The intimate correspondence between Nicholas and Alexandra exposes the political naiveté of the ill-fated Romanovs while revealing their deep, loving relationship.
The late 19th century witnessed a spate of assassinations in Russia, which caused the royals to avoid appearing in public unless absolutely necessary. Nicholas avoided confrontation by quietly listening, nodding and smiling, while completely ignoring the advice of his counselors. In an attempt to understand his strange lack of action and/or reaction and to confirm her perception of him, Rounding (Catherine the Great, 2007, etc.) participated in several online personality tests in the guise of Nicholas. Alexandra most likely suffered from Porphyria, and her paranoia, depression and hysteria, as well as the physical symptoms that kept her in bed, separated her not only from her people but also from her own family. Communications, even with her children, were in little notes exchanged almost on a daily basis exhorting them to better themselves and not to upset her. Rounding’s story is built on the letters, especially those between the czar and czarina throughout their marriage. The letters leave no doubt that the two loved each other very much, even to the point of lightly disguised sexual references in their correspondence. The author does not provide an explanation of how Philippe Vachot and his successor, Rasputin, managed to work their way into the family, and the connection of Alix’s dearest friend, Ania Vyrubova, is also indeterminate. The implication is that Ania fancied herself madly in love with the czar, even writing long love letters (destroyed upon receipt) to him. Ania became extremely close to the couple and managed to control them with her constant demands. References to Ania, Philippe and, especially, Rasputin give an indication of how much her “friends” influenced Alix. Rasputin was treated as a godlike seer, influencing even the conduct of World War I battles. The author’s strong background in Russian history and meticulous research establish her as an excellent biographer, although taking the personality tests in the guise of the Czar could be construed as somewhat presumptive.
Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-38100-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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