Peter, Catherine), all of these well-known figures make cameos in the book at best.  The sections of the book are devoted to the time and period of the leader, not the leader themself.  So throughout the massive history of Russia, we learn a lot about the geography, the weather (very cold), and about such figures as Tatars and Cossacks.

Truth be told though, I felt like the majority of these stories could have taken place anywhere in the globe. Although to be fair, I don’t really know much about the history of Russia pre-20^th century, so it’s really hard for me to discern how much of the place of Russia really determined the fates and actions of the key players.  Again, I felt such a warm connection to the characters in each of the stories, though, that I really didn’t care that much.

In fact, the only major negative thing I can say about this book was that the last major section (titled ‘Revolution’) tried to cram too much into too short of a space. I’ve often praised a ‘long’ book by stating that I wish it could have been longer.  In this case, though, I really mean it.  Once we get to the late 1800s, I almost wish that Edward Rutherford would have ended this book and then continued the story in an entirely different volume.  By the time we get to actual Revolution, we simply speed past the years too quickly.  I seem to recall that the entire First World War only last for about five pages.  I’m guessing Rutherford was trying hard to keep the overall book at a manageable length, but I simply wanted more.  Plus, it’s during this last section that all of the families that we’ve read about throughout the story all converge, so to speak.  After all, we have to find out the destiny of all the families that we keep reading about. I really felt that more pages were needed so the last part of the story could have breathed a bit more.

Another minor complaint is that there are many instances of relatives and relations over the centuries that are named after one another.  This caused me to get lost a few times.  I seem to recall there were at least three ‘Arinas’.  After reading about Arina after Arina, I simply had trouble remembering the characteristics of each one and that was a tad of a detriment.  This happened several times throughout the book.  It doesn’t seem like it should be that difficult to have different first names for different people, but maybe there was some reason the author chose this approach that I am unaware.

I read a lot of books, and this is one of the best fiction books that I have read as of late.  If you’re used to authors like Stephen King or John Grisham, you should be aware that a book like this isn’t something that you can quickly read over a weekend.   This book, like the others of the author’s works, are quite lengthy.   I felt it was well worth it, however. Plus, you learn a bit about history, which is never a bad thing.