ROAD TO CALVARY

by Alexei Tolstoy ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 23, 1946

A massive, monumental work which was awarded the Stalin prize and constitutes a fictional record of the stormy, sanguinary years of the Russian Revolution. It is, in actual fact, a trilogy, The Sisters, 1918, and Bleak Morning, with the deterrents, from a popular point of view, of its Russian scene, its fondness for excessive detail, and its physical proportions (some 500,000 words). The first part is perhaps the most personal; the second and third parts, concerned chiefly with the revolution, is a cavalcade of combat incident which is fairly formidable even in print. The story itself tells of two sisters, Dasha and Katia, well born, socially and physically attractive, and from the Soviet point of view ""utterly useless women"". Katia dissolves her first marriage after an affair, goes to Paris, returns during World War I to fall in love with Roshchin. She breaks with Roshchin when he becomes a White, only interested in revenge upon the Reds. She eventually becomes a prisoner and prize of war of a crude peasant, and she escapes to return to Moscow as a schoolteacher, where she is reunited with Roshchin, believed dead, and now a Red. Her sister Dasha, more delicate, more innocent, indulges in many virginal vapors, then falls in love with Telegin, an engineer, who during the war is reported dead- but escapes to return to Dasha. With the Revolution Dasha loses her baby, turns against Telegin who enlists in the Red Army. Dasha becomes a nurse; Telegin is eventually her wounded patient, and all are reunited at the close in Moscow to celebrate the cause of free man and the rising Soviet. As sizeable a work as this is in itself impressive--- one wonders however whether it will have an audience beyond the critical.

Pub Date: May 23, 1946

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1946

Categories: FICTION