"The Winter Palace" is a marvelous historic novel of young Catherine The Great as told from the perspective of a court spy (or tongue as they were called). Varvara tells a moving story of her friendship with the Empress in the years before her rise to power. She offers us a glimpse of what courtly life was like in the late 1700's and of the treachery and deception employed by those in power. This story is wonderfully narrated and one reads it sitting on the edge of one's chair, greedily wanting to devour the tale. I am giving this book four stars. Among the concerns novel writers must contend with in order to provide stimulating reads is the development of characters. Ms. Stachniak’s book, The Winter Palace, has many strong points - and I’ll enumerate some of them in a minute. In order to develop characters in an appealing way, one much first decide which characters lie at the center of a story and provide a layering to distinguish them from lesser ones. That is, those at the eye of the storm, so to speak, must have the most details about their reasons for being in the story, their physical and emotional characteristics. As other characters fade to lesser importance, these details can be less specific. In this book there are three main characters: Empress Elizabeth, Catherine (Sophia) of Zerbst, and the book’s narrator, Varvara Malikina, a friend of Catherine’s. Throughout the book’s first half, the character resonating most brightly is Empress Elizabeth. It’s only in the book’s last quarter that we see a fully fleshed Catherine emerging. Too, Varvara seems a pale character throughout, but this is often the fate of first person peripheral narrators. Among the questions that seem to go unanswered, or inadequately answered, are:1 - Does Catherine seem the stuff of a ruler, i.e., does she command the presence of those about her?2 - Has she ordered a palace coup through her own will to power, or is she merely cast into it by forces beyond her control? 3 - Is she as manipulative throughout as she is ultimately made out to be?4 - Does she truly love her arranged marriage-husband? 5 - Does she love her children, or are they simply pawns in the power game of rule?Much of my concern with these issues and this book is the amount of emphasis placed on the details of palace intrigue, the clothing, habits, and customs of the book’s range of characters, this reducing the story to tedium. However, there is much to this book to crow about. Ms. Stachniak has clearly done her research, has placed her imagination within the history and personalities between these book covers, and that alone makes the book an appealing read. Her prose occasionally dazzles, and her voice lends itself easily to the baroque nature of this historical era.As with many cover blurbs one reads these days in order to entice one to buy a book, this one’s are a bit misleading. The book isn’t about Catherine’s reign; in fact, she only achieves personal control of Russia in the book’s final pages. The book would have been better advertised as one about her rise to power, which would make the above five concerns all the more imperative. My rating: 15 of 20 stars
What do You think about Der Winterpalast (2012)?
If i could give this book 3.5 stars I would. There are parts that i really liked and some just seemed pointless dribble. I worry that giving lower rating might discourage some new to Russian history from chosing this audiobook altogether. This gives a good account of Catherine the Great's rise to power and her mother-in-law from Hell. It lacks though in the intrigue that Phililp Gregory brought to the Tudor Court in her historical fiction books. I am more into the solid history and enjoyed Robert K. Massie's, "Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman" a great deal more. My hope is that anyone listening to the Winter Palace first will want to know upon competition the rest of the story and get Massie's book also. The life transformation of Sophia, a Polish born-minor German Princess, into Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, is great subject for study, but one might not quite realize that listening to this book. I did enjoy the 18 hr and 38+ min narration by Beata Pozniak, who brought the Russian flavor to the book thru her accent.
—kvflores
"The Winter Palace" is a marvelous historic novel of young Catherine The Great as told from the perspective of a court spy (or tongue as they were called). Varvara tells a moving story of her friendship with the Empress in the years before her rise to power. She offers us a glimpse of what courtly life was like in the late 1700's and of the treachery and deception employed by those in power. This story is wonderfully narrated and one reads it sitting on the edge of one's chair, greedily wanting to devour the tale. I am giving this book four stars.
—yvonnerulex
