The Madonnas of Leningrad
Ratings3
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings3
Average rating3.7
One of the most talked about books of the year . . . Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. And while the elderly Russian woman cannot hold on to fresh memories -- the details of her grown children's lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchild -- her distant past is preserved: vivid images that rise unbidden of her youth in war-torn Leningrad.In the fall of 1941, the German army approached the outskirts of Leningrad, signaling the beginning of what would become a long and torturous siege. During the ensuing months, the city's inhabitants would brave starvation and the bitter cold, all while fending off the constant German onslaught. Marina, then a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum, along with other staff members, was instructed to take down the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, yet leave the frames hanging empty on the walls -- a symbol of the artworks' eventual return. To hold on to sanity when the Luftwaffe's bombs began to fall, she burned to memory, brushstroke by brushstroke, these exquisite artworks: the nude figures of women, the angels, the serene Madonnas that had so shortly before gazed down upon her. She used them to furnish a "memory palace," a personal Hermitage in her mind to which she retreated to escape terror, hunger, and encroaching death. A refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more. . . .Seamlessly moving back and forth in time between the Soviet Union and contemporary America, The Madonnas of Leningrad is a searing portrait of war and remembrance, of the power of love, memory, and art to offer beauty, grace, and hope in the face of overwhelming despair. Gripping, touching, and heartbreaking, it marks the debut of Debra Dean, a bold new voice in American fiction.
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Debra Dean had a wonderful idea for a novel, but the novel itself never lived up to my expectations for it. The setting, a museum in Leningrad during wartime, was new to me, and all the details - the food rationing, the artwork, the human misery during that time - were fascinating. Sadly though, the characters never felt as three-dimensional as the setting; the paintings felt more well rounded than the people walking among them. A beautiful title, a beautiful cover, and a beautiful idea for a novel—surely with just a little more editing, a little more work on the part of the author, an exceptional novel would have been published, rather than just this rather run-of-the-mill book.
