"The Girl Who Fought Napoleon"" Topic

"In 1803, Nadezhda Durova seeks to escape the tedium of a woman's life. She disguises herself as a boy and escapes home on horseback to join the Russian army. Meanwhile, Alexander I, grandson to Catherine the Great, is crowned Tsar after the assassination of his father, but the assassination haunts Alexander throughout his lifetime. Can these two stop Napoleon's march against Russia?

Linda Lafferty alternates narration between Nadezhda/Nadya and the Russian court, but each story moves at a different speed, with Nadya's a couple years after Alexander's, even though Nadya's chapters appear first. This slows the plot considerably. It would have worked better to establish the Russian court dramas first and then focus on our main character, so that both plots move forward together instead of rocking back and forth in time. Once the Russian court storyline catches up with Nadya's, the progression of the war with Napoleon makes much more sense…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Of course, you could cut to the chase and read Durova's memoirs and avoid the "novelization" altogether.

No point to this book, in my not-so-humble opinion…

I have her memoirs and they are great. Must read them again.

I don't mind more historical fiction provided it doesn't detract from the reality (tall ask probably). There seems to be a lack of it for the Napoleonic period.

I gave it a 2 star review on Amazon.UK and, while the actual writing was superb, the contents were not. It comes over as mainly an almost Russian version of Black Beauty, with the main part being about the heroine (who never actually killed anyone in this novel or in real life), and her favourite horse. That, in my opinion, was the best part of the story. But the author does not seem to know if she wanted to write a novel about Durova, Alexander or Napoleon and it is far too romanticised and lacking in detail and it certainly suffers from a serious lack of actual combat descriptions. The author also decided to leave out one of the most import factors in her life, in that she left her infant son behind to go off to fight for Russia. Probably because that would somehow dilute Durova's romantic and heroic image. The author also has Durova wearing a helmet, although none of the regiments she was in wore them during the Napoleonic period.

I'm sharpening my saber for my Amazon.com review. The interspersed chapters featuring Alexander were ludicrous and wildly inaccurate, to include the mangling--and misuse of Russian titles of nobility. Surely you also noticed the incorrect dates for the 1807 campaigns? And if that was supposed to be a description of the battle of Friedland I'll eat my plumed hat.

MaggieC70

Yes, but I think most 'historical' novels are not that accurate historically, well, none that I've read anyway, no matter what period they belonged to. You have to accept that or don't bother reading them. But when you see glaring errors and things it does lower the acceptance level.

Sorry. but historical fiction must preserve some semblance of historical, social, economic, religious, and linguistic accuracy; the "fictional" aspect is not carte blanche to ignore facts. There are legions of readers--and writers--who refuse to accept shoddy research and the resulting bad history in the genre.

MaggieC70

I would love all historical novels to as accurate as possible, in all aspects but I'm not sure that will ever happen. In historical research, the history and correct facts (depending on your point of view, of course) is the important factor, but for novels, it is the story and the entertainment that comes first. But at least some of the historical novel authors do take the time to point out what is not correct in their books and what they have invented or changed. And I imagine a bad book will always be a bad book, historically correct or not.