Russia’s Catherine the Great is remembered for her
provocative reign, spanning 34 illustrious years. Yet Empress Catherine is equally as infamous for her unabashedly modern approach to life: her numerous public
love affairs, the overstepping of both husband and son as ruler, and her sheer ambition.
Eva Stachniak revisits the life of this captivating and enigmatic woman in Empress of the Night. Stachniak’s previous
novel, The Winter Palace, was another exploration
of Catherine’s life and became an international bestseller. Fortunately,
despite such popularity, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Empress of the Night avoids shallow
embellishment and is startlingly refreshing: profound, moving, sensual, and
sumptuous by turns.
In Empress of the
Night, Stachniak inhabits this powerful yet incredibly vulnerable woman. We
meet Catherine at the end of her life: the entire novel takes place in the span
of her two fateful final days on Earth. Stachniak paints the Empress with uncanny
facility and poetry of description that obviously comes from immensely detailed
research. Even more impressive are Stachniak’s freedom of story structure and
her moving, complex explorations of time, memory, and aging. The novel dips from
Catherine’s terrifying, scattered old age back into her early days as the
vibrant ingénue from Germany named Sophie. We discover Catherine’s perilous journey
to the throne as well as her personal struggles and losses through her own
eyes, at once nostalgic and strikingly universal. We discover Catherine as a
woman who desires love and Catherine as the great Empress.
Stachniak’s narrative is achingly human and well-written; in
my opinion, it is one of the most unsettlingly realistic written recreations of
human thought and recollection. Although I expected a potentially
intrigue-laced, superficial piece of entertainment, Empress of the Night instead proved to be a masterpiece in both its
beauty and its stark realism. Despite Empress Catherine’s riches, good fortune,
and power, Empress of the Night
brings Catherine the Person close to our hearts and souls. She is every bit a
human in this novel; Stachniak’s incredible imagination and empathy creates a
Catherine that leaps out of the history books and implores us to hear her story
and to see our own journey in hers. Eva Stachniak’s real witchcraft in Empress of the Night is her reincarnation
of one of history’s most controversial and fascinating women. All the while,
beyond the story itself, Stachniak makes us realize that whether under
ermine-trimmed gowns or jeans and T-shirts, we are all wonderfully yet achingly
fragile mortals.
Mike Fan is a Canadian classical baritone. Mike plays five instruments and speaks three and a half languages. He holds degrees in piano performance and biomedical science, but it was obvious from an early age that music would win out. On the literary side, Mike wrote 365 sonnets in his teens and writes for his poetry blog http://someturbidnight.blogspot.ca. Follow @MikeZFan for Mike's adventures, musical and otherwise.
Mike Fan is a Canadian classical baritone. Mike plays five instruments and speaks three and a half languages. He holds degrees in piano performance and biomedical science, but it was obvious from an early age that music would win out. On the literary side, Mike wrote 365 sonnets in his teens and writes for his poetry blog http://someturbidnight.blogspot.ca. Follow @MikeZFan for Mike's adventures, musical and otherwise.
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