Boris Akunin’s fictional supplement to his series on the history of the Russian Empire runs in parallel, telling the story of one family. Like the History series itself, the narrative is quite uneven. As a standalone series, I find it relatively weak, if it weren’t meant as a supplement. However, I love both history and Akunin as a storyteller.
The series began with short novellas about specific historical periods, but with the latest volumes, each period is accompanied by a full novel. The previous book, The Fortunate Adventures and Reflections of Lucius Catin, portrayed not so much Russia itself but rather the European trends that influenced Russia in various ways. Though I didn’t rate it highly, it still had some interesting moments.
The new novel, Mir i Voyna (Peace and War), shows us Lucius’s family many years later. Even with its title, the author seems to be saying, “Now I’ll show you Tolstoy, but from a different angle.” I wouldn’t call myself a big fan of Count Tolstoy’s War and Peace, but at least Tolstoy’s novel has grandeur, epic scope. In contrast, Akunin’s story is limited to a few months and a single village with serfs near Moscow.
But here, Akunin at least tried to play with the detective genre, one of his favorites. However, it falls far short of his best Fandorin novels. It even seems that the detective storyline doesn’t really interest the author and was added to the book simply as a framework.
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