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Loading... The Secret History of Moscowby Ekaterina Sedia
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  timjones | Nov 6, 2009 |  What a great idea! Moscow has a hidden underground world, populated with many mythic figures as well as some lucky people from the surface (our world). Something is going on though, people have started to disappear...Unfortunately I couldn't get into the story. First of all I didn't like the way how the background of the characters is told. It's not cleverly interwoven into the story, no, there is always a clear cut and the reader is presented with all the facts (usually closely related to some pieces of the Russian history). This alone wouldn't be a problem, but the author does it for many characters. Many, even the minor ones. I felt completely bored after reading yet another short biography. The story itself starts interesting but felt too disjointed. Little parts that didn't connect and too many people who have been added to the mix but failed to spice up the story.To be honest, I can't imagine who might enjoy this book and I am surprised about the many positive reviews. (  ) dread_dragon | Oct 21, 2009 | What a great idea! Moscow has a hidden underground world, populated with many mythic figures as well as some lucky people from the surface (our world). Something is going on though, people have started to disappear...Unfortunately I couldn't get into the story. First of all I didn't like the way how the background of the characters is told. It's not cleverly interwoven into the story, no, there is always a clear cut and the reader is presented with all the facts (usually closely related to some pieces of the Russian history). This alone wouldn't be a problem, but the author does it for many characters. Many, even the minor ones. I felt completely bored after reading yet another short biography. The story itself starts interesting but felt too disjointed. Little parts that didn't connect and too many people who have been added to the mix but failed to spice up the story.To be honest, I can't imagine who might enjoy this book and I am surprised about the many positive reviews. ( ) dread_dragon | Oct 21, 2009 | first line: "She had long pale fingers, tapered like candles at the church." While the Neverwhere:London::The Secret History of Moscow:Moscow analogy is apt enough, Sedia's voice is quite unlike Gaiman's. I enjoyed this book, but felt it could have been a bit...fleshier. Reading this made me want to do a little exploratory reading of Russian folklore. I'd certainly read more by this author, as well. (  ) extrajoker | Jul 5, 2009 | **Spoilerish A beautiful book. Less - dreamy? lyrical? than many folklore / magic realist books of this kind are. Harsh edges, and the English tasted slightly foreign and translated, which added to the effect. As if the writer was translating her words from the Russian, translating her ideas, a culture, and there were jags where it didn't come through easily. Other things I've read about modern Russia always seem to moralize slightly, even if perhaps they don't mean to - to have an agenda or a preconception, to know where they've gone wrong. Here I didn't get that feeling. Just that she was portraying people and a country without judging them, without trying to predict or prescribe. The ending was almost perfect, I think, and yet I couldn't appreciate it. I'd grown invested in Galina, I had hopes for her. Identified with her, I guess. (  )1  krisiti | Jul 1, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0809572230, Paperback)Every city contains secret places. Moscow in the tumultuous 1990s is no different, its citizens seeking safety in a world below the streets - a dark, cavernous world of magic, weeping trees, and albino jackdaws, where exiled pagan deities and faerytale creatures whisper strange tales to those who would listen. Galina is a young woman caught, like her contemporaries, in the seeming lawlessness of the new Russia. In the midst of this chaos, her sister Maria turns into a jackdaw and flies away - prompting Galina to join Yakov, a policeman investigating a rash of recent disappearances. Their search will take them to the underground realm of hidden truths and archetypes, to find themselves caught between reality and myth, past and present, honor and betrayal . . . the secret history of Moscow.(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:11 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
http://www.belletrista.com/2009/issue... (