Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17218 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-02
• Released on: 2006-02-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 391 pages

Irvine Welsh, Guardian, 9 June 2005
Spellbinding. Though set in the past, feels like the most contemporary fiction you'll ever read... a truly great novel.

Philip Pullman
A quite extraordinary novel. The language is so fresh and crisp and sparkling. What a narrative! What a story!

M John Harrison, Daily Telegraph
More than a thriller and much more than an homage to the Russian novel.

Customer Reviews

Meek, please find another editor
This is a very uneven book. There are islands of absolutely stunning, jaw-droppingly good writing in seas of stultifying boredom. I had trouble resisting the urge of not finishing it. Meek can have a wonderful way with words, and some of the scenes and characters were really memorable; I suspect this could have been a masterpiece if a better editor had worked on it.

A difficult read.
I read a lot of books of varying genres and in different languages. I was given this novel as a Christmas gift and the fact that I have only just finished it at the start of May should give some indication of how gripping it isn't. I have been left less than impressed with Meek's attempt at a Russian novel and am now left wondering why I bothered to pursue it to the end. Encouraged by reviewers urging readers to stick with it I succeeded in ploughing through all 400 pages only to be left with a disappointing and unremarkable ending. I was unable to sympathise with any of the characters and because I was unable to endure more than 20 pages at a time found myself continually having to go back to see to whom each name referred. There are simply too many characters and too many diversions throughout the novel that it becomes overly complicated and quite tedious. Too often I found myself looking to see how many pages there were to go which is not the sign of a successful novel. It does take until page 100 before anything really happens and as such I like other reviewers feel that the novel could be salvaged with some much needed editing. Some of the ideas are interesting and the plot has potential if only it had not been so watered down and the made so terribly confusing. I got little out of this read and was left feeling I deserved a medal for endurance.

hard to care about them....
Some interesting sides to this story and much to learn from a historical perspective but, quite frankly, I could muster little interest in the characters.