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The Madonnas of Leningrad: A Novel (P.S.) Posters
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Rating:  -
Marina Buriakov is an 82-year old woman who is slowly losing her battle with Alzheimer's. During a trip to Drake Island for her graddaughter Katie's wedding, Marina often finds herself reminiscing about the past - a past she and husband Dmitri have chosen not to share with their two children, Andrei and Elena (Helen).
During World War II, Marina, a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, worked to save the Soviet Union's priceless artifacts. However, she, like millions of other residents of the city, experienced the horrors of starvation, air raids, and death as the Germans bombed everything they could find. By creating a "memory palace" - a way of organizing her thoughts, Marina is able to remember the Hermitage in its pre-war glory.
The story frequently jumps between the present and the past, and is told through the frustration of Marina's jumbled mind. While it is a beautiful read, it can be a bit confusing at times deciphering between dreams and reality. And, while the story itself is one of heartbreak and hope, it just didn't grab me as much as I thought it would.
"The Madonnas of Leningrad" is a great book, but not one that riveted my attention like other World War II novels. Definitely spend a day with it, and then decide for yourself.
Rating:  -
I very much enjoyed this story, told in parallel, of two parts of a woman's life. The book began with alternating chapters set, first in the youth of the central character, and then in her senescence. Gradually and artfully the two merged giving an interesting impression of what the inner life of an Alzheimer's patient might be.
The life-long love and devotion of her partner was touching. The contrast between her life in Leningrad during the siege by the Nazis and her life in the Pacific Northwest as an old woman was well drawn and not over-drawn. The book was a thoroughly pleasurable read.
Rating: -
I often think people give 5 stars too freely, but this is a book that truly deserves it. For me it is usually the characters that carry or drown a novel, but in this case the characters themselves are not too important. They remain as placeholders in a novel that although achingly detailed in its description of the war and its effects on the citizens has a dreamlike quality to it. The bits descibing certain artwork fit seamlessly and appropriately into the narrative and are pieces of art themselves. A beautiful novel celebrating the gloriousness of little things backdropped by both a period of horrible wartime and ordinary life for an impact rarely seen in debut novels. Alzheimers is shown as heartbreaking yet with hidden benefits.
Rating: -
I started reading about the siege of Leningrad a few years ago while doing research on Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Then I read a few novels having to do with life during the siege; the hardships, squalor, etc. This one tops them all ... as it relates to life here (in the U.S.) so many years after the siege. A seige survivor's Alzheimers and its affect on her family. Just wonderful stuff. Brava!
Rating: -
I've thought about this book repeatedly since I finished it last week, a testament to how deeply it affected me. There is much to ponder, particularly the power of memory and the profundity of its loss. Marina is in her 80s, struggling with the early stages of Alzheimers disease. As her short term memory begins to falter, she drifts back to the dramatic years of her youth during the siege of Leningrad in WWII. Beautifully written, with nice transitions from the present to the past and back again without disruption.
So what didn't I like? I found it unlikely (but not impossible) that her children would know so little of their mother's past, and I felt the story would be richer had there been more exploration of Marina's present circumstances. That having been said, I highly recommend this novel for its originality and its loving depiction of the waning years of a life.
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