So I finished
The Ice House (
Ледяной дом) by Ivan Lazhechnikov, a beautifully vivid and romantic (in all possible meanings of the word) novel about the last years of the rule of the Empress Anna of Russia, and yeah, I loved it. The “ice house” of the title was a palace made entirely of ice, built in Saint Petersburg on the river Neva in 1740, as a part of the celebration of the Russian victory over the Ottoman Turkey. It was the scene of various balls and other events, and the most famous celebration held there was a wedding between the Empress’s favorite jester Avdotya Buzheninova and Prince Golitsyn, the scion of an old aristocratic family, who had angered Empress Anna by converting to Catholicism. After the wedding reception, the newlyweds were forced to spend their wedding night in the ice palace without fire and in thin clothing. The whole pageantry is described with fascinating details, although the characters in the novel aren’t the real historical personages, but rather people connected to the hero of the story, the statesman Artemy Volynsky, and the antagonist, the Duke of Courland Ernst von Biron, who was the Empress’s favorite and the more successful of the two. The main plot of the story is the deadly rivalry between Volynsky and Biron, and also the doomed love affair between Volynsky and the mysterious Moldavian princess Marioritsa – doomed for many reasons, of which the fact that Volynsky is married is not necessarily the most important.
The absolutely outrageous, flamboyant plot and characters weren’t even the most fascinating part of this book. For me, it was the setting. The oppressively hot palace interiors, the corridors and backyard entrances, the poor, dimly lit houses and shacks full of smoke, the cold and magnificent ice house surrounded by camels and elephants covered with silks and brocades, witches meeting in the dark of night, the ice-clad Neva, cemeteries and harems, streets and Romani camps, and above all, the merciless Saint Petersburg winter – there is so much color and atmosphere that the less savory side of the book can be almost forgotten. But it’s not for the faint of heart, especially the first part of the book, where the creatures of Biron’s slowly dispatch a man who had traveled to the capital to ask the Empress for protection against her favorite’s mistreatment of peasants. It is quite horrifying – I forgot how graphic and punchy old Russian novels can be.
I wasn’t all that familiar with Empress Anna’s era, and now I want to read more about the times between the reigns of Peter and Catherine the Great. I found out that many contemporaries of Lazhechnikov’s considered his portrait of Biron to be unjust (as Pushkin said, “Biron had the misfortune to be German”), and I’m going to get
The Word and the Action (this is the Wiki translation of
Слово и дело, which is a phrase with a deeper meaning than that), Valentin Pikul’s 4-volume novel about Volynsky and Biron’s feud. Whew. I can’t resist 18th century in Eastern Europe, I just can’t.
I'm starting
The Devil in the Marshalsea. OMG I have 2 more books to go. Let's see if I can do this.
1.
Year of the Ox:
Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope
FINISHED
2.
Laughing matters:
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
FINISHED
3.
That old black magic:
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
FINISHED
4.
East meets West:
The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai by Han Bangqing
FINISHED
5.
Another mother’s tongue:
The Ice House (
Ледяной дом) by Ivan Lazhechnikov
FINISHED
6.
Alma mater matters:
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
FINISHED
7.
Ye olde booke shoppe:
Camilla by Frances Burney
FINISHED
8.
Locked up:
The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson
STARTED
9.
Freebies:
The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria by Annie Gray
10.
Face your fears:
Circe by Madeline Miller
FINISHED
11.
Pixies and dryads and elves, oh my!:
Illidan by Andrew King
FINISHED
12.
Like a novel, only real: Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy
FINISHED
