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Cargando... The Madonnas of Leningrad (2006 original; edición 2007)por Debra Dean (Autor)
Información de la obraThe Madonnas of Leningrad por Debra Dean (2006)
Historical Fiction (299) THE WAR ROOM (391) Books about World War II (208) » 1 más KayStJ's to-read list (812) Cargando...
Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. a heartbreaking work of staggering genius ( ) Here's what I wrote in 2008 about this read: "Good story the brings to life a famous Russian museum, the Hermitage. A failing elderly woman now living in the US dimly recalls her youth and love as museum docent and then resident during the seige of Leningrad." This story infected me with the desire to visit the Hermitage but it for-sure won't happen while Vladimir Putin is power . . .and may never. It was wonderful to read this book again. I read it a long time ago, and enjoyed it more this time around. This is a story of The Siege of Leningrad. Years ago, in undergrad college, I read Harrison Salisbury's book which focused on the 900 day take over by Germany during WWII. This book focuses not only on the take over of Leningrad by the Germans in World War II, but also on the way in which it impacted on the art work kept in the exquisite collection previously housed in the Russian Hermitage. The writing is stellar, and the reader can almost feel the icy climate and the bitter cold as the heat is non existent, and the paintings are gone. Wisely taken off the walls and stored elsewhere for security purposes, the author does an excellent job of portraying room after room without paintings, but keeping the frames on the walls in the hope that the beautiful art will one day be returned to where they belong. The main character is a young woman, now old and suffering from severe loss of memory. Marina keeps a visual memory of each painting in the hope that they all will be returned in the quality they were when they were stashed away. I highly recommend this book, and the one written by Harrison Salisbury titled The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad
Her granddaughter's wedding should be a time of happiness for Marina Buriakov. But the Russian emigre's descent into Alzheimer's has her and her family experiencing more anxiety than joy. As the details of her present-day life slip mysteriously away, Marina's recollections of her early years as a docent at the State Hermitage Museum become increasingly vivid. When Leningrad came under siege at the beginning of World War II, museum workers--whose families were provided shelter in the building's basement--stowed away countless treasures, leaving the painting's frames in place as a hopeful symbol of their ultimate return. Amid the chaos, Marina found solace in the creation of a memory palace, in which she envisioned the brushstroke of every painting and each statue's line and curve. Gracefully shifting between the Soviet Union and the contemporary Pacific Northwest, first-time novelist Dean renders a poignant tale about the power of memory. Dean eloquently describes the works of Rembrandt, Rubens, and Raphael, but she is at her best illuminating aging Marina's precarious state of mind: It is like disappearing for a few moments at a time, like a switch being turned off, she writes. A short while later, the switch mysteriously flips again. DistincionesListas de sobresalientes
"An extraordinary debut, a deeply lovely novel that evokes with uncommon deftness the terrible, heartbreaking beauty that is life in wartime. Like the glorious ghosts of the paintings in the Hermitage that lie at the heart of the story, Dean's exquisite prose shimmers with a haunting glow, illuminating us to the notion that art itself is perhaps our most necessary nourishment. A superbly graceful novel." -- Chang-Rae Lee, New York Times Bestselling author of Aloft and Native Speaker Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. An elderly Russian woman now living in America, she cannot hold on to fresh memories--the details of her grown children's lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchild--yet her distant past is miraculously preserved in her mind's eye. Vivid images of her youth in war-torn Leningrad arise unbidden, carrying her back to the terrible fall of 1941, when she was a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum and the German army's approach signaled the beginning of what would be a long, torturous siege on the city. As the people braved starvation, bitter cold, and a relentless German onslaught, Marina joined other staff members in removing the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, leaving the frames hanging empty on the walls to symbolize the artworks' eventual return. As the Luftwaffe's bombs pounded the proud, stricken city, Marina built a personal Hermitage in her mind--a refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more. . . . No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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