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| Sashenka | 
 enlarge | Author: Simon Montefiore
Publisher: Bantam Press
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £7.51
You Save: £5.48 (42%)
New (16) from £7.51
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 20058
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 2
ISBN: 059305637X
EAN: 9780593056370
ASIN: 059305637X
Publication Date: June 30, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Just Released ... Published 30th. June 2008 ... Brand New Copy ... IN STOCK NOW !!! ... Absolutely Brand Spanking New Book ... Ideal Gift ... Unopened ... Unread ... `A1` Perfect Condition ... Despatched From a LONDON - UNITED KINGDOM Address ... NOT U.S.A. ... Usually Sent Within 2-3 Working Days ... Great Value ... SATISFACTION GUARANTEED ...
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Fiction? Of couse but no need for obvious historical bulnders September 19, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have read Court of the Red Tsar, Potemkin etc and enjoyed them all very much although every 50 pages or so there was a ridiculous spelling or factual blunder that jumps at any reasonably educated Russian reader. These mistakes undermine the credibility of otherwise excellent books and are really frustrating as far as I am concerned. Sashenka (fiction, of course) is a real stunner in this department from the very first pages. On page one the gendarmes sport Mauser revolvers (they actually had Smith & Wessons or Nagants) and wear blue summer uniform jackets in the middle of winter (supposed to be wearing gray overcoats - it's cold!) topped with plumed hats (discontinued in 1907 and anyway part of summer uniform) instead of fur hats with badges. On page two the chauffer's reasonable (albeit long) Russian name Panteleimon turns into the mind-boggling Pantameilion (where is that from !?) and on it goes. "Borscht" with a "t" - sorry, this word has never had a "t", "Okhrana" loses a "k" - Okhranka was the common name for the Okhrannoye Otdeleniye - see Encyclopaedia Britannica and on and on and on. Mr Montefiore is supposed to be a historian, but this profession does imply more careful inspection of facts. Frustrating.... Need a consultant, Simon? Only 50 a word :)
 Well Done September 9, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I embarked upon this epic novel with mixed feelings. I found the first 100 or so pages a bit tedious and then the book gathered a momentum of its own and I was hooked. It blew me away and kept me reading page after page.
I thought that the central character, Sashenka, is everything a heroine should be, feisty and fierce in equal measures. The time and place is captured perfectly and the attention to detail is well researched, the historical facts are cleverly interspersed with human interest. I must admit to shedding a few tears along the way. So, if, like me, your knowledge of Russian history is confined to re-runs of Dr Zhivago- then give this book a try...I think you might enjoy it..!
Definitely not-put-downable August 20, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book is extremely moving as a novel - the characters, their fate, the evocation of time and place that feels absolutely real.
And it also contributes to an understanding of a phenomenon still all too relevant for our times - fanaticism. The context is Russian, romantic young idealists, whose absolute beliefs made them capable of blindness until forced to see, but by then it was too late. In the midst of all the brutality of the Stalin years, much of what humans are capable of is encountered in the drama: the conflict between decency and attempted self-preservation, murderous violence, heroism and also, even in those terrible times, passionate romance. There is an ironic twist at the end, but hardly more unlikely than the spectacle of Putin placing roses on the coffin of Solzhenitsyn. A great read.
luminous, literate, and enthralling August 2, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Of the many Russian-set novels currently en vogue -- Tom Rob Smith's Child 44, Boris Akunin's Fandorin series, the Dostoevsky sequels by R.N. Morris -- Sashenka is the most enduring. Not merely for its size, either: this is a full-blooded epic, colourful and sweeping, overstuffed with gorgeous prose and teeming with incident and action. There's something resolutely, even boisterously old-fashioned in Montefiore's story; the characters are so vivid, so fully imagined and presented, that we're reminded of Dickens -- or, more aptly, Tolstoy. It's a breathtaking novel.
 A bit flat July 26, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
I was rather disappointed by this novel. Authentic and no-doubt well-researched information is plentiful, but there is something ineffably flat about the writing, particularly when it comes to describing Sashenka's interior life. The whole thing reminded of a historical re-enactment: everyone going through the motions as precisely as possible, without the thing ever really coming alive. The plot was a bit contrived too, which did not help.
That said, there are a lot worse books out there doing the chat show rounds.
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