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Summary: Siege of our sensibilities
Review: Set during the blockade of Leningrad in World War II, Ms. Dunmore's novel "The Siege" attacks and bombards our sensibilities as no other book in recent memory. Beginning with the Nazi attack of Russia on June 22, 1941, the story examines and portrays the ordeals of the Levin family as they struggle to stay alive and keep their humanity during the longest siege and blockade in modern warfare. Initially, the Levins are caught between the excesses of Stalin's purges and the fury of the German attack. Quickly, the enemy becomes the shelling, the starvation and the cold. Dunmore's prose travels deep within the emotions, fears and thoughts of the characrters to illuminate suffering as no other historical tract has rendered. The voices of all her characters speak to us and transfer us to an umimaginable time when madness and cruelly ruled. Dunmore gives the reader enough of the historical context of the Siege of Leningrad (Luga defenses, Pavlov's rationing, "road of life" across Ladoga, etc;) for our sense of time and place, but the book primarily examines the emotions and human politics of survival.While her language is direct as a bullet, there is a smokey-poetic quality to it that curls around our senses and forces a painful understanding. Yet, there is no saccharine sentimentality to her narrative, nor are we seduced with maudlin pathos or pity. She punches us with her descriptions and compels us to look at suffering and survival and seek meaning where there seems to be only despair, self interest and cruelly. "The Siege" is at once troubling and uplifting; ugly and fair; compassionate and cruel. As deep as our hearts, it is a book for our souls. On a personal note, I have stood at the mass graves of Piskarevskaya many times seeking some insight into the sacrifice. I have even written a screenplay ("The Large Hearts of Heroes") in an effort to understand both the historical and personal truths. But in the end I stand in the Cementery with my Russian friends, listening to the stilled voices frozen long ago and waiting for redemption.
Rating:
Summary: "The Siege" is Dunmore's masterpiece
Review: This book is very well written, characters are well-developed, historical context is well-integrated. Other reviewers have described the story line - I just want to say this book transported me to a time and place that I felt with characters that I cared about. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting Book
Review: This book is very well written, characters are well-developed, historical context is well-integrated. Other reviewers have described the story line - I just want to say this book transported me to a time and place that I felt with characters that I cared about. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Captivated by THE SIEGE
Review: This is a very dramatic and emotional story. The reader really cares about Anna, little Kolya, and the rest of her family as they struggle to survive this horrific ordeal. I was particularly moved by the way Anna reflects on the things that she once took for granted - her father reading poetry, cloudberry jam, bread that is fresh and plentiful. The author presents the unspeakable conditions of the siege of Leningrad while always holding out the thin breath of survival in the characters and makes us count our blessings in the bargain.
I highly recommend this to any historical fiction reader.
Rating:
Summary: Captivated by THE SIEGE
Review: This is a very dramatic and emotional story. The reader really cares about Anna, little Kolya, and the rest of her family as they struggle to survive this horrific ordeal. I was particularly moved by the way Anna reflects on the things that she once took for granted - her father reading poetry, cloudberry jam, bread that is fresh and plentiful. The author presents the unspeakable conditions of the siege of Leningrad while always holding out the thin breath of survival in the characters and makes us count our blessings in the bargain.
I highly recommend this to any historical fiction reader.
Rating:
Summary: Leningrad as Literature
Review: This is a very powerful novel with striking, deeply affecting prose descriptions of the suffering of the people of Leningrad during the two and a half year siege they underwent at the hands of the Germans in WWII. Most of the focus is on the love and sacrifices of a mother for her son. I was a bit surprised that there seemed to be little actual fighting depicted here but in reality it was mostly a long seige with much bombing. The will to live becomes a noble pursuit in itself, the decision that death will not be on the Germans terms. Of course, much of the plot of the novel is about situations that are forced on people by the enemy and also by their own totalitarian government---but the small, tragic, and occasionally triumphant choices that people do make give the novel added meaning and power--they are not merely swept up in the tide of events--what Anatoli Rybakov called the Heavy Sand of 20th Century Russian history. This is recommended reading as is the long section on the siege of Leningrad in Alexander Werth's great WWII history, Russia at War.
Rating: 
Summary: You've got to get to the end to appreciate it
Review: To me, reading this book was like reading the Scarlet Letter - don't get me wrong, it was a great book and very compelling, but I didn't really appreciate how wrapped up in it I had become until I finished it and was able to step back and view it as a whole. I don't know if I would read it again, but I would definately recomend it.
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