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Sto caricando le informazioni... Chimes of a Lost Cathedral (Revolution of Marina M., 2) (edizione 2019)di Janet Fitch (Autore)
Informazioni sull'operaChimes of a Lost Cathedral di Janet Fitch
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. "I needed both the stove pot and the divine. I was a poet, but I was also a human being..." Marina's (and stumbling Russia's) saga continues (years 1919 - 1921, the civil war) in this sequel to "The Revolution of Marina M." by Janet Fitch, a poignant story of a young poet coming of age and coming to terms with herself and the Revolution that she originally embraced but since discovered what a total fraud it was - "The Bolsheviks are not the revolution. They've taken it somewhere and hidden it under a haystack." In Book 2, there is a true to life description of the literary world of Petersburg/Petrograd of the time, with all the known literary figures portrayed and woven into the plot. Marina watches how "Blok had stopped writing... because there were no more sounds.... You couldn't say anything real or true when there was an immense lie sucking up all the air"... There is Gorky and Mayakovsky and Akhmatova... There are those who succumb and pander to the new regime and those who bide their time in an ever dwindling hope of the true right of writing without censorship. All of this, as the background to Marina's horrific private struggles and losses that finally bring her to an inevitable decision. A praiseworthy denouement, but I wish there was a third book nevertheless. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Appartiene alle SerieMarina M (2)
Pregnant and adrift in the countryside amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War, Marina returns to a decimated Petrograd, where her work caring for war orphans inspires her emergence as a poet. --
Marina Makarova finds herself -- pregnant and adrift amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War. She finds new strength and self-reliance to fortify her in her sojourn, and to prepare her for the hardships and dilemmas still to come. Returning to Petrograd, she finds the city almost unrecognizable after two years of revolution... and the streets teeming with homeless children, victims of war. Marina takes on the challenge of caring for these civil war orphans. Despite betrayal, privation and unimaginable loss, Marina at last emerges as the poet she was always meant to be. -- adapted from jacket Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Too outspoken for her own good, at a time when a carelessly uttered word can have fatal consequences, Marina constantly puts herself on the line, whether by arguing in public or insisting on learning facts that other people would rather not talk about. More immediately, however, she’s pregnant by someone other than her husband, and neither man knows she’s having a child. Her first concern, therefore, is to find a safe place to wait until the birth.
The sequel to The Revolution of Marina M., Chimes of a Lost Cathedral tells the heart-breaking story of ideals betrayed by humorless, dogmatic, power-hungry manipulators who, when human behavior fails to match their theoretical framework, kill the humans they hold responsible. Stark suffering, paranoia, and oppression abound, usually in combination.
Among other Bolshevik cruelties or acts of negligence, Fitch addresses the plunder of the peasantry for their foodstuffs; overcrowded orphanages that make the Dickensian versions look like paradise; or censorship and suspicion of poets, of whom Marina is one. Through her trials and travels, which must eventually lead her back to Petersburg, her birthplace, Chimes provides a wide lens on one of modern history’s greatest upheavals.
Marina also lives as fully as she can under the circumstances, which means, in part, that she has many love affairs. Sexual freedom belongs to her own revolution, and though I sense a sharper feminist edge in Marina M. than I do here, you can see still see it. Marina searches for partners who understand how please a woman, and she points out where the Bolsheviks have reneged on promises to value women’s contributions to their society as well as men’s.
For all that, though, I think the previous volume does better. Much as I like the later narrative, it’s got too much in it, not all of which fits comfortably. Marina’s penchant for argumentation seems forced at times; would she really be that careless? But the real problem is the overall approach. Chimes feels less coherent and incisive than its predecessor, and I can think of at least one plot point that’s both predictable and convenient, though Fitch integrates it emotionally. (I don’t want to give it away; suffice to say it involves one more loss of many.) Though this book is somewhat shorter than its older sibling, it feels longer, maybe because I sense that the author is saying, “Okay, now, let me show you This.”
To be fair, I like a lot of the This. I’ll never forget the orphanage scenes or those on the awful, overcrowded trains, which stink even more of hatred and backbiting than they do of bodily secretions. Also, when Marina meets literary lights like Anna Akhmatova, Maxim Gorky, and Osip Mandelstam, plus many more whose names I didn’t know, I get that keen sense of betrayal among writers who numbered among the first Russians to support Lenin, for all the good it did them or their country.
In that regard, I suspect the author intends a jab at cancel culture, considering how much discussion there is of politics perverting art. In that line, I note that one writer who makes a cameo appearance, Yevgeny Zamiatin, has surfaced in recent debates about censorship, and his 1921 ground-breaking, dystopian novel We, said to have influenced both Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, has been reissued. Is Zamiatin’s presence in the narrative a coincidence? Maybe not.
More episodic than its predecessor, yet giving a vivid taste of time, place, and character, Chimes of a Lost Cathedral is worth your thought and effort. But do read the other novel first. ( )