In this crackling, flamboyant third novel from Ian Fleming's nephew (Thomas Gage
), Charlie Doig is the unlikely product of a Scots-Russian union, who lives in his ancestral Smolensk "Pink House" in Russia as the Romanov dynasty wanes. Under the tutelage of German naturalist Hartwig Goetz, Charlie pursues the "holy cause" of Darwinism and captures a rare "bronzy blue-shouldered" bore beetle—an omen of an even rarer apprehension, his oft-delayed marriage to comely Cousin Elizaveta. Amid a parade of hilarious secondary characters (including the Mongolian manservant Kobi and the potentate Count Igor Rykov), Charlie wrests Elizaveta from a rival, and the passion of the newlyweds is finally consummated at the novel's climactic midpoint. The appearance, in the winter of 1917, of the cunning Prokhor Glebov, a Bolshevik and the novel's avenging angel, sets up the book's lingering final turn. Charlie recognizes that Marxist rule in Russia will be a bitter corrective interval at best: "Civilization," says Charlie, "... cannot be restored until the possibilities of barbarism have been displayed in their full bestiality." In the book's wintry denouement, Charlie's narration pulls slowly back on events—the revolution's settling of scores and literal severing of ties with the czarists—and then freezes. It's funny, sad and magical. (Jan.)
Details
Reviewed on: 10/16/2006
Genre: Fiction
Analog Audio Cassette - 978-1-4332-0221-6
Compact Disc - 978-1-4332-0222-3
Downloadable Audio - 978-1-4332-3913-7
Hardcover - 544 pages - 978-1-4074-0538-4
MP3 CD - 978-1-4332-0223-0
Open Ebook - 368 pages - 978-1-4464-1270-1
Other - 1 pages - 978-1-4332-8308-6
Other - 368 pages - 978-1-4165-4843-0
Paperback - 384 pages - 978-0-7432-9940-4
Paperback - 361 pages - 978-0-09-949708-0
