Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The Siege (The Siege #1)

3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 · rating details · 1,062 ratings · 139 reviews

Called "elegantly, starkly beautiful" by The New York Times Book Review, The Siege is Helen Dunmore's masterpiece. Her canvas is monumental -- the Nazis' 1941 winter siege on Leningrad that killed six hundred thousand -- but her focus is heartrendingly intimate. One family, the Levins, fights to stay alive in their small apartment, held together by the unlikely courage and...more Called "elegantly, starkly beautiful" by The New York Times Book Review, The Siege is Helen Dunmore's masterpiece. Her canvas is monumental -- the Nazis' 1941 winter siege on Leningrad that killed six hundred thousand -- but her focus is heartrendingly intimate. One family, the Levins, fights to stay alive in their small apartment, held together by the unlikely courage and resourcefulness of twenty-two-year-old Anna. Though she dreams of an artist's life, she must instead forage for food in the ever more desperate city and watch her little brother grow cruelly thin. Their father, a blacklisted writer who once advocated a robust life of the mind, withers in spirit and body. At such brutal times everything is tested. And yet Dunmore's inspiring story shows that even then, the triumph of the human heart is that love need not fall away. "The novel's imaginative richness," writes The Washington Post, "lies in this implicit question: In dire physical circumstances, is it possible to have an inner life? The answer seems to be that no survival is possible without one." Amid the turmoil of the siege, the unimaginable happens -- two people enter the Levins' frozen home and bring a kind of romance where before there was only bare survival. A sensitive young doctor becomes Anna's devoted partner, and her father is allowed a transcendent final episode with a mysterious woman from his past. The Siege marks an exciting new phase in a brilliant career, observed Publishers Weekly in a starred review: "Dunmore has built a sizable audience ... but this book should lift her to another level of literary prominence." "Dunmore's ... novel ... is an intimate record of an extraordinary human disaster ... a moving story of personal triumph and public tragedy." -- Laura Ciolkowski, San Francisco Chronicle "In Helen Dunmore's hands, this epic subject assumes a lyrical honesty that sometimes wrenches but more often lifts the spirit." -- Frances Taliaferro, The Washington Post "Dunmore unravels the tangle of suffering, war, and base emotions to produce a story woven with love ... Extraordinary." -- Barbara Conaty, Library Journal (starred review)(less)

Paperback, 304 pages

Published November 22nd 2002 by Grove Press (first published 2001)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Tatiana and Alexander by Paullina Simons

Historical Fiction: Russia

21st out of 89 books — 132 voters

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Best 1940s Historical Fiction

45th out of 116 books — 99 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 2,020)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Feb 25, 2013 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an emotionally compelling novel that often reads like poetry. It can serve as a companion piece to Anna Reid's more recent nonfiction account of the siege of Leningrad ("Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944"). I was not only impressed by the beauty of Dunmore's prose, particularly in her depiction of the city of St. Petersburg/Leningrad itself, but also by her ability to weave an astonishing amount of historical research into her narrative, seamlessly and accurately. Dunm...more

like · see review

Jul 25, 2012 Lara rated it 5 of 5 stars

As I read this book on my couch after dinner, drinking a beer and enjoying the warm summer night, I found myself tensing against a monstrous cold that had become so physical that I couldn't unfeel it despite my knowledge that it was only words on paper.

In The Siege, Dunmore weaves together the huge and small stories of the siege of Leningrad in a way that reminded me of The Grapes of Wrath and The Book Thief. It's very effective; the grand descriptions of the land and the cold create a mythical...more

4 likes · like · see review

Apr 04, 2012 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

A skillful and intense novel about living through the German siege of Leningrad during the winter of 1941. When the siege begins, Anna is a young nursery school assistant who's been robbed of a career in the arts (and saddled with a dependent 5-year-old brother) by the premature death of her mother. We meet her, and her father and brother, just before the siege, when they're growing vegetables at their dacha and feeling relatively stable, even if Anna's writer father has been classed as too much...more

like · see review

Aug 29, 2011 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical, literature

Probably a 3 1/2 star, but I'm feeling generous (and quite happy I didn't live in Leningrad during the Siege!)

Lyrical at times, and definitely depressing at others, this is the story of Anna (mostly) and her attempts to keep her family strong during the horrible winter of 1941/1942, when the German siege of Leningrad resulted in about a million deaths. Dunmore does such a good job describing the starvation, the cold, and the despair faced by the Leningraders, that I often thought I was hungry or...more

like · see review

May 25, 2011 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

'The Siege' is a dramatic story of a young woman and her family and their struggles during the winter of 1941-1942 when the Germans sieged Leningrad. It is estimated that more than 1 million Leningraders died during this winter, primarily due to starvation as the Germans trapped the citizens in their own city. The author, Helen Dunmore, skillfully captures what it is like to be faced with the rationing of food in the following passage:

"You could lie all night long, dreaming of the crust you've p...more

like · see review

May 09, 2012 DubaiReader rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, canadian-bk-grp

The Siege of Leningrad.

The opening page of this book is a translation of a decree, issued under the direction of Hitler, stating that the city of Leningrad is of no value to the Germans and will be wiped out. No mercy is to be given to its citizens, who will die from starvation, disease or shelling. Helen Dunmore's novel illustrates the human side of this announcement; hundreds, thousands, even millions of people struggling to live on rations that could be cut at any time, in temperatures that w...more The Siege of Leningrad.

The opening page of this book is a translation of a decree, issued under the direction of Hitler, stating that the city of Leningrad is of no value to the Germans and will be wiped out. No mercy is to be given to its citizens, who will die from starvation, disease or shelling. Helen Dunmore's novel illustrates the human side of this announcement; hundreds, thousands, even millions of people struggling to live on rations that could be cut at any time, in temperatures that were colder than even the hardy Russians were acclimatised to.

Anna, her little brother, Kolya, and her father, Mikhail, are lucky in some respects. They have an appartment to themselves and Anna managed to escape the city and bring back some produce from their dacha in the country. Even so, as the winter takes hold and the siege bites ever tighter, the constant struggle to conserve energy and live for another day consumes their every thought.
Two other people are added to this group, Marina, a friend of Anna's father from the early days of his marriage to Anna's mother, and Andrei, who brought the injured Mikhail back from the front to the hospital in Leningrad.
This tight knit group depend entierly on each other for survival through the long, austere winter.

I had previously read several novels set during the Siege of Leningrad (see below), so I'm not sure if it was the book itself or the fact that this was not my first venture into the subject, that left me feeling that this book had slightly less impact. However, this was a highly readable novel and I was particularly absorbed by the absolutely freezing environment that Leningrad's residents were struggling to survive in - I find that it is the temperature rather than the starvation that I am left with after closing the last page.

Also by Helen Dunmore:
Ice Cream (short stories) 5*
Burning Bright 4*
House of Orphans 3*

Siege of Leningrad:
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah 5*
City of Thieves by David Benioff 4.5*
The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean 3.5*
(less)

1 like · like · see review

Apr 23, 2012 Chris Demer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-novel

This is a wonderful story of love amid deprivation and war during the siege of Leningrad. All the more meaningful because I have visited St. Petersburg (Leningrad) and taken the walking tour of the siege.
The Author exquisitely describes the life there - in the summer at the dacha and the planting, writing, drawing. And then the return to the city and the growing awareness that the Germans have surrounded it, constantly shelling, but more importantly cutting off the food supply to millions of pe...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 23, 2011 Lucy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's been quite a long time since I last read a story based around the second world war, seeing as it's the nearest I get to reading a particular genre it is something I read fairly frequently. I don't think I've read anything set in Russia during this time before (or at least not wholly based in Russia) so I was glad to expand my horizons a little. I must admit just recently I've not had much luck with these types of books, often finding myself disappointed, and I was hoping The Siege would be...more It's been quite a long time since I last read a story based around the second world war, seeing as it's the nearest I get to reading a particular genre it is something I read fairly frequently. I don't think I've read anything set in Russia during this time before (or at least not wholly based in Russia) so I was glad to expand my horizons a little. I must admit just recently I've not had much luck with these types of books, often finding myself disappointed, and I was hoping The Siege would be different. However I can't say I really felt that engaged most of the time. Undoubtedly the writing is good- there is a certain poetry to it, but it does not really feel as though you get under the character's skin. A lot of the time I found the writing kind of detached. The descriptions of what was going on were very good, I could see what was happening in my mind quite clearly, and at times that made it difficult to read. However I never really got a sense of how the characters felt about what was going on- even when there was a sense of feeling it was described in such a detached way that it felt as much like fact as like feeling. If it was purposeful then I suppose it showed the detachment the characters may crave very clearly but for me it felt like that characters were pretty one dementional. As far as being a war novel it didn't really feel like a war novel, there was some speak of the enemy but it felt almost as if it could be set anywhere in Soviet Russia during food shortages.

I found the end was very rushed, almost as if Dunmore wasn't sure how to get to the end so decided just to skip a great chunk of time. Similarly I found that anticipated events, while could have really added emotion were skipped over only to be mentioned later so you know they had happened. I found when it ended a little confusing to, but maybe if I had some prior knowledge of the events of the Leningrad siege I would have known what happened next anyway.

The ending however was kind of poignant and probably the best section emotionally, it sort of made me want to visit St. Petersberg

3.5/5(less)

like · see review

Oct 01, 2008 Tom rated it 4 of 5 stars

Read it in summer.

Very interesting (chick-flick) viewpoint on the horrendous siege of Leningrad. Perhaps a bit slow, by war-book standards, but that is because it is about the people, and non-combatants (if that word has any meaning in the 20th century) at that. I found it oddly vivid, waking up cold and hungry in the middle of the night, despite warm temps and a full belly.

Tom

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 29, 2011 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

“ A ring of siege grips the city. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. And in the suburbs, within sight, the Germans have dug themselves in…There they squat in the outskirts of Leningrad, like wolves at the mouth of a cave.”

Against this forbidding backdrop, is a tale of love and survival. The strength of family and of boundless determination. We follow Anna, a young nursery teacher, her father, a black-listed writer and her much younger brother, struggling to live in a cramped apartment, with dwi...more

like · see review

Oct 10, 2012 Shelley Fearn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: travel-the-world

Why does this book only have a 3.87 rating? This is an incredible story. Anna, a 22 year old woman, strives to keep her father, her father's former lover, and her brother alive during the siege of Leningrad in 1941. I don't think that I need to give the whole story away. Thousands of people starved during that first winter when the city was cut off by the German army.

Outside of the horrors that the citizens of Leningrad endured, Dunmore's writing is clear and precise. She tells the story without...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 03, 2011 Sam rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people interested in Russia during the war

Recommended to Sam by: bought the sequel

I came to read The Siege in rather a roundabout way. I bought the sequel, The Betrayal, at Singapore’s Changi airport with my last Singaporean dollars due to its interesting cover and its Stalinist Russia setting. Settling in to read this book at home the next day, my first thought was ‘Uh-oh! Sequel!’ Thanks to the wonders of ebooks and the interest, I was able to download The Siege from Kobo and start reading in under 10 minutes. A store can’t beat that!

The Siege covers the Leningrad siege dur...more

like · see review

Mar 10, 2011 Judy Croome rated it 4 of 5 stars

In the midst of the bitterest winter, and under siege from the advancing German army, Leningrad starves. And love could so easily die in the appalling conditions of deprivation and suffering. This interesting book evokes a chilling (excuse the pun) picture of life in Leningrad in the early 1940’s, when Hitler’s army tried to invade Russia. The descriptions of extreme hunger and extreme cold, and their effects on the human body are detailed and fairly gruesome, but are beautifully contrasted with...more

like · see review

Feb 11, 2013 Tim Cole rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reason for reading:
Helen Dunmore is an incredibly intelligent writer of fiction in historical settings and this is about as amazing a setting as you can get. When I went to Leningrad in 1988 I was taken by a very proud young female guide to a cemetery - just one of many - where bodies from the siege were buried. As you walked along there were mass graves for the military dead on one side and for the civilian dead on the other. They had buried an estimated 26,000 people in that one cemetery. At t...more Reason for reading:
Helen Dunmore is an incredibly intelligent writer of fiction in historical settings and this is about as amazing a setting as you can get. When I went to Leningrad in 1988 I was taken by a very proud young female guide to a cemetery - just one of many - where bodies from the siege were buried. As you walked along there were mass graves for the military dead on one side and for the civilian dead on the other. They had buried an estimated 26,000 people in that one cemetery. At the gateway there was a tiny museum. There you could see the little pieces of bread - comprised largely from sawdust - that made up the rations Leningraders had to survive on. The city is one of the most beautiful in the world and this accentuates the horror of the siege and makes the resistance all the more emotional. The Soviet propaganda machine kept the official death toll down to 670,000. Post-war estimates put it at possibly double that. Dealing with numbers of that magnitude is almost impossible, but two comparisons put it in perspective as far as possible. Around 450,000 UK civilians and military died during the entire war. During The Blitz approximately 23,000 people died in London. I wanted to read the book to see how Helen Dunmore coped with translating the monumental terror of living through bombardment, starvation and temperatures down to -30 degrees.

About the book:
The novel is set between June 1941 and May 1942 and has just five major characters. Anna, a school assistant, Mikhail, her novelist father, Kolya, her little brother, Marina, an actress love of Mikhail's, and Andrej, a doctor who rescues Mikhail at the front line and falls in love with Anna. It is their battle to survive and the sacrifices they make to keep one another alive that forms the core of the book. Other characters play a part. Their neighbours Zina, Fedya and their child Vanka. The schoolteacher Elizaveta. And most importantly Evgenia, the one person you know will survive the 900 days. The grinding process of making it through each day, burning books to provide an hour's heat, boiling shoe leather to extract minerals and vitamins, with the knowledge that someone in the street might kill you for a small sledge of firewood. The evacuation of children, digging of defences and the calculations of exactly how much food is available to make up the rations. Mikhail dies, Marina dies, Vanka dies. Elizaveta gets away to Moscow. But crucially Anna survives and carries Kolya through with her.

Quote, unquote:
Anna prepares for her daily walk to the bakery as carefully as a marathon runner. She eats the quarter slice of bread she has saved from her ration, and tucks another quarter slice into her pocket to eat if she begins to feel dizzy. She drinks a glass of hot water with a pinch of salt. She warms her jacket, coat, gloves and scarf at the burzhuika before putting them on. She heats foot-cloths, wraps them around her feet, and then puts on her father's felt boots. She does everything slowly, according to a set pattern. Whenever her heart beats too fast, she stops, and rests. She always takes her father's cherry-wood walking-stick with her to the bread queue. If she slipped on the uncleared ice and snow she might never be able to get back up again. And besides, the solidity of the stick in her hand is good. If someone were to rob her she would hit them with it. She's seen people grappling in the snow, fighting in slow-motion over a crust of bread.

What was good:
Anna is one of the most brilliantly captured female characters in any book I have read - on a parallel with the likes of Catherine Earnshaw and Lizzie Hexam, Fermina Daza and Elizabeth Bennet. The whole book coalesces around her survival instincts and the overall strength she has to bring to her family. This is punctuated by the moments when she needs help from others to survive the physical and mental battles which provide the focus for a state of being on the edge of life and death. Dunmore pulls no punches as she paints her pictures of death with the old frozen in doorways, children in their mothers' arms and bodies piled up outside cemetery gates. She also, quite brilliantly, throws in two chapters with a man, Dimitri Pavlov, flown in from Moscow to take on the grim task of overseeing the distribution of limited supplies. Turning back from the individual human stories to reflect on the overwhelming scale of feeding an entire city frames the story well. The overall attention to historical detail is, from my knowledge, flawless. It makes you believe 100 per cent in the characters and their struggle. On top of that it makes you want to read more about the city and The Siege. It is a study of the human condition that beggars belief.

What wasn't good:
The book only covers the first winter of the siege, there were still two more to come, but with the population of the city dramatically reduced in that first few months the food shortages became marginally less although the cold was still a mass killer. This curtailing of the story is counterbalanced by a well put together final chapter, with Evgenia again to the fore. Andrei is a character you never feel you really know, but his love story with Anna offers that little extra reason for them all to want to survive.(less)

like · see review

Apr 30, 2012 Lesley rated it 5 of 5 stars

I cannot imagine why this book had gone so unnoticed for 11 years! No reviews in Goodreads. Only one copy at my library. None ever listed on PaperBackSwap.com in the two years it has been on my wated list.

I have read a few books, fiction and non-fiction, about the history of Russia and the siege of Leningrad during WW II, The Madonnas of Leningrad is an excellent novel about the siege from inside the Hermitage by the employees who became its residents. But this book about one fractured family le...more

like · see review

Feb 20, 2012 Roberta rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, literary-fiction, war

The Siege è un libro quasi ingannevole. La copertina sfumata mostra un paesaggio imbiancato, le prime pagine descrivono le notti bianche e l'arrivo della primavera, quella sensazione di risveglio, di solletichio che proviamo anche noi mediterranei quando la stagione si apre, figuriamoci i russi con gli inverni che si ritrovano... Certo, la vita di Anna non è delle più semplici: ha dovuto lasciare gli studi per allevare il fratellino Kolja, quando la madre è morta dandolo alla luce. E il padre è...more The Siege è un libro quasi ingannevole. La copertina sfumata mostra un paesaggio imbiancato, le prime pagine descrivono le notti bianche e l'arrivo della primavera, quella sensazione di risveglio, di solletichio che proviamo anche noi mediterranei quando la stagione si apre, figuriamoci i russi con gli inverni che si ritrovano... Certo, la vita di Anna non è delle più semplici: ha dovuto lasciare gli studi per allevare il fratellino Kolja, quando la madre è morta dandolo alla luce. E il padre è un intellettuale, con scarsissime attitudini pratiche, per cui tutte le faccende, di casa e fuori di casa, spettano a lei. Senza parlare del fatto che gli scritti del padre ormai non sono più ben visti dalle autorità, causandogli grande dolore. Ma le immagini della nostra protagonista alle prese con la terra di primavera, mentre semina ciò che terrà la sua famiglia in vita nell'inverno a venire, è ancora un'immagine positiva.

Pian piano però la vita si insinua nella vita di tutti: Leningrado è cinta d'assedio e tutti i cittadini danno una mano, combattendo o costruendo barricate o servendo in tutti i lavori possibili. Pian piano però le scorte di cibo si riducono e le persone cominciano a morire per i più stupidi dei motivi: nella Leningrado assediata e priva di cibo, immersa nell'inverno russo, ogni banalità diventa una questione di vita e di morte. La vita cessa di essere vita, ma semplice continuazione, aggiunta di un giorno all'elenco, una possibilità in più di sopravvivere a ogni giorno di resistenza in più. Ma tutto diventa una fonte di stanchezza, quasi impossibile: ricordare, desiderare, sono capacità che il corpo umano tralascia quando deve vivere di pasta di colla e cinture bollite.

E' incredibile la capacità di Anna di resistere, di lottare seppur al rallentatore, ormai stremata. La sua capacità di sopravvivere ma anche la capacità di abnegazione davanti alle necessità del fratellino, che per lei è a tutti gli effetti un figlio. La capacità di innamorarsi nella più ostile delle situazioni, la capacità di piangere i suoi cari, di rinunciare a qualcosa per aiutare il prossimo. La capacità di inventare nuovi modi di sfruttare il poco che si ha. La capacità di non indulgere a debolezze, di rimandare a domani ciò che oggi non si può nemmeno immaginare di poter cominciare ad affrontare.

Un romanzo forte, certo anche deprimente, o meglio triste, angosciante, difficile. Eppure c'è tanta forza in queste pagine, tanta vita. E descritta in modo così lirico: c'è della poesia in queste pagine. Credo che la descrizione migliore per questo romanzo sia 'intenso'. Decisamente consigliato. E provvederò a leggere anche il seguito, The Betrayal.

http://robertabookshelf.blogspot.com/...(less)

like · see review

Mar 11, 2012 Michele rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm giving this amazing book four stars for now. I may upgrade it to five later in the year when I've read a few more books. I do plan on reading the sequel straight away, so that must mean I'm hooked. The book primarily tells the story of an amazing young woman who kept her baby brother alive and found love during the first part of the Siege of Leningrad during WWII. The writing is beautiful (lots of highlights on Kindle), and the story is heartbreaking. But there is always hope, and it is hope...more

like · see review

Jul 03, 2012 Alexandra rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

After reading The Siege, one can't help but admire the perseverance and ingenuity of Leningraders during WWII. Boiling leather for soup and eating wall-paper paste to stay alive, Anna's family must last through the cold Russian winter in Leningrad while the Germans block the city. Despite the hardship, Anna falls in love while her writer father's past relationships are revealed.

Though richly detailed, the pace of the book is slow-- occasionally I felt I was suffering along with Anna's family. Th...more

like · see review

Jul 28, 2010 Liviu rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: mainstream, read_2010, series_dropped

Since the sequel was just longlisted for the Booker and I dimly remembered reading and disliking this one a long time ago, i wanted to make sure and indeed I remembered it well; the main issue of the novel for me and the one that basically made it a fail is the world building; the 1941 Leningrad just does not feel Russian or Soviet; it can be "city generic TM" under very "nasty circumstances TM" in which "characters TM" try and survive...

It may have literary qualities, but it would have better...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 10, 2011 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-2011

I read this for a book group, but to be honest I may not bother going to the meeting. I just can't imagine what we could really discuss around this book.

It was interesting enough, well-researched and well-written. A convincing portrayal of people coping with an atrocious moment in history. But...this is supposed to be fiction and I wanted the author to give me a plot to go with the facts. Given that the population was isolated, with almost no food and starving, there should have been more of a s...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 06, 2011 Eddie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

One of the finest novels about human survival that I have ever read. The siege of Leningrad lasted through a devastating winter that saw 100s of 1000s of people die of starvation and illnesses. It's also a portrait of women during the blockade and how they coped in trying to keep their families alive. Especially Anna who.at 23, had to be responsible for her 5 year-old brother, her father who was injured during the German offensive and a former actress who became a friend of the family during the...more

like · see review

Apr 14, 2011 Paula added it

Well-written and convincing. Made me feel so grateful for my comfortable life. This is definitely fiction and a compelling page turner which stops just short of being too desperately tragic and unbearably painful. I dont feel that is a weakness tho some might. I felt connected with the people who were so isolated and desperate. The descriptions of Lenningrad and hisotrical events are accurate but not particularly detailed however as the focus is on the family and their home I dont think that mat...more

like · see review

Jan 24, 2011 Holly marked it as to-read

From Musings: 4.5 stars

Reading The Siege, one can’t help getting caught up in the lives of these characters as they face one obstacle after another. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could have survived under such extreme conditions, and yet people did. In this powerful story, it was their hope and love for one another that sustained them through some of the most horrific situations imaginable.

The siege of Leningrad began in 1941, when the German army cut all land connections into the city, disrup...more

like · see review

Jun 27, 2010 Gemma rated it 4 of 5 stars

"The Siege" is set in Leningrad during World War Two. When Germany's attempts fail to destroy the city with military bombardments, supply routes to the city are cut in an attempt to weaken it.
The plot follows the Levin family as they struggle to survive lack of food, fuel and supplies of any sort. We are thrown into a melet of the city's voices as the narrative flips from person to person, from speech to thought without any warning.
As the frozen bodies pile up people begin to fight, not just to...more

like · see review

Feb 11, 2012 Cerys rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008

A very evocative account of life during the Leningrad siege. I really enjoyed this book. Having visited Leningrad (as it was then) I knew a little about the siege and its continuing influence on the city, but this book really gave an idea of what it must have been like living through the winter of 1941-2, one of the hardest Russian winters ever, with no food, heat or water. My only gripe with the book is that it gave the impression that once the spring came in May 1942 everything was going to be...more

like · see review

Oct 26, 2011 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub, historical

I found the first part of this book very slow but after Leningrad was surrounded and the "Siege" began it was gripping, although very harrowing. Anna, her father Mikhail and his friend Marina, who had been in love with him for years,her 5 year old brother Kolya and her boyfriend Andrei all live in one room,huddled together against the freezing temperatures. They survive on the bread ration of 2 slices per day and by boiling up leather bags to make soup. Thousands die of starvation or freeze to d...more

like · see review

Aug 29, 2012 Bea rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

The beginning was a little slow, but then I got sucked in. I had read another book set in the Leningrad siege so I knew what was coming so to me this book was awful suspense of knowing how things were going to get worse and worse. I feel that it was well written. I liked the characters and really wanted them to succeed. I think this will stick in my mind for a while as I feel lucky to not live in such times.

I was a bit disappointed by the sudden ending but I don't think it really could have end...more

like · see review

Aug 02, 2012 Linda Rogde rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

In 1941, Hitler's German Army encircled Lennigrad with the expectation of a quick surrender. It didn't happen; the citzens held out under incredible awful conditions and suffered great loss of life. This is the story of the Levin family and how they survived. " It’s a brilliantly imagined novel about war as experienced by ordinary people, and a profoundly moving celebration of love, life and survival. " from the blurb.

I read this after The Betrayal. The books stand alone very well but have the...more

like · see review

Sep 22, 2012 Elif rated it 5 of 5 stars

Meine Meinung
Wer meinen Blog schon ein Weilchen liest, weiß sicher schon, dass ich eine Schwäche für Romane über das Russland des 20. Jahrhunderts habe. Vor allem „Die Liebenden von Leningrad“ konnte mich so sehr für die Geschichte dieses Landes begeistern, dass ich seitdem alles Wissen aufsauge, das damit und ganz besonders mit der Belagerung von Leningrad zu tun hat. So habe ich auch schon „Stadt der Diebe“ verschlungen und zuletzt war es „Die tausend Tage der Anna Michailowna“.

Vorweg sei ges...more Meine Meinung
Wer meinen Blog schon ein Weilchen liest, weiß sicher schon, dass ich eine Schwäche für Romane über das Russland des 20. Jahrhunderts habe. Vor allem „Die Liebenden von Leningrad“ konnte mich so sehr für die Geschichte dieses Landes begeistern, dass ich seitdem alles Wissen aufsauge, das damit und ganz besonders mit der Belagerung von Leningrad zu tun hat. So habe ich auch schon „Stadt der Diebe“ verschlungen und zuletzt war es „Die tausend Tage der Anna Michailowna“.

Vorweg sei gesagt, dass sich diese drei Bücher in keinster Weise ähneln, bis auf die Tatsache, dass sie dich mit dem Überlebenskampf während der Blockade beschäftigen. Doch in „Stadt der Diebe“ liegt das Hauptaugenmerk mehr auf dem Abenteuer und der generellen Lage, in „Die Liebenden von Leningrad“ dreht sich vieles um die Liebesgeschichte, wohingegen sich Helen Dunmores Roman wirklich hauptsächlich mit dem bloßen Überleben beschäftigt.

Anna ist eine sehr interessante Protagonistin, die aber schon so viel erlebt hat, dass sie sehr abgehärtet und betäubt wirkt. Sie erlaubt sich keine Schwächen, ist mutig, weil sie es sein muss, um ihren kleinen Bruder am Leben zu halten und tut selten etwas für sich allein. Der Nebengeschmack dieser erzwungenen Selbstlosigkeit ist, dass der Ton im Buch teilweise verbittert und zynisch ist, wenn aus Annas Sicht zum Beispiel ihr Vater geschildert wird, der sich zurückgezogen hat und mehr wie ein zweites Kind für sie ist, das sie über die Runden bringen muss.

Annas Haltung ändert sich, als eine alte Familienfreundin aus Eigennutz anfängt, ihr unter die Arme zu greifen und als sie Andrej, den angehenden Arzt kennenlernt. Diese Liebesgeschichte ist in meinen Augen sehr realistisch dargestellt. Während kein Essen da ist, eisige Kälte herrscht und jeder Schritt wehtut, wollen die beiden nicht all das tun, was Liebende normalerweise tun, sondern einfach beieinander sein und füreinander überleben. Damit geben sie sich ein Ziel, einen Grund, den ganze Schrecken durchzustehen.
Bis zum Ende bleibt sich die Autorin ihrer ruhigen, aber imposanten Erzählweise treu. Sie beschönigt nichts, doch zeigt auf, dass man sich in solchen Zeiten an schönen Dingen festhalten muss.

Ein weiterer Pluspunkt war für mich der Schreibstil. Auf den ersten Seiten kam er mir ungewohnt vor, doch Dunmore hat mich recht schnell in ihren Bann gezogen. Teilweise schreibt sie sehr poetisch und ich hatte an jeder Stelle das Gefühl, das sie für alles genau die Wörter gefunden hat, die sie finden wollte. Der Stil hat wirklich ideal zu der Geschichte gepasst.

Fazit
Wer eine Liebesgeschichte wie „Die Liebenden von Leningrad“ erwartet, der wird hier nicht fündig werden. Ganz abgesehen davon halte ich einen Vergleich für unklug, da das Setting zwar dasselbe ist, aber ein ganz anderer Ton angeschlagen wird.
Mich hat dieser Roman sehr berührt. Er ist zwar ruhig, aber auch sehr beeindruckend und real. Ein empfehlenswertes und mitreißendes Buch, das von mir verdiente 5 von 5 Sternchen bekommt.

"Es ist immer das Gleiche", sagt Darja Alexandrowna leise. "Die da oben fangen etwas an, aber wir müssen es ausbaden." S. 66
"Seit Jahren hat das System der Nahrungsmittelverteilung so viel Energie verschlungen, dass man kaum noch welche übrig hatte, um das System selbst in Frage zu stellen." S. 193
(less)

like · see review

Nov 06, 2012 Michele Brenton rated it 1 of 5 stars

I've been given this as a book club read. I've read the first chapter and I am distinctly unimpressed.

I don't like books that break the fourth wall. It annoys me, destroys the illusion and makes me feel patronised. It was bad enough when Enid Blyton did it - but I can't stomach it in an adult read unless it is done for comedic effect or it is a memoir/first person narrative and the writer is speaking in real time. I can't accept it in a piece of work firmly set in the 1940s.

This single sentence...more

1 like · like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 67 68 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (16)

More editions...

Genres

Historical Fiction

60 users

Cultural > Russia

36 users

History > World War II

16 users

War

15 users

Book Club

8 users

Literary Fiction

4 users

Romance

4 users

Modern

3 users

Literature > 20th Century

3 users

Romance > Historical Romance

3 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Ice Road
by Gillian Slovo
Homestead
by Rosina Lippi
The Ventriloquist's Tale
by Pauline Melville
If I Told You Once
by Judy Budnitz
Sashenka
by Simon Sebag Montefiore

About Helen Dunmore

I was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints...more I was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints.

Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.

I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.

At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.

During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.

During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.

In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.

My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.

My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic, (less)

More about Helen Dunmore...

Books by Helen Dunmore

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About The Siege

1 trivia question

More quizzes & trivia...

title link	preview: The Siege
avg rating	preview: The Siege Goodreads rating: 3.94 (1062 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/469959.The_Siege?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327918575l/469959.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/469959.The_Siege?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Siege by Helen Dunmore[/url]

The Siege (The Siege #1)

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website