Rating: 
Summary: Really, really, really good
Review: Russia, without a doubt, would have to be one of the most ethnically diverse nations, with a history that reflects such diversity. Therefore, it is one of the hardest nations to write any kind of history about. Not only does Rutherford manage to do this, but he does so over a more than 2000 year time period. Of course, there are certain gaps, a 1000 year gap being the most prominent, closely following his minimal amount of writing about Stalin. Though i think this is due to the lack of information about Russia throughout the Dark Age and the overwhelming information one can obtain about Stalin, therefore he leaves such areas alone, so as to, in the former- not to fill in a narrative history with pure fiction- and in the latter, not to repeat what has already been written. Otherwise, the book is a great read with a lineage of characters that makes the plot rather interesting, if slightly complicated. Overall, he manages to give a brief history of an extraordinary nation in the form of a chunky novel.
Rating: 
Summary: good but .. comes in thrid
Review: Russka was certainly an interesting and informative book. However Rutherfurd misses the mark, that he so cleanly nails in his throughly enjoyable novel "London." In Russka Rutherfurd's reuse of familiar plots becomes predictable and tiring.
I would have loved more on Napoleon's invasion or the real to enjoy the struggle of Tolstoy's novels. Also the chapters about the 1911 revolution are overly long and uneventful.
In closing, if you have a real interest in Russia, "Russka" makes a good third-place choice after Eisenstein's Movies and Tolstoy's novels. "Russka" also comes in third place as an introduction of Rutherfurd's writing behind London and Sarun.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional
Review: Rutherford's novels always take me to the time and place of each event. He vividly describes the landscape and the people in a way that most ordianry historians fail to do. Russka, by far, is the best I have read.
Rating: 
Summary: A bold effort to tame the wild history of the Russian bear
Review: Rutherfurd has done an amazing thing here in that he has written a comprehensive novel that encompasses 1800 years of history of an exotic, enigmatic land shrouded in mystery and secrecy. We all still know so little about Russia. An enormous amount of research must have gone into this book, and he definitely has outdone his previous works because understanding Russian history is like trying to find the light switch in a dark room after spinning around 25 times. One has to start from the very beginning and inch forward or one would get lost, and all the time you have dizziness and vertigo! This is made even more harrowing because finding a starting point is virtually impossible. I like the way he describes this in the opening pages by drawing attention to the fact Russia was still a dark, backward land where people marked the days by what village elder had recently died or what harvest was good or bad, while the rest of the world was watching the Roman empire reach its apex and Christianity was blooming and gaining firm footholds in the ancient pagan world. This theme continues throughout as he informs us that Russia lagged nearly two weeks behind the rest of the world on the calendar all the way up to modern times, until it finally adopted the standard calendar. One gets the feeling that for much of its life, Russia has been an enormous and powerful yet feeble-minded child. Russian potential for greatness is omnipresent but it has been hindered by bewildering customs and backward outlooks on life and the world. Just looking at a globe, it seems nearly impossible to tell which way is north, east, south, or west. Is it a European nation? Is it Asian? Is it both, or neither? Rutherfurd points out that in Russia, the rules are different. The laws of physics work differently, and any attempt by the Russians to reverse this actually seems to get them into bigger trouble. Its a very painful process for the country to move against the grain of its own nature. Over time, Russia is tediously drug kicking and screaming into maturity, and he perfectly captures this journey and its effects on fictional but all too real Russian citizens.I was very impressed with the job Rutherfurd did. Russka is indeed a worthy epi. I leave the "c" off because I feel he came up just short. It's as if he became exhausted while flailing around in the massive quagmire into which he heroically threw himself. An enormous chapter on the revolutionary period leads into a tiny mention of World War II (literally half a page). I found a problem with this in that 20 million Russians, both soldiers and civilians, died during this war, more casualties than any other nation suffered by a longshot. So how can one try to grasp what Russia is all about by skimming over so traumatic a national experience? Also absent are vivid descriptions of the effects on the Russian people of farm collectivization and the Cold War. Perhaps this is unfair to Rutherfurd in that he has chosen to teach us something we didn't already know. Many Americans alive today fought in World War II, or took part in subsequent conflicts in which we went head to head with Soviet-sponsored communist forces. We lived in fear of nuclear annihilation while hiding under our school desks during armageddon drills, and we watched Russians steal our thunder as they rocketed into space just ahead of us. So maybe the author let the middle and latter stages of the 20th century speak for themselves. But it seemed like just as Rutherfurd was in the last mile of the marathon and it was time to sprint, he decided to ride to the finish line in a golf cart. His saving grace, however, is that he finished strong in the last few pages. The epilogue was one of the best chapters and answered, for me, many questions that had accumulated during my progress through the previous episodes. Through 945 pages, I came to see these people as afraid and confused, yet vaguely aware of their largely untapped power and what they could continue to offer the world. Rutherfurd doesn't shy away from a challenge, that much can be said, and the reward is an ardent attention to detail and color that I guarantee will be hard to find elsewhere in regards to this subject matter. Overall, I think this novel is a new standard by which other writers should gauge their own efforts to make some sense out of the chaos that is the history of Russia.
Rating:
Summary: He opens your eyes to what happened to our world and why.
Review: Rutherfurd is one of the most magnetic writers I've read in years, he pulls me into a time long gone and far away. He brings to life places I've only dreamed of. I'm able to see the way our planet was, what our world evolved into and creates a sad longing for what might have been if only we had been wiser.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome,
Review: Rutherfurd sets himself on an ambitious plan, one which I would not believe easy achieved. He tries to present about 2000 years of Russian history in one historical novel. He achieves it, and extremely well, whole with round characters and interesting plots. If you've known Rutherfurd from Sarum, or London, the you already know he's good. If you haven't read him, I seriously recommend his books, and Russka is the one I loved the most.
Rating:
Summary: Big book; somewhat weak ending
Review: This novel is, of course, a historical novel about Russia. The author seems to be most interested in the period before 1800 or so. After he reaches 1800 the books drags a bit. The author thinks the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a bad thing and that it harmed the people of Russia. I have no reason to quarrel with him. The author does a good job of keeping the story centered around the four or so families whose descendants make up the key characters. He does an excellent job of explaining the economic problems, particularly those associated with agriculture, that have plagued Russia for all of its history. Anyone who reads this book should be impressed with the enormous amount of research that went into it. I learned a great deal about Russia before 1800. For the period after 1800, there is little here that a well-educated person would not already know.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Depiction of a Much Maligned Nation
Review: This was my first book by Rutherford, read even before SARUM. I've been mildly interested in Russia for a while, and I was intrigued to see the book...but to be honest, didn't expect much. I was very wrong. The book follows the families that spring from two characters in the first chapter...the curious peasant child Kiy, and a wild tribesman called only The Alan, moved by mercy to part with his most prized possession. Throughout the novel, each chapter is set in a different time period, showing how the descendants of these two characters rise and fall throughout the periods of the Princes of Kiev, the rise of Moscow, Czar Ivan the Terrrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, the Bolshevic Revolution, and, finally, into Post-Communist Russia. The book tempers its awesome span with characters that seem to leap living and breathing from the pages, and to my delight,I noticed that some seem loosly based on characters from Russian folklore. The book is rife with all kinds of people: nobles, serfs, industrialists, Cosacks, poets, freedom fighters, and villains, but essentially human beings. Excellent book.
|
