J.M. Sidorova

***SPOILERS HIDDEN***

(Full disclosure: book abandoned at the 31% mark)

The Age of Ice has a promising start:

I was born of cold copulation, white-fleshed and waxy like a crust of fat on beef broth left outside in winter. I was born of seed that would have seized with frost if spilled on the newlyweds' bed. I was born on the twenty-seventh of September because in the month of January my parents had been sealed in a wedding chamber made of ice.

The whole first chapter is this impressive. Sidorova show more knows how to construct a pretty sentence. Unfortunately, as early as chapter two, the magic has disappeared, and this part of the book's summary, "Surrounded by servants and animals, Prince Alexander Velitsyn and his twin brother Andrei have an idyllic childhood on the family's large country estate" is over in a few paragraphs. Suddenly Alexander and Andrei are men and before long Andrei is married, and shortly thereafter, dead.

Additionally, the only indication that their childhood is "idyllic" is the fact that their father is wealthy. Their mom is absent. For some unclear reason Andrei is an unhappy child who grows into a somewhat unhappy young adult. Alexander, the narrator of this book, on the other hand, is well-adjusted. As for being surrounded by animals...well, they keep a brown bear on a chain.

Looking at the larger picture, though, the story concerns Alexander trying to solve the mystery of why snow and ice don't melt in his hands and why, in moments when he feels strong emotion, everyone he touches chills to the bone. Meanwhile, Andrei, his twin, doesn't suffer from the problem, making the situation more puzzling.

The story is strongest when it's focused on the romance of Alexander and Marie Tolstoy and of Alexander and Anna; those are easily its most riveting scenes. But unfortunately, the scenes are too short and few and far between. In the meantime, Sidorova focused on the Napoleonic Wars—at times in painstaking detail—and an expedition to the Arctic, where Alexander measures the temperature of everything. A passage about a fish shares this:

I pushed in through the crowd and crouched next to the 'toothy one.' Its eyes twisted in their sockets, its jaws clenched and unclenched; but snow coated it the thicker and more it struggled, and already scabs of ice were forming where only slime used to cover its writhing tail. I had a thermometer with me, as I always did by then—a habit turning into a need. I took it out of it sheath and shoved it into the eelpout's throat.

Sidorova enjoyed writing long, detailed passages about uninteresting, irrelevant things. A few sentences later Alexander is counting down the degrees of this fish's temperature.

There's just no verve to this story. The few sparks die out almost as soon as they ignite. And the focus is wrong: The driving force behind Alexander's quest to figure out his "unique physiology" is the fact that he could actually kill Anna if he has sex with her—yet scenes featuring the two lovers are scarce up to this point.

As for the characters, which should be the lifeblood of any story, Sidorova created plenty of them, but they behave passively. She was guilty of having Alexander tell too much about what was said as opposed to presenting it via dialogue. Almost all are men and war-minded or focused on the Arctic expedition. Some are shown more than others, yet they don't stand out well except maybe the one gay teenager in the mix, who's slightly more memorable than the other secondary characters only because he's gay.

My mind was so numbed by this passive, unfocused story that I couldn't even tough it out to the halfway point. It's one of many whose theme is the most intriguing thing about it.

NOTE: I received this as an Advance Reader Copy from NetGalley in May 2013. show less

*SLIGHT SPOILERS*
The Age of Ice is a book in its own genre which took me completely by surprise.

I love reading Russian authors in English language because if the book is good I can recommend it to you, guys, and you might pick it up one day and learn something about the culture and rich history I grew up with. The Age of Ice is one of those books.

It describes the life of a man who is born as a freak of nature. He is absolutely immune to cold, and he has this weird affinity for ice and frost. show more He also can not die.

Because of his sheer lifespan Velitzyn starts his military career during the reign of Empress Elizaveta, gets into the thick of Pugachev's rebellion during Catherine The Great, becomes a part of a team exploring Siberia, and let me tell you - the journey he undertakes is harsh and gripping. Its hardships turn him into a broken, quiet and dark man...

While he is slowly aging in hist estate mourning the death of the only woman he loved, Napoleon invades Russia, and he undergoes a metamorphosis again becoming a sort of a Father Frost symbol of Russian partisans and only developing consciousness again as a younger version of himself in Paris after Napoleon's fall.

The fascinating tale doesn't stop there, because to escape the coldness within himself Alexander runs to a hot and dry Afghanistan where he becomes again embroiled into thick political intrigues of a Great Game between British and Russian Empire.

Little does he know that he will only see his beloved Russia again just before the Revolution while hiding under a facade of a British industrialist and falling crazy in love with a rich Russian girl...

I will have to stop the spoilers here, but bear in mind that the story reads as a recollection from Veliltzyn's letters and diaries to himself and presumably he is still alive right now...

This is a complex, slow and rich in detail historical fiction from those parts of the world you would not necessarily know much about. J.M. Sidorova must have done an enormous research because the historical details and atmosphere are just stunning, but at the forefront of it all is one man's struggle against the time and his own nature. It's melancholic and stark and very Russian.

I hope The Age of Ice will find its way to the right audience, because while I personally think this book is wonderful I can see that a lot of people will struggle with its unique style. Recommended. show less

How to assess J.M. Sidorova's debut novel, The Age of Ice? Not an easy task.

The premise of the tale is an epic journey of a Russian nobleman over 200 years of his unnaturally extended life, from 18th century Czarist Russia, through countless wars, political upheaval both national and international. Throughout that journey we are witness to protagonist, Prince Alexander M. Velitzyn's, struggle with his strange physiology: he generates cold. Any extreme emotion will cause discomfort, even show more harm, to anyone he touches, a sort of cold version of Midas' Touch.

In essence the story explores an age-old concept: what does it mean to be human? And with that premise of course comes exploration of love in all its permutations and perversions.

The narrative voice is first person, past tense, but told in an impersonal, distant tone. While that choice of voice very much reflects Velitzyn's struggle with his inability to embrace or express any intimacy because of the cold he will generate, it also, at times, tends to alienate the reader so that development of pathos for Velitzyn and his plight becomes strained. I'm not sure how else Sidorova might have related this story as effectively. Perhaps that's in fact one of the strengths of the story, rather than a weakness, that the author has so skilfully embodied Velitzyn's ability (or disability, depending on perspective)that the entire narrative is cold, just as the protagonist is cold both physically and socially.

There is little by way of actual dialogue in the story. Instead, Sidorova has chosen to relate dialogue rather than write dialogue, which again reinforces the theme of emotional and physical cold.

Along with Velitzyn's strange ability to generate epic proportions of cold, is his longevity. While his physical appearance arrests at about the age of 50, he goes on to witness over two centuries, chasing love, chasing an answer to his physical aberrations, exploring business enterprises, artistic development of his cold ability by way of ice sculpture, and in the end abandons all enterprise simply to increase his amassed wealth by brokering deals.

Even then, thwarted still by love and the lack of any answers to what, exactly, he is, he disappears into the Arctic sunset, as it were, with the hope of regenerating the ice cap in order to arrest global warming. It's this final act which, in my opinion, is the undoing of what could have been a great literary novel. It seems almost a throw-away ending to a novel that ended up too long, too repetitive, almost as though Sidorova was searching for an ending and in the end gave up.

Still, some fascinating study of the effects of cold on humans in Siberia in the 19th century, some moments of beautiful writing, and some incisive insight into human nature. I would definitely watch for more from Sidorova. show less

This was most definitely a unique book. I find myself fascinated with Russian history so that part of it called to me, the mystical half was interesting in parts and just plain weird at other times. It all starts with a cruel Russian ruler - I know, you are shocked! - the Empress Anna Ioannovna who forces two of her subjects to marry and consummate that marriage in an ice palace. Twins are born to the mother, but it results in her death. The boys grow up, enter the army as they must provide show more 25 years of service (?!) but become estranged. The protagonist of the story, Alexander discovers, really by accident that he is immune to the cold. He spends the rest of his life trying to find out why.

It's in his experiments that my eyes would glaze over - no pun intended - because my knowledge of the science of ice is limited. Well, it's a bit more extensive now! Alexander is a cold character as well - not easy to get to know or close to. OK - he's just plain weird. I suppose if I were like him I would be too....it made it hard to connect. Although I did have moments of feeling sorry for him.

I don't want to give too much away but the synopsis does indicate a story extending into centuries. It's as the novel moves forward in time that I lost interest in it. The ending was a true let down and seemed almost rushed. show less