Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie – Book Review

Nov 292011

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
Published by Random House

How does a German princess of no great account become the greatest, longest reigning empress of Russia? Catherine IIs story seems an improbable one, to put it mildly, and yet the girl born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst ended up ruling Russia for 34 years and earning the appellation Catherine the Great.

Catherine was an incredibly complex woman, and the story of her life could have easily devolved into either a morass inaccessible by all who had not studied her life and Russian history or an overly simplified treatment leaving only a shadow of the powerful ruler. In Robert K. Massie’s capable hands, however, both pitfalls are deftly avoided.

Over 600 pages of Catherine the Great, Massie presents a portrait of Catherine that is both nuanced and easy to follow. She is a vivid character from the beginning, even before her travels to Russia and marriage to Peter. What is particularly impressive, though, is that Catherine is not the only fully realized character; both Peter and his aunt, the Empress Elizabeth, fairly leap off the page. Other characters, particularly many of Catherine’s lovers, were also impressively drawn. Massie’s style is to get into the heads and motivations of the people whose lives he is chronicling, which leads to compelling and realistic historical personages, regardless of how sympathetic they were as human beings.

It is precisely Massie’s ability to connect his readers to the people he is writing about that makes Catherine the Great such an immensely readable biography. It is not an exaggeration to say that it reads much like some of the best historical fiction, if perhaps a bit more dense by virtue of all of the rich historical detail layered in Massie’s every sentence.

In addition to bringing historical figures to life and writing a biography that can hardly be put down, Massie has written an incredibly complex and complete history of Catherine’s life. One particularly effective technique for making all of this comprehensible is most evident in Massie’s discussions of the later years of Catherine’s reign. Instead of relating events in a strictly chronological manner, which would have involved overlapping many complicated series of events, Catherine the Great has a structure in which chronology informs thematic organization. This could have been equally problematic to straight chronology, but Massie excels at weaving in mentions of events from earlier chapters so that readers can form for themselves a comprehensive timeline of Catherine’s life, and what events – both personal and political – might be influencing her at any given time.

All in all this is a superb biography. Not only will it earn a place in my permanent collection, but it will also ensure that I will read more of Massie’s work in the years to come. Very highly recommended.

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Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.

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BOOK CLUB – The True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp

Sep 272011

5256159881 7ba9c432e6 m picture Welcome to BOOK CLUB, which I run with co-conspirator Nicole from Linus’s Blanket. Today we will be chatting about The True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp, which is being released in paperback by Picador on October 25th (website | twitter | facebook). For those of you reading this post, please remember that this discussion is likely to contain spoilers.

Here is the synopsis of the book I wrote for my review:

Little K was a prima ballerina, the lover of the last Russian tsar. A woman whose determination brought her into the beds of many members of the imperial family, but whose brilliant future was derailed when Russia as she knew it began to disappear, along with her beloved Tsar Nicholas II, and something where the concubine of the Romanovs was a dangerous thing to be. But perhaps it would be best to let Little K introduce herself in her own words, as this is a story she has been endlessly remembering for the past 50 years:

My name is Mathilde Kschessinska, and I was the greatest Russian ballerina on the imperial stages. But the world I was born to, the world I was bred for, is gone, and all the players in it are also gone – dead, murdered, exiled, walking ghosts. -p. 3

littlek picture Before we get started, here are some of the reviews of readers who will be participating today:

Beachreader
Devourer of Books
Reviews by Lola

If you plan on participating in today’s BOOK CLUB, please consider subscribing to comments at the bottom of the page (please use the TOP subscription option, the second option will subscribe you only to replies of your own comments). I will be updating this post with new questions and ideas over the course of the day.

Here we go…

First off, what were your general impressions of the book?
Is this a book you would have read had you not been reading it for a book club?
Near the beginning of the book, Little K makes this somewhat provocative statement about Nicki’s marriage to Alix. Do you think, based on the events of the book, that she was correct about this?
And what kind of wife would I have made him? Could I have stood his future – imprisonment and
a martyr’s death? I can assure you this: if I had been his wife, that would not have been his future. -p. 23
What do you think was the root of Little K’s determination to be part of the tsar’s life? How did you feel about the way she positioned her son?
Do you think that Little K fully understood the causes of the revolution? What helped or hindered her in this?
Do you think that Sharp made the causes of the revolution clear to the reader?

12 review copies of The True Memoirs of Little K were provided by Picador in order to facilitate this discussion. Thank you!