Leningrad, September 1941. German tanks surround the city, imprisoning those who live there. The besieged people of Leningrad face shells, starvation, and the Russian winter. Interweaving two love affairs in two generations, THE SIEGE draws us deep into the Levin's family struggle to stay alive during this terrible winter. It is a story about war and the wounds it inflicts on people's lives. It is also a lyrical and deeply moving celebration of love, life and survival.
The Siege
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Amazon Review
The final words of Helen Dunmore's The Siege--"No, I shall not wholly die..."(Alexander Pushkin)--respond to the stark threat with which the novel begins: "Re: The future of Leningrad ... The Führer has decided to have Leningrad wiped from the face of the earth". In this powerful work of fiction, Dunmore writes through her fascination with one of the most remarkable, and painful, episodes in Russian history: the siege of Leningrad through the winter of 1941 during which untold thousands perished of cold and starvation.
The Siege is a type of memorial, a literary document to an experience in which, as Dunmore writes, "being dead is normal". People die in the streets, in their beds; whole families are frozen, "bodies piled up by the Karpovka canal, or outside the cemeteries". What does it take to survive? Dunmore explores that question through the powerful characters--Anna Levin, Kolya (her child-brother) and Andrei (her lover)--who people this novel, conjuring the contest with death that becomes the daily existence of the Leningraders, their belief in a world beyond the siege. The Siege is itself part of that world, stricken by memory and the question of what it means for a novel (and a novelist) to take on the "flesh of all those other Leningraders who died of hunger in silent, frigid rooms". This is part of the wager, and accomplishment, of Dunmore's extraordinary book and confirmation of the extraordinary skill and sensitivity, of her writing. --Vicky Lebeau --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"'[She is] one of this country's most accomplished literary talents' Daily Telegraph 'Beautifully fulfils the highest function of a storyteller - to make you wonder what will happen next... electrifying' Sunday Times"
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
46 of 46 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a wonderful, unput-downable book - a love story in many senses but, ultimately it's the story of the city of Leningrad in the grip of winter and of starvation - it's a story of survival. Some of the other reviewers have complained that Dunmore doesn't go deep enough into the characters, that they are not fully developed, but I think that is intentional. When every day is a struggle just to live, there is no energy left for emotions and I think the author's sometimes 'matter of fact' prose reflects that very well. (And it still made me cry!!)
I was so absorbed by this book that I felt guilty for eating while I was reading it and when I left the house one night I fully expected there to be snow on the streets...
I was so absorbed by this book that I felt guilty for eating while I was reading it and when I left the house one night I fully expected there to be snow on the streets...
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
By vicky allen
Format:Paperback
What a beautifully written book this is. It was a treat from start to finish. Although the subject matter is necessarily bleak, the triumph over adversity scenario has never been so terrifyingly real.
Anna, a young woman, her 5 year old brother and her father are trying to survive the Seige of Leningrad in temperatures most of us cannot even imagine, and are unlikely to experience. The Germans are trying to starve the city to death and are succeeding. There is no food. Every step and every expenditure of energy has to be carefully thought out. Every nerve and every fibre of Anna's being are programmed to survive against all odds. Her will to live and keep her brother alive is so strong. The writing makes you feel as if you are there in the apartment with them, so much so that I wept when they found a jar of jam that had been hidden!
This book makes you think about human nature to survive against all odds. A very emotional read, which gave me an insight to a part of WW2 that I hadn't read much about.
Brilliant.
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
By Mike
Format:Hardcover
This book takes a relatively short period of the siege of Leningrad and carefully documents its effects on the lives of a Russian family. The descriptions of the city and its surrounding countryside are wonderfully evocative, capturing both the beauty pre-war and the terrible destruction that first the Germans, and then the winter and starvation, bring to Leningrad. If I have to make a criticism it would be that the snapshot of the siege ends after it is only a third completed, although it is implied that the worst is over. The next 2 years were also very, very hard and expensive in terms of lives lost. But this remains a study of humanity in the midst of brutality.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Leningrad in the Winter of 1941
Fiction but based on fact - I like learning my history this way! An easy page-turner. This book makes you appreciate how lucky we are in 2013. Thoroughly recommended
Published 1 month ago by cillald
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dismal
I agree with both 1star and 5star reviewers so have gone middle of the road. This is a really good and well written story, but as others have said it is hard to get any empathy... Read more
Published 3 months ago by gillynm
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book in great condition
Was recommended this book but wasn't sure if it was my kind of book, hence sourcing it at Amazon. Book came promptly, excellent condition. Brilliant!
Published 3 months ago by Lynn Lymer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poignant
Read this on a recommendation as we were going to St Petersburg for a long weekend and becuase of this it was particularly interesting reading about places we were about to visit. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Maxbaz
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent but harrowing.
A very difficult but moving story which deals with The Siege of Leningrad. Impossible to put down with likeable characters but with a terrible but compulsive story.
Published 4 months ago by Kimco
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Siege
I read the Betrayal before this but it in no way diminished the pleasure.It vividly describes the catastrophic events, the initial denial and the way that expectations change over... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Dilly
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Siege
A good tale well told with a very good feel for the horror of living in a police-political state combined with famine in a snow locked northern winter.
Published 12 months ago by SWL Strickland
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Siege of Leningrad
The opening page of this book is a translation of a decree, issued under the direction of Hitler, stating that the city of Leningrad is of no value to the Germans and will be wiped... Read more
Published 12 months ago by DubaiReader
1.0 out of 5 stars
Novel, not history
Helen Dunmore has written a novel which brings to the attention of a wider public the harrowing story of the Nazi siege of Leningrad. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Peter K. Booker
4.0 out of 5 stars
Chilling Reality
We can read the history books in order to learn the facts - about who or what was being besieged, when and why. Read more
Published 12 months ago by R A Lewis
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