War and Peace, Book II by Leo Tolstoy (Reader - Beware of Spoilers)

The photo of the first page of Volume II, Everyman's Edition, pub. Dent shows BOOK SIX. Don't worry, this is Tolstoy's presentation of his story not the publisher's.

The story of Volume II: Prince Andrew Bolkonsky`s wife, the 'little Princess', dies in childbirth on the day her husband returns from the war, where he was severely wounded. (The tragedy occurred in Volume I but I didn't mention it in the review as it may have been a spoiler for anyone starting out on the trilogy) Prince Andrew proposes to Natasha Rostov but his father makes him promise to wait a year before marriage. His sister, Maria, continues to live for God, writing to a friend whose brother has been killed in the war saying that His ways are ultimately for our own good and that her sister-in-law would not have been strong enough to bring up a child in the Bolkonsky household.
During Natasha and Andrew's layoff year the playboy Anatole Kanguine meets Natasha and with the help of Peter Besukov's estranged wife, Helen, persuades Natasha to elope with him, not telling her that he is already married. His dastardly plot is thwarted when Sonia and others of the Rostov household find out and Natasha is stricken with grief for her guilt.
Peter Besukov's concern for Natasha, and Andrew's father's classic decline into interfering senility are overtaken by the War as the French advance on Moscow. There is political confusion as factions scramble to advise Tsar Alexander. Revolution is prefigured

War and Peace, Book l by Leo Tolstoy (reader - beware of spoilers)

In the opening scenes, set first in St Petersburg, the fashionable capital with its elaborate manners, and then in Moscow, a more provincial city, we meet members of five families. Incident involving members of these families occurs throughout the trilogy. Andrew Bolkonsky, handsome and dashingly eager for glory; Nicolas Rostov, immature, a delight to his sister and parents, Peter Besukov, clumsy, intellectual, and rudderless with a huge fortune in prospect, are three of this number.
The first two are soon soldiers in the huge parade of the armies before the Emperors of Russia and her ally Austria. Rostov is entranced by the sight of the Tsar and feels that he could die for him. Bolkonsky, too, dreams of battlefield distinction. After the French victory, Napoleon's party on the battlefield come across the body of a young officer apparently struck down at the moment of grasping the colours of a French regiment. They find that the man is not dead although severely wounded. During the battle Rostov had been sent by General Bagration as a messenger with the hopeless task of finding Marshall Kutuzov for orders but he does come across plenty of battle detail for Tolstoy to describe. In St Petersburg after the Russian defeat, Bagration is nevertheless praised by the chattering classes for conserving the lives of his men.

Bolkonsky is feared dead by his father and sister but his young pregnant wife, the 'little princess'. has not entirely given up hope. His sister Maria, highly devout can accept disaster as God's will. The day of Bolkonsky´s momentous return to his family having been left for dead on the battlefield (he was the wounded Russian officer found by Napoleon) becomes also a day of family tragedy.

After his battle experiences, Prince Andrew Bolkonsky is content to settle on the family estate and remain out of society. The young ladies of the families we met in St Petersburg and Moscow come to the fore

Stalin:The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore (2004)

Stalin, Bulganin, Kruschev, Molotov, Beria, Yezhov, Mikoyan, Zdanov, Zhukov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and so many others are associated with mass murder in the name of a cause, but in the end in the name of one man's egomania. The size of the author's research task on Russian documents must make the book a research epic (720 pages). He managed to do it all in 5 years from Kremlin archives to publication. The killings are weird to read about because their scale is so great and within the lifetime of this reader. Then later a few thousand deaths here or there seems banal in face of the millions of individual tragedies. Even among comrades and colleagues Stalin got rid of those he got tired of, or suspected of outshining him, or of being an alternative leader. And he could always read a report or receive a verbal account in person from torturers 'working' not far away in the Lubianka. He headed a team of Commissar-Butchers who would take a train to a region and arrange executions of local officials by the hundred, or even greater 'units' sometimes, in order to solve some 'problem'. Poskrebyshev, Stalin's ' Cabinet Secretary' with his space outside the door to Stalin's office,

Havana Black by Leonardo Padua, Trans. Peter Bush

The reluctant police lieutenant Mario Conde, "The Count", is given 3 days by his chief to solve the murder of a Cuban returnee (from the USA) whose body was found on a beach. Set in Havana, the atmosphere of loyal friends and their enjoyment of eating and drinking together is an effective one amidst the decay of the city under Castro. The Count is a reluctant policeman, always thinking of leaving the police force. Meanwhile, he learned of ancient treasure shipped from the Philippines to Cuba and then to Spain. There is a golden Buddha involved. This reminded me of The Maltese Falcon a story by Dashiell Hammett, made into a film, 1941. The icon ornament of this earlier story, a black falcon, was also on its way to Spain.

Back to Havana Black: apparently when Castro's regime came to power a lot of private property was appropriated by the state. Perhaps not all of it found its way into the state museums and galleries. The book is one of a series with Mario Conde doing better than that other Count questionably "eating kippers with his mother-in-law tonight". Eight out of ten.

The quote about another Count comes from the tv series Monty Python where the question "Is the count eating kippers with his mother-in-law tonight?" is used as an absurd password.

The Colour of Blood by Brian Moore and Single and Single by John Le Carré

The Colour of Blood, 1994. Set in a communist country possibly an amalgam of Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland, before the end of the Cold War. Cardinal Wem survives an assassination attempt but is kidnapped the same night by what are perhaps a group of Roman Catholic rebels. Do both State and Church rebels have it in for him?

There are mysterious cars following other mysterious cars. The Cardinal escapes and tension builds up around him. A faceless malevolence met in other stories about countries behind the iron-curtain seems to surround events which build up to a climax in the days before a Church festival celebrating a martyrdom 200 years earlier. The Cardinal is determined to attend. In the presence of the Prime Minister and with anonymous Security Police in the congregation, the Cardinal speaks out against violence. He gives communion and sees a face he remembers. Eight out of ten. Very strong on atmsophere. Brian Moore's (same author) 'The Mangan Inheritance' was the first book reviewed on this blog, see below. You can also follow the link to the dangerous life of a real Cardinal.






Single and Single by John le Carré, 1999
A traditional English gent in tweeds with son in Public School, a minor one but nevertheless...