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A review by assimbya
Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison
4.0
It would be very easy for me, if I chose, to pick apart Enchantments with an extremely critical eye - the thematic points are not woven in tightly enough; Alyosha is not much of a convincing character; Masha's adult life is not drawn very fully; the detached, philosophical tone Alyosha and Masha used when talking about the revolution didn't come off as well as it could have.
(Never mind that romanticizing books about the Romanovs aren't usually my sort of thing.)
But, with this novel, I don't actually care - it satisfied all my indulgent literary desires, for metafictional books about storytelling, for little, jeweled Angela Carter-like episodes a bit unhinged from history, and, most remarkably, for magical realism in the Russian orthodox tradition. I had fun. It's a very flawed novel, but I enjoyed it very much.
(I also appear to have read a bunch of Kathryn Harrison's other books without putting together that they were by the same author, I am fascinated with the variety in her work.)
(Never mind that romanticizing books about the Romanovs aren't usually my sort of thing.)
But, with this novel, I don't actually care - it satisfied all my indulgent literary desires, for metafictional books about storytelling, for little, jeweled Angela Carter-like episodes a bit unhinged from history, and, most remarkably, for magical realism in the Russian orthodox tradition. I had fun. It's a very flawed novel, but I enjoyed it very much.
(I also appear to have read a bunch of Kathryn Harrison's other books without putting together that they were by the same author, I am fascinated with the variety in her work.)