Archangel

Rating:
Summary: Over the heads of many
Review: Archangel is one of the finest book I have read, ever. Harris' work is a masterpiece that deserves inclusion in the Western Canon.

First, the writing is outstanding. Every paragraph is clear, compelling, bristling with ideation. Not once does the reader groan at an ill-wrought sentence.

Second, the book offers a deep psychological analysis of the callousness and homocidal mania among the 20th Century's political thugs--the compensatory processes by which they quelled their own inner demons by using the machinery of the totalitarian state to kill every decent person who crossed their paths and reminded them of their inability to love. Along these lines of character development, its portrait of Anna's mother is a masterpiece of irony--she is a loving but narrow, naive, blockheaded woman who cannot see her way to understand that the man she idealizes is a monstrous brute who destroyed her family, each one in a different way, who had her beloved daughter slaughtered to hide the monstrosity of his venal sexual crime. The characterization of Stalin's son is anything but a silly confection: it is a brilliant allegorical portrait. He personifies the amalgamation of genetic degeneration running in Stalin's genes with the depraved idea of raising this criminally conceived boy in the ice cold forests of northern Russia by a handful of minor sadists. What results is a demented anti-Christ babbling Stalinist jargon--a beautifully wrought rendering of poltical doublespeak in which the vapidity of Stalin's slogans is brought home with bristling clarity.

Third, the marvelous way Harris incorporates quotes from Stalin's own speeches and factual stories (such as the general who was shot for criticizing Stalin's callous military machinery) adds a historical depth that further enriches the book in a way that rarely emerges in other books.

Fourth, the ending to this gem is philosophically spectacular. Amidst all the male bumbling (the brilliant Kelso is manipulated like a child, the bright, reflective, well-meaning urbanite Suvorin falls apart when confronted by the raw elements outside his sheltered Moscow environment), Zinaida arises as a personification of gritty commonsense cutting to the core of the central theme in modern Russian history. After witnessing and enduring the Stalinist destruction of her own family, she is seized by a primal urge to arrest these stupid, brutish forces that are laying waste to her country. Stepping out into the rushing river of history, she does what none of the men have the courage or understanding to do--she slays the monster with a simple act of archetypal clarity--either fight bravely or watch as more families are dismembered by the monster. That so few people understand that this story is anything but a potboiler, that it is a monumental tale of human families vs. simple-minded capitulation to insectoidal brutes, is stunning evidence of how desensitized to true literary grandeur we have become in this land of incessant, ant-like clamoring for crumbs and moronic televised pablum. Archangel deserves a Pulitzer!

Rating:
Summary: Historians to the Ramparts!
Review: This tale of post-Soviet era derring-do has the protagonist, Fluke Kelso, in Moscow, during which time he comes into possession of a handwritten notebook previously possessed by Stalin. After much preliminary dashing about in the capital, the contents of this notebook send our hero careening north to the rusted-out city of Archangel on the Barents Sea, where he confronts this potboiler's version of Evil.

There are several aspects of this book that I found unusual. First, Kelso is not some smarmy Yank defending Mom, Old Glory, Apple Pie and the American Way against the forces of Chaos. Rather, he's a tweedy Brit manning the walls in support of Queen, Union Jack, Spotted Dick and what's left of the Empire. (Unfortunately named, Spotted Dick is, like apple pie, a dessert. Steamed pudding with currants, topped with a custard sauce. If you don't believe me, there are recipes for it on the Web.) Second, Kelso is not of the usual hero Right Stuff - a swashbuckling spy, or a world-weary cop, or a brilliant physician, or a hard-charging lawyer. Rather, he's a perfectly ordinary - almost too ordinary - bloke who happens to be an historian, whose chief talent is a knowledge of Soviet and Russian history. (We'll soon be seeing CPAs or convenience store clerks in Defender of the Free World roles, for Chrissake!) Third, Kelso fails to bed the woman passing as the story's female lead. As I recall, he doesn't even manage a kiss. Maybe it's because she's a part-time hooker. (A little too lower class, old boy. Perhaps even Bond would hesitate, what? And the Queen would not be amused.)

In any case, the action is well paced with reasonably satisfying plot twist and ending, and the dialogue is not inordinately inane. It also raises the very valid question as to modern Russia's propensity for a return to Stalinism. As Kelso observes, the Russians have no tradition of democracy, and are quickly weary of the social debate and wrangling associated with such. Under these circumstances, what they are likely to want is a Strongman with a Hard Line, and any hard line will do. Quite right, I think.

Rating:
Summary: A solid good read
Review: In a world where the cold war is gone, middle east conspiracies are tired, and the IRA is dead, it must be getting increasingly difficult to write simple, good old-fashioned "spy" novels. Robert Harris has managed to do just that--with a real, believable plot.

Correction--it's not really a spy novel, but how else would you charecterize it?

This is a good book. Well researched, plausible, and well written. I would recommend it without hesitation.

To the jaded thriller readers, the plot may be a bit trite.

But I really liked it and found it to be quite an entertaining read.

Rating:
Summary: Okay but nothing to write home about
Review: Basic plot: a historian discovers Stalin's diary, then goes off on a three day trek across Russia to discover a shocking truth about Stalin. The book was okay, but the pace was a little slow, and I didn't care for so many descriptions of modern day Russia. I wouldn't call this a "thriller" as it is missing the requisite suspense and action. I could have done with more pace, more crisp dialogue and definitely more action.

Rating:
Summary: Just another spy novel
Review: Well it's more of the same isn't it. I sure enjoyed Fatherland, for it's premise and readibility more than anything else, but I read it as you watch an action film knowing that it was just a piece of well put together vacuous entertainment. The problem with Archangel is that it follows the same pattern to the letter. It's quite well researched and even clever but when it comes to plot line it's predictible and improbable. Again we follow an unlikely hero with nothing to lose in a race against the badies to expose them and save the world. I'm affraid Harris doesn't move an inch from the premise that he so succesfully exploited in Fatherland. And as for the characters they're flat and inhuman just the sort of thing you would find in cheap spy novels which at the end of the day is what this is. A much hiped second rate spy novel, as entertaining as inofensive.

Rating:
Summary: Remember...it's a what-if
Review: So many of the reviews I've read below poke at the realism of the story based upon what really goes on in Russia right this minute. Let's not forget that Harris's previous books all are based on what-if scenarios that stem from actual historical events. Russia truly has fallen into disarray since the fall of communism, and this book simply takes that to the extreme of a "what-if it was just a bit worse?".

I've heard plenty of horror stories about visitors to Russia, particularly in Moscow. People minding their own business being forced to bribe cops to walk down the street, violence over a few rubles, rampant prostitution (girls lining up in parking lots at night, and customers selecting them from the luxury of their cars with their headlights on so they can see them better...most of the girls coming to Moscow from Ukraine or the Baltic states because no jobs exist anywhere else outside the cities or in the CIS). The descriptions of the decrepit apartment buildings, the seedy dance clubs, the barren wastelands on the way to Arkangelsk...all of it really brought me there, and I immersed myself into thinking that I was really there.

This alone set the stage for the book in my mind, however true or untrue these stories above are (I tend to think they are). Set that up against the background of cruelest dictator of all-time, Josef Stalin, and his legacy...suddenly you have a book that makes you feel as though YOU are the one that should be watching over your shoulder, because you've dug too deep. I'll admit it - the actions of Stalin's son when they finally came across him, seemed a tad ridiculous. But then, I don't think that anyone would turn out too normal if they were kept so isolated. And he would've had to have been VERY isolated to be kept a secret.

All in all, I thought the book was fantastic, and gave Fatherland a run for its money. And, in classic Fatherland style, the ending finished with a bang - quite literally. An excellent read.

Rating:
Summary: The archdevil
Review: PoliticaL fiction is a difficult art. This book is a page-turner. It is an eye-gluer. You have to go on and finish it as fast as possible. But when you come to the end, you find out that nothing has really been achieved. The secret son of Stalin is a myth. The impossibility for the Russians to learn democracy is a point of view, hence subjective. In the end, the book looks like a perfect justification of the emergence of a new dictator as being the only solution for Russia. Putin is behind the door. I remain unsatisfied with this vision , this fate and even fatal reduction of history. Russia, like any other country, has no hope, no future in a dictatorship, no matter how democratic it may dress. The characters are simple-minded, whereas in a democracy a person can only survive if this person is double-minded at least. In the end the vision is totally closed on any future and hope. In the end the vision is fatalistic and lethal for democracy itself. Of course it is a novel. But the use of real elements, real names, real politicians and institutions gives a stamp of truthfulness to what is nothing but an ideological and subjective vision. In other words it gives a vision of the Russians as unable to get up to the twentieth or even twenty-first century. This is discriminatory if not fundamentally "racist". The Russians will invent their democracy, even if a little dictator, without any depth, has to be the go-between of the future. This little dictator will enable the Russians to realise what democracy is and to get rid of the old vision, so perfectly represented in the Russian Communist Party that refuses to follow any trend, to listen to the future. Jacques COULARDEAU

Rating:
Summary: A Novel That Shouild Have Been A Movie Script
Review: Frankly there is not much to enjoy in this story and one could give away the entire plot in a few sentences. It would make a good movie with the Russian scenes, the right music, good casting, and better dialogue. As a novel I found it dull, plodding, and mostly predictable. The author seems to have the right idea but not the skill to execute it properly - at least for me.

Rating:
Summary: Very good beginning, petered out at the end
Review: The premise of this book is great! Imagine, Stalin's missing notebook! The first half of the book revolves around the hunt for the notebook, and it is thrilling.

Unfortunately, the revelations of the book and the story that follows is a little on the outlandish and less interesting.

A decent way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Premise, however it ultimately falls short.
Review: The premise of this story is brilliant, however Harris is unable to pull it off in a convincing fashion. While it keeps your attention throughout, the ending is somewhat unrealistic and disappointing. If you are looking for an escape into a thriller this may do, however don't expect it to portray a realistic portrait of Modern Russia. Additionally, other than the main character, all of the other players are relatively superficial.