Book Review - Who is to Blame?

In “Who is to Blame,” Jane Marlow re-examines a genre made popular more than a century earlier by Alexander Herzen. In this incarnation of the story, the author uses an individual serf and the other peasants whose lives intersect with hers to represent the poverty of nineteenth-century Russia. The opposite side, represented by Count Maximov’s family, clearly portrays not only the disparity of wealth, but also the inability of the gentry to function within their society after the loss of their labor force.

Marlow is careful to present facts in a very sterile way. When showing loss of dreams, illness in a destitute home, or choices that are outside of the control of the serfs, her language is factual and avoids editorializing. In the same way, she presents the Count’s family as making their own decisions, and does not really examine their motives. When the Count mandates marriage among the serfs, and the peasant protagonist is forced into a difficult union, Marlow states the facts baldly, even in portraying later abuse. I appreciate the lack of editorializing, allowing me to draw my own conclusions and arouse my own emotions.

This book lost a star in my mind simply because of the gratuitous use of crude ideas. Several times, the Count’s son is shown to consider his abilities as a man in vulgar terms. As a reader, I am not interested in the effects of his alcohol abuse on his virility. For the most part, the other uses of offensive language are placed in such a way as to reveal more about the characters’ lives, and did not seem unreasonable.

Marlow places her characters at a point in history that made the story captivating to me personally. She allowed her protagonists to discover intersecting points of history, such as the U.S. Civil War, that helped to place it in context. The book covers more than 25 years of her characters’ lives, which seemed too broad in some places. However, the time frame became more appropriate as she used the intervening time to develop the boorish behavior of the Count’s progeny alongside the difficult life of the peasant family.

All in all, I’m glad I read this book, and I found enough to appreciate in it that I will probably seek out other books in this genre. I received this book as an ARC through Netgalley, and this review is posted at https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit/31948086.