Historical Novels Review - February 2010

GRINDING OF THE SOUL
Naum Prifti, East European Monographs/Columbia University Press, $55, hb, 306pp, 978-0-88033-641-3

Prifti's book is a collection of short stories about life under strict Marxist-Leninist communism in the twentieth century. The stories have a casual quality, like a relative or old neighbor telling you stories of their life. The tone underscores the absurdity of life under a totalitarian regime, and how easily the soul can be ground down into pettiness, greed, hopelessness. The collection of characters are drawn very well in a few short sentences, and the emotional impact of each story is immediate.

Though set in Enver Hoxha's Albania from World War II through the 1980s, the stories have a timeless quality, modern folktales about all the ways people can lose their moral center. The translation did not do this book service, however. One gets the sense that reading these stories in the original language would have increased both the sense of immediacy and the feeling of folktale. Unfortunately, as it is, the translation is clunky and inelegant.

Grinding of the Soul is definitely not a comfortable book to read, but worthwhile nonetheless.


ICE LAND
Betsy Tobin, Plume Original, pb $15, 374pp, 978-0-452-29569-8

Iceland, at the dawn of a new millennium.  King Olaf's Christian missionaries are attempting to convert the fiercely independent landholders and laborers of the island, but many still cling to the old ways, their reverence for the Aesir, the gods and goddesses of Scandinavia.  The Aesir live among them, (mostly) unbeknownst to the people, as well as in their enclave in the far heights of Iceland, known as Asgard.
 
The story follows the intertwining tales of Freya, goddess of love and fertility, and her quest for the Brisingamen, and Fulla, granddaughter of a wealthy landowner and her quest for love and independence.  Their stories play out against the very real landscape of Iceland, itself a strong personality throughout the book.

Tobin introduces us to winning, well-drawn characters (Dvalin in particular) with personalities and stories that make you care deeply about their fates.  The stories are told in the present tense like the Norse sagas – as Freya explains at the start, "My tale starts and ends with Hekla, and I will tell it as it happens, in the manner of the bards."  This gives the book a sense of intimacy, and urgency, that works very well.

Beautifully plotted, the stories weave together in surprising and very satisfying ways, supported by excellent pacing and lovely language. The author calls it her love letter to Iceland and her people, and you can feel it in every chapter.

You don't need to have any knowledge of Norse myths or of the sagas, but I expect it would make this book even more compelling.  All around, a thoroughly enjoyable book.  Highly recommended.




A COLD SEASON IN SHANGHAI
S.P. Hozy, Rendezvous Press, 2009, $19.95, pb 254pp, 978-1-894917-79-7

Shanghai, in the years before World War One.  Tatiana and her family have escaped Tsarist Russia after the peasant revolt of 1905 and are making a new life in the international section of China's most glamorous city.  Making friends among the Chinese elite and the international community, Tatiana and her sister Olga take converging paths – Olga toward the conventional, Tatiana toward Shanghai's decadent nightlife.   When her unconventional choices lead her to an agonizing  moral decision, Tatiana makes a choice which leads to the death of a promising and brilliant young musician, and changes the life of her friends, and her fate, forever.

This is a promising story with interesting characters and good historical detail, but it is marred by uneven pacing, head-jumping points of view, and telling rather than showing.  Hozy does a good job evoking the world of Shanghai from 1905-1925, but the story did not flow, which is a shame, because the premise and the characters are so promising.