CBR 15 Bingo – History: This is a historical novel which in following the rise of Catherine I recreates the world of late 17th century Russia.
Born a serf, Marta manages through her cunning and luck to rise through society until she becomes the mistress and later wife of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia.
This is an insane story of stratospheric social mobility, and I am shocked I hadn’t heard of it beyond Alpsten’s books. There’s plenty of shadowy corners in Catherine’s biography in which Alpsten chooses the juicier option, but for the most part the facts however strange are true.
In this book, we follow Marta from her childhood to her ascension as the tsarina of Russia. The author does a good job of immersing the reader in the strange world of 17th century Russia. I liked the complexity with which she sketched out historical figures, especially Peter, who we get to know both as a man and a ruler. And of course the various twists and turns of Marta/Catherine’s life kept me invested throughout.
I did feel, though, that by virtue of being narrator Marta sometimes lurked in the blind spots of the story. Certainly she pursues Peter’s favor for the security that it will lend her, but I felt that we didn’t fully get to see what drives her. I also thought that luck bore her along too far in some parts of the story – probably to ensure a simpler narrative, but it did leave me feeling that Marta was less proactive a protagonist for more of the book than I would have liked.
