| Product: |
Archangel - Robert Harris |
| Date: |
07.05.08 (90 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good history, interesting look at Stalin
Disadvantages: Descends into action
As a history student I can tell you that history can be pretty dull. If taught badly you can get the impression that history is about boring facts, boring dates and boring people. In fact history is more about today than yesterday! If history was just about the past then surely one person would write a book about it and any room for debate would be over. Luckily for the 1000s of historians out there this is not the case as we can go back and re-evaluate the past with modern hindsight. This is why many histories have a contemporary view, revisionist view and post-revisionist view e.g. we did it right! They did it wrong! It was kind of half and half actually! Robert Harris has made a successful career from taking a post-revisionist view of the past and putting it into fiction. So how would he tackle Stalin? Was he a great man? Was he an evil man? Or was he perhaps and bit of both?
Kelso is a maverick historian whose controversial opinions on Russia have made him famous across the globe, but also infamous in the academic world. On a trip to Russia he stumbles across a man who claims to have been present at the time of Stalin's death. This man also claims that Stalin had a notebook with him on the day that he died and that he knows the location of this item. With Stalin's notebook Kelso believes he could reinvent Stalinist history, unfortunately so do many other people. Kelso is used to dealing with fellow academics, but this case will take him into the wilds of Russia and put him up against some of the most powerful and dangerous people from Russia's present and its Soviet past.
The main issue that 'Archangel' has is that it is seemingly split into two separate sections that have very stylistic differences. The first section is all about Kelso's investigation into finding Stalin's notebook. It felt very reminiscent of 'The Da Vinci Code', but pre-dates that book. I was impressed by Harris' use of real historic facts to paint his fiction; it gave the book a very realistic feel. I also enjoyed this first section as it was full of interesting titbits into Stalin's life, about all the close friends and family that he had executed over the years. It's clear that Harris believes Stalin to be at least as evil as Hitler, but unlike Hitler, Stalin is still followed by a large proportion of people to this day.
The problem with the first section is that it forgoes action in favour of interesting history. Personally I found this intelligent approach good, but I imagine that for some people the pace will be too slow. This is probably why the second section of the book turns more into an action thriller. The action set piece at the end of the book is decent, but clashes with the sentiments of the beginning, Harris would have been better trying to balance both parts of the book equally rather than creating two separate mini novels that appeal to different audiences.
The elements that do crossover both sections are the characters and to a large degree they work. Once again Harris has created a likable roguish character in the form of Kelso and he is a historian that anyone can identify with (not too bookish). The one character that really dominates the book, and should be considered the true lead, is Stalin himself. Although dead for more than 30 years when this book is set, it is all about how the shadow of the man still stretches to this day. I learned a lot about Stalin from the book and I am confident in Harris' past as a non-fiction writer that what he says here is true.
In my opinion when writing 'Archangel' Harris should have gone with what feels like his first instinct and write a studious fiction novel about uncovering Stalin's notebook in modern Russia. When the book tackled these issues it was at its best as the reader gets an insight into a country that we know relatively little about. However, pressures to create a more dynamic book seems to have been placed on the author's shoulders and unfortunately the book descends slightly into a silly action thriller. Characters such as Kelso rarely sit well in a gun fight. I enjoyed the novel overall and am willing to overlook some of the later silly sections, however, others may not.
Author: Robert Harris
Year: 1999
Price: amazon uk - £5.99
play.com - £5.99
Summary: A book of two halves that will appeal to two different types of reader
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