The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great

The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great by Eva Stachniak Biographical novels are interesting.  And The Winter Palace was a good read.  I do need to say that to start with.  It was informative, well written and seemed to have been researched well (though not being knowledgeable of Russian history, I am just guessing on this one) That said, Ms. Stachniak set a story line that threw open a potential door to create an atmosphere and character that could have been astounding.  Alas, she fell short.  She barely walked through the door.  She gives us this young girl, Varvara, who is raised by her father who is a bookbinder.  So, she is raised through much of her formative years outside of the palace till her father dies and she begins her life inside the palace walls.  And it is from her that we hear the story.  She becomes the ears and the tongue of the royalty, particularly, Sophia, or Catherine as she will become.  She listens and she tells what she hears to those she serves.  First, the Empress and then Catherine.  There is far more in this book on the Empress than on Catherine, but I imagine that will be made up for in the sequel and it may be that it is necessary information to tell the history better.  She tells the story well.  But, she tells it as if she is a scribe, penning the details of the palace.  Her character is not well developed.  It is as if she is as much a mere voice on the page as she is in the halls of the palace.  We don’t experience the transformation she must have gone through in going from a merchant’s daughter to a palace pawn.  We don’t get to experience the awakening and perverting of her character as she is trained to be a royal spy.  We don’t get the culture shock of the people on the outside versus the court.  We don’t get to feel the fear, the noise, the smells, the feels.  Even the use of her body by her teacher is told as if from watching eyes and not the experience of the teller.  In truth, it reads like so many biographical works, a wee bit on the dry side. I wanted to understand and know Varvara, but I guess she was maybe just a vehicle to tell the story of Catherine.  That’s too bad, as it could have given so much more depth to the story and allowed it to be not only seen, but felt through the reader’s eyes.  Varvara was our tour guide through the palace and she did a good job of telling us the tale as she walked us past the glassed in walls of the exhibits.  I would just have preferred a guide that invited us in and shared with us her soul story as well. I’ll read the next book in the series.  It was well written and held my interest.  And I am more than a little curious how much of the story she will tell.