| | Book #8 for the Chunkster Reading Challenge
To the Hermitage: A Novel (ISBN 1585671312, 498 pages)
by Malcolm Bradbury
Hearing cynical people spouting irrational nonsense on TV and newspapers in an election year, a weary reader may hanker for a tale of philosophers in the Age of Reason in tandem with a story of academics in the early 1990s. Bradbury’s last novel would satisfy that esoteric hankering.
French philosopher, art critic, and writer, Denis Diderot's is ordered by his patroness, Catherine the Great, to move to Russia. She feels his presence would lend credibility to her efforts to make Russia seem a country where the Enlightenment has arrived. Challenging but not too abstruse are dialogues between Catherine and Diderot that cover history, philosophy, political science, and theology.
In the parallel story, the academics are headed to Petersburg during the 1993 constitutional crisis, when Boris Yeltsin shelled the Russian White House. The profs are more interested in guzzling, gorging, and well, you know, though Galina, the theatrical Russian librarian, is a light of courage in a dark and scary country.
An excellent story for readers who like novels of ideas or academic novels or are interested in the Age of Reason.
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| | Posted 11/9/2010 5:41 AM - 19 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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