Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.

Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as “the Messalina of the north.”

Catherine’s family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies—all are here, vividly described. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her “favorites”—the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement.

The story is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives.

History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.

The Landmark Books of Haruki Murakami

　　We simply haven’t showcased enough of Japan’s writing talent so let’s start with Haruki Murakami. He writes novels, he writes short stories, he writes non-fiction, he has a shelf filled with literary awards and he’s sold a lot of books.
Murakami is one of the most important figures in modern literature and is always prepared to challenge readers and critics with books that don’t conform to traditional narrative structures. Acclaimed as his fiction is, one of Murakami’s most engaging titles is about running – his 2008 book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, shows another side of his character.

He started writing at the end of his twenties and his debut novel was called Hear the Wind Sing. He followed that book with a sequel called Pinball, 1973. A Wild Sheep Chase completed his ‘Rat’ trilogy.
In the mid-1980s, Murakami penned a fantasy called Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and then wrote Norwegian Wood – a two-volume bestseller about nostalgia, loss and sexuality that really put him on the map.
The 1990s saw The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (a novel about an unemployed man that shows an apparently mundane life is actually very complicated) and Sputnik Sweetheart (a novel about loneliness and conforming to society’s expectations).
This century he was been acclaimed for Kafka on the Shore (an unconventional narrative with two plots running side by side) and also published an anthology called Birthday Stories, which is just that, and includes work from Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace and Paul Theroux.
Haruki Murakami has climbed two distinct literary mountains – first making the grade in Japan and then having his English translations acclaimed by literary critics in North America and Europe. His team of translators deserves a nod of appreciation.
Murakami latest novel is 1Q84, published in Japan in 2009 but the English translation did not appear until 2011.

The Booker's narrative arc must change if its cultural dominance is to continue

A week is a long time in Grub Street. It seems only yesterday that the Man Booker was in the grip of an apparently terminal crisis provoked by the announcement of a rival, the Literature prize, and compounded by the worst shortlist in living memory.

Now, with Julian Barnes declared the 2011 winner for The Sense of an Ending, and the annual Guildhall dinner safely negotiated, the air of panic and atmosphere of annus horribilis has dissipated. Strangely, even Dame Stella Rimington's bizarre and defensive speech from the chair (aptly described by Sam Jordison) now seems like the buzz of interference you get on a radio before tuning into the right station. So how did the Booker get out of the locked room of "readability" into which it had incarcerated itself?
By a whisker, is the answer. On the night itself, it seemed as if former chairman of Booker plc Jonathan Taylor would continue his impersonation of those post-revolution Bourbons who had "learned nothing, and forgotten nothing". He insisted on telling the Booker's diners the sales figures for last year's winner, The Finkler Question, and providing details of its foreign rights deals. You could see people shaking their heads in dismay at remarks that were barely appropriate for the works outing of a book warehouse union. What about contemporary fiction? Whither the culture of the English-language novel?
Well, eventually, we were allowed to think about books – specifically, about this year's winner. As is often the case in the book world, it's the quality of the work that provides a reality check, and prevents a drama from becoming a crisis. Barnes's 11th novel is perhaps not his best, and nowhere near as original as Flaubert's Parrot, but it is a work of art, and conforms to the high standard set by previous winners.
This is not a negligible point. Say what you like about this prize – and most of the commentariat have done that pretty freely this year – Booker has a record of picking winners, from In a Free State (Naipaul) and Rites of Passage (Golding) to Oscar and Lucinda (Carey) and Disgrace (Coetzee). Among UK literary prizes, only the Orange comes close in providing an appealing mix of the literary and the commercial – choosing titles that stand the test of time, at least in the short term. A lot of the credit there, I think, goes to Kate Mosse, who is as spirited and youthful as she is tough and brand-conscious. The Booker could do worse than find itself a Mosse to enunciate its vision for the future.
And that brings up another thing: compared with all the other great literary prizes, even the Orange, the Booker is impressively global. This is why its choice matters, why so many readers around the world are exercised by it. Indeed, part of the trouble it has got into lately derives from the disjunction between its 21st-century appeal to a global English-language audience and its 20th-century, literary London origins and organisation. The one is contemporary, the other in danger of becoming hopelessly outmoded.
I wrote last week: "The forthcoming prize dinner at the Guildhall next Tuesday will be fraught with interest." That proved true. In the end, however, there was a palpable sense of relief that good sense had prevailed, and that justice had been done to the best book on the shortlist.
In preparation for 2012, let's hope the placemen and women of the Man Booker don't sit back with a sigh of relief, and refuse to address the issues raised by their critics. The prize is in need of some urgent reforms. Many close to the heart of the organisation are privately anxious to address the way to ensure another 25 years of prize patronage. The Booker's dominant place in the cultural landscape is neither guaranteed, nor automatic; it has to be earned. Otherwise others, such as the Literature prize, will step in and take its place. The Guildhall evening speaks of grandeur, security and a certain cultural arrogance. But it's completely out of sync with the reality of the creative society whose activity it adjudicates.
For instance, it's notable that, with the exception of the winner and his publishers, everyone associated with the shortlist – writers, agents, publishers and so on – was under 45. Contemporary fiction is, generally, not about the old. Yet the Booker persists in handing the judging process to pensioners and retirees such as Rimington, who will go down in the Booker annals as the woman who compared London's literati with the KGB.