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kalarae16 's review for:
A majority of this book read like horror. I was not overly familiar with Russian history before reading this, knowing only that it had been described as terrifying, hence The Great Terror period under Stalin. Now that I have read this I feel as if the word "terrifying" is a gruesome understatement. I am so utterly stunned by the descriptions of those living during that time and through the Siege of Leningrad.
The choices they had to make that sometimes drove them to choose between morality and survival, themselves or their friends were heart-rending. Especially unnerving were the accounts of cannibalism, and the fact that it could be defined into two types (corpse eating vs people eating) - think eating someone who has died vs a starving grandmother trying to boil her granddaughter alive in a tub because she looks so plump and juicy. Or imagine if you were a mother during this time and being told to go to the police station to look through bins to find your child's clothing and tell the officer the number on that bin only to find out that the number indicated where your child had been EATEN.
I can only imagine the mental anxiety of those living in Russia at this time because no one was safe. The term "innocence" meant nothing. Often times people were forced to confess whatever the government wanted them to no matter how absurd or unfounded. You could be cheered and loved one moment only to rise straight to the top of the execution list the next. An example: Shostakovich was heading to a second meeting with his interrogator that he was sure was going to lead to his execution, only to find that the man's appointments had all been cancelled because he himself had just been executed.
*Don't for get the part about libraries! I was thrilled that Anderson included them.*
Despite the chaos and hardship, librarians were still doing their job dutifully for as long as they could. They kept their buildings open and helped their patrons any way they could, finding them books to read to occupy them from the horror, trying to find alternative ways to get nutrients when food was basically non-existent, looking for ways to make matches, and even just offering a place to go.
Listening to M.T. Anderson narrate this only made the emotional turmoil of this time in history root itself even deeper into mind. At first I tried listening to this in my car but his voice was so soft and quiet that I had to keep turning the volume up and up. Finally I resorted to my old CD player and headphones so I could hear it all more clearly, but his voice didn't change, it was just closer to my ears. This made it all the more intimate, as if Anderson were whispering secrets into my ears or retelling a horrifying story around a late night campfire.
The choices they had to make that sometimes drove them to choose between morality and survival, themselves or their friends were heart-rending. Especially unnerving were the accounts of cannibalism, and the fact that it could be defined into two types (corpse eating vs people eating) - think eating someone who has died vs a starving grandmother trying to boil her granddaughter alive in a tub because she looks so plump and juicy. Or imagine if you were a mother during this time and being told to go to the police station to look through bins to find your child's clothing and tell the officer the number on that bin only to find out that the number indicated where your child had been EATEN.
I can only imagine the mental anxiety of those living in Russia at this time because no one was safe. The term "innocence" meant nothing. Often times people were forced to confess whatever the government wanted them to no matter how absurd or unfounded. You could be cheered and loved one moment only to rise straight to the top of the execution list the next. An example: Shostakovich was heading to a second meeting with his interrogator that he was sure was going to lead to his execution, only to find that the man's appointments had all been cancelled because he himself had just been executed.
*Don't for get the part about libraries! I was thrilled that Anderson included them.*
Despite the chaos and hardship, librarians were still doing their job dutifully for as long as they could. They kept their buildings open and helped their patrons any way they could, finding them books to read to occupy them from the horror, trying to find alternative ways to get nutrients when food was basically non-existent, looking for ways to make matches, and even just offering a place to go.
Listening to M.T. Anderson narrate this only made the emotional turmoil of this time in history root itself even deeper into mind. At first I tried listening to this in my car but his voice was so soft and quiet that I had to keep turning the volume up and up. Finally I resorted to my old CD player and headphones so I could hear it all more clearly, but his voice didn't change, it was just closer to my ears. This made it all the more intimate, as if Anderson were whispering secrets into my ears or retelling a horrifying story around a late night campfire.