Name: Soţia imperială
ISBN: 9786064306128

Irina Reyn

Romanen følger to kvinders liv, den ene i nutidens New York og den anden i det attende århundredes Rusland. Tanya Kagan, specialist i russisk kunst ved et auktionshus i New York, forsøger at lokke Ruslands velhavende oligarker til at byde på den russiske Sankt Katarina-orden. Forfatteren bruger denne historie til at føre os ind i Katharina den Stores (1729-1796) verden

Soţia imperială

Nona G

The book that could, but didn't... so many end up in that pile, these days. I feel that I'm disappointed more times than I actually enjoy reading a book. And it's a pity, because this one had potential to be something more.

I enjoy a good historical novel, especially when based on real people. Reading about royalty, whether in press or in books, is one of my favorite pastimes. Russian royals have always been fascinating to me, with their exoticism and their power as rulers over the greatest expanse of territory in this part of the world. 

Unfortunately, The Imperial Wife barely touches on the life of Catherine the Great, this being just a meager excuse to explain the chaotic life and marriage of the main character, Tania Kagan, a Russian-Jewish immigrant who works as an art expert. And I would have forgiven that, had it been a true parallel between the two women. But alas, Tania is just not what I would think of as a strong character.

The book starts slow, it takes a while to understand where it wants to go. It then moves to a more entertaining, alert middle, where I actually started to like Tania a little bit, just to succumb to an incredibly dragged ending, where all my hopes for this book died. I lost all respect for the main character in the last chapter, as she makes some morally questionable decisions that put a lot of people in danger, only to save a marriage to a guy who is so weak that it's pathetic. I struggled to finish it without actually ripping it to shreds. 

One thing I hate most of all and mark it as a sign of lazy writing is the author spelling things out for the readers without letting them get the point themselves. I got annoyed by the pointless repetitions about Russian women just wanting to serve their men (though I could understand how there would be a culture clash and a struggle between the ingrained condition of the woman in marriage and the "partnership" concept in Western societies). 

The chapters about Catherine are weak, very short and they skip long periods of time in the Empress' life. They fail to do Catherine justice. There is nothing in there that suggests she was "The Great", instead she is portrayed as a marionette pushed around by everybody just as they liked. I noticed some unnecessary historical inaccuracies that made no sense in the book, as they don't change in any way the outcome of the story. I wish people wouldn't take such liberties when it comes to historical facts. But as always with these books, the best thing about them is that they give me the impulse to do research into the lives of particularly interesting people, so there's that.

Another quite intriguing part is the fact that the novel delves into Russian culture in a way I have never encountered before. There's a separate society of Russian magnates who live in their own world of luxuries and fear. It's all a roller-coaster, a storm that needs to be carefully managed unless the actors want to be swallowed and drowned by the sea. However, this does not save the book, it just gives it that air of "oh, what it could have been..." had Irina Reyn put a little bit more effort into it.

Soţia imperială

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