false<![CDATA[The Bronze Horseman]]>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171036640m/83144.jpg8314425Pulling off the passionate love story embedded in a truly epic narrative is a difficult thing to do. Margaret Mitchell's <I>Gone With the Wind</I> remains the blueprint for the genre, while Tolstoy's <I>War and Peace</I> carries off the literary honours with the Pierre/Natasha/André ménage, itself a blueprint for Mitchell's Brett/Scarlett/Ashley musical chairs. Paullina Simons' ambitious <I>The Bronze Horseman</I> weighs in at nearly 700 pages, and it's quickly apparent that the Russian-born author has the measure of this kind of epic romantic saga. The power of her descriptive writing, the vividness of the historical detail and, most of all, the strength of her central characters mark out her novel as a considerable achievement.<p> Simons was born in Leningrad and emigrated to the US in the 1970s. She sets her love story in the war-torn Leningrad of 1941. Utilising as her setting this phantasmagoric city of decaying splendour, Simons expertly involves the reader in the fate of two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha, living a penurious existence with their brother and parents. Their lives are ineluctably changed when Hitler invades Russia in June 1941. On that day, Tatiana meets a confident and attractive young officer, Alexander. As the Russian winter wreaks its havoc and the bombs fall, Alexander and Tatiana struggle with their growing love in the face of death and destruction. Simons' most impressive coup here is to ensure that the troubled love affair at the centre of her narrative is not engulfed by the terrifying conflagration that surrounds her characters. Tatiana in particular is drawn with a truly felicitous grasp of character: idiosyncratic, strong-willed and charismatic, she possesses all the requisite qualities to support a tale such as this. <p>However, the author isn't content to merely soothe and stir the reader: by using Hitler's war machine on the one hand and the dehumanising Soviet system on the other, she is able to make some powerful statements about the durability of the human spirit, but never at the expense of descriptive passages refulgent with power and beauty: <blockquote>The train station crumbled like wet paper. Tatiana crawled from the beams and the fire, but there was nowhere for her to go. Through the smoke she could feel bodies around her. Hot and faint, she felt for them with her hands. The gunfire came from right outside the door, but when the lattice beam fell from the ceiling, all sounds faded away, all faded away and there was no more fear. Only regret was left. Regret for Alexander.</blockquote> --<I>Barry Forshaw</I>16506281994The Bronze Horsemantotal:723|5:449|4:180|3:68|2:17|1:9|7233212111516356falsefalseSun May 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008Mon Jun 02 22:23:19 -0700 2008Mon Oct 20 04:26:09 -0700 20081 God am I glad I did!
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damn, I loved every second of the agony and the ecstasy...more...]]>
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51falsefalseWed May 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009Mon May 18 19:34:43 -0700 2009Thu Aug 20 20:47:56 -0700 20091 The Bronze Horseman is the first book of three that deal with the lives of Tatiana and Alexander, a young couple who meet and fall in love amid the firs...more...]]>
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21falsefalseWed Jun 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009Mon Jun 01 06:27:31 -0700 2009Sat Jun 06 19:44:35 -0700 2009 First of all, I am not sure why people love this story so mu...more...]]>
41falsefalseMon Aug 04 10:28:55 -0700 2008Fri Aug 08 11:08:23 -0700 2008 The love story between Tatiana and Alexander is heart wrenching and be...more...]]>
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41falsefalseFri Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002Wed Sep 17 12:57:08 -0700 2008Wed Sep 17 13:30:58 -0700 20082 The setting is Leningrad during WWII. A very serious subject and yet this book offers ...more...]]>
40falsefalseSat May 03 00:00:00 -0700 2008Sat Apr 26 07:13:33 -0700 2008Sat May 03 11:36:17 -0700 2008 A memorable love story set during Soviet Leningrad at the outset of WWII and the Blockade and Battle of Leningrad. So many descriptions of the city and life therein. I found it interesting seeing what life was like under Communist rule under Stalin duri...more...]]>
50falsefalseSun Jan 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009Thu Aug 27 19:56:08 -0700 2009Thu Aug 27 20:02:13 -0700 2009 I, by princi...more...]]>
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40falsefalseSat May 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Apr 28 05:06:02 -0700 2009Sun May 10 15:57:08 -0700 2009 I like h...more...]]>
51falsefalseSun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009Tue Feb 10 03:57:11 -0800 2009Tue Feb 10 14:06:03 -0800 2009 Warning:...more...]]>
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