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dangermousieI have been obsessively rereading Paullina Simons' Tatiana and Alexander trilogy (The Bronze Horseman, The Bridge to Holy Cross (also known as Tatiana & Alexander), and The Summer Garden). If I make a list of my top 10 books, this trilogy would definitely be on it (hmmm, perhaps I should make a list). I am a coward so on reread I skip all the starvation during the siege of Leningrad scenes and Tatiana's family dying as well as most of the scenes with Alexander in the penal batallion/prison.
I own these books in paper copy (for permanence) and on kindle (for easy access). Addiction!
Ahhh, how can I not love it? It's pretty much the ultimate in epic love story. Have a passage (stolen from a tumblr):
-----
“What was she thinking?” muttered Alexander, closing his eyes and imagining his Tania.
“She was determined. It was like some kind of a personal crusade with her,” Ina said. “She gave the doctor a liter of blood for you—”
“Where did she get it from?”
“Herself, of course.” Ina smiled. “Lucky for you, Major, our Nurse Metanova is a universal donor.”
Of course she is, thought Alexander, keeping his eyes tightly shut.
Ina continued. “The doctor told her she couldn’t give any more, and she said a liter wasn’t enough, and he said, ‘Yes, but you don’t have more to give,’ and she said, ‘I’ll make more,’ and he said, ‘No,’ and she said, ‘Yes,’ and in four hours, she gave him another half-liter of blood.”
Alexander lay on his stomach and listened intently while Ina wrapped fresh gauze on his wound. He was barely breathing.
“The doctor told her, ‘Tania, you’re wasting your time. Look at his burn. It’s going to get infected.’ There wasn’t enough penicillin to give to you, especially since your blood count was so low.” Alexander heard Ina chuckle in disbelief. “So I’m making my rounds late that night, and who do I find next to your bed? Tatiana. She’s sitting with a syringe in her arm, hooked up to a catheter, and I watch her, and I swear to God, you won’t believe it when I tell you, Major, but I see that the catheter is attached to the entry drip in your IV.”
Ina’s eyes bulged. “I watch her draining blood from the radial artery in her arm into your IV. I ran in and said, ‘Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? You’re siphoning blood from yourself into him?’ She said to me in her calm, I-won’t-stand-for-any-argument voice, ‘Ina, if I don’t, he will die.’ I yelled at her. I said, ‘There are thirty soldiers in the critical wing who need sutures and bandages and their wounds cleaned. Why don’t you take care of them and let God take care of the dead?’ And she said, ‘He’s not dead. He is still alive, and while he is alive, he is mine.’ Can you believe it, Major? But that’s what she said. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said to her. ‘Fine, die yourself. I don’t care.’
But the next morning I went to complain to Dr. Sayers that she wasn’t following procedure, told him what she had done, and he ran to yell at her.” Ina lowered her voice to a sibilant, incredulous whisper. “We found her unconscious on the floor by your bed. She was in a dead faint, but you had taken a turn for the better. All your vital signs were up. And Tatiana got up from the floor, white as death itself, and said to the doctor coldly, ‘Maybe now you can give him the penicillin he needs?’ I could see the doctor was stunned. But he did. Gave you penicillin and more plasma and extra morphine. Then he operated on you, to get bits of the shell fragment out of you, and saved your kidney. And stitched you. And all that time she never left his side, or yours. He told her your bandages needed to be changed every three hours to help with drainage, to prevent infection. We had only two nurses in the terminal wing, me and her. I had to take care of all the other patients, while all she did was take care of you. For fifteen days and nights she unwrapped you and cleaned you and changed your dressings. Every three hours. She was a ghost by the end. But you made it. That’s when we moved you to critical care. I said to her, ‘Tania, this man ought to marry you for what you did for him,’ and she said, ‘You think so?’ ”
Ina tutted again. Paused. “Are you all right, Major? Why are you crying?”
------
Also, apparently people make vids for it. Not sure how one can make a vid for a book but people do, with various actors, all of which confirms my belief that I don't want to see these books as a movie because it will never match what's in my head.
I am also reading Gayle Forman's Where She Went, which is sort of a Before Sunrise (one of my favorite movies, with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) set in New York. It's supposed to be YA but I honestly don't think it should be. Adam is a young but burned-out rocker and Mia is a rising classical musician. They used to date but have not seen each other in three years, their relationship disintegrating in the aftermath of a horrific car crash that injured Mia and killed the rest of her family (this is a sequel to If I Stay, which deals with the crash, but I am staying away from that one because I have my depressing book threshold. Said the girl that is rereading a trilogy large chunk of which deals with starvation and prison camps. WSW can be read alone).
When the story opens, Adam should be on top of the world, but instead he is barely holding on - permanently one step away from a panic attack, bitter, locked down. He can barely get through the day. Mia's leaving seems to have damaged an essential part of him that never got fixed. And then he walks by the hall where she is giving a concert and, on impulse, buys a ticket. Mia invites him backstage and, somehow, they decide to spend an evening together, before they have to fly to their different destination. They spend all of it talking and the book goes back and forth between the present and three years ago, and the events that led to her leaving him.
It's a gorgeous gorgeous book and I love it. I wallowed in the emo and the hope and (no spoiler, I assume, for anyone who knows how books work) the happy ending. So good! Go read!
I own these books in paper copy (for permanence) and on kindle (for easy access). Addiction!
Ahhh, how can I not love it? It's pretty much the ultimate in epic love story. Have a passage (stolen from a tumblr):
-----
“What was she thinking?” muttered Alexander, closing his eyes and imagining his Tania.
“She was determined. It was like some kind of a personal crusade with her,” Ina said. “She gave the doctor a liter of blood for you—”
“Where did she get it from?”
“Herself, of course.” Ina smiled. “Lucky for you, Major, our Nurse Metanova is a universal donor.”
Of course she is, thought Alexander, keeping his eyes tightly shut.
Ina continued. “The doctor told her she couldn’t give any more, and she said a liter wasn’t enough, and he said, ‘Yes, but you don’t have more to give,’ and she said, ‘I’ll make more,’ and he said, ‘No,’ and she said, ‘Yes,’ and in four hours, she gave him another half-liter of blood.”
Alexander lay on his stomach and listened intently while Ina wrapped fresh gauze on his wound. He was barely breathing.
“The doctor told her, ‘Tania, you’re wasting your time. Look at his burn. It’s going to get infected.’ There wasn’t enough penicillin to give to you, especially since your blood count was so low.” Alexander heard Ina chuckle in disbelief. “So I’m making my rounds late that night, and who do I find next to your bed? Tatiana. She’s sitting with a syringe in her arm, hooked up to a catheter, and I watch her, and I swear to God, you won’t believe it when I tell you, Major, but I see that the catheter is attached to the entry drip in your IV.”
Ina’s eyes bulged. “I watch her draining blood from the radial artery in her arm into your IV. I ran in and said, ‘Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? You’re siphoning blood from yourself into him?’ She said to me in her calm, I-won’t-stand-for-any-argument voice, ‘Ina, if I don’t, he will die.’ I yelled at her. I said, ‘There are thirty soldiers in the critical wing who need sutures and bandages and their wounds cleaned. Why don’t you take care of them and let God take care of the dead?’ And she said, ‘He’s not dead. He is still alive, and while he is alive, he is mine.’ Can you believe it, Major? But that’s what she said. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said to her. ‘Fine, die yourself. I don’t care.’
But the next morning I went to complain to Dr. Sayers that she wasn’t following procedure, told him what she had done, and he ran to yell at her.” Ina lowered her voice to a sibilant, incredulous whisper. “We found her unconscious on the floor by your bed. She was in a dead faint, but you had taken a turn for the better. All your vital signs were up. And Tatiana got up from the floor, white as death itself, and said to the doctor coldly, ‘Maybe now you can give him the penicillin he needs?’ I could see the doctor was stunned. But he did. Gave you penicillin and more plasma and extra morphine. Then he operated on you, to get bits of the shell fragment out of you, and saved your kidney. And stitched you. And all that time she never left his side, or yours. He told her your bandages needed to be changed every three hours to help with drainage, to prevent infection. We had only two nurses in the terminal wing, me and her. I had to take care of all the other patients, while all she did was take care of you. For fifteen days and nights she unwrapped you and cleaned you and changed your dressings. Every three hours. She was a ghost by the end. But you made it. That’s when we moved you to critical care. I said to her, ‘Tania, this man ought to marry you for what you did for him,’ and she said, ‘You think so?’ ”
Ina tutted again. Paused. “Are you all right, Major? Why are you crying?”
------
Also, apparently people make vids for it. Not sure how one can make a vid for a book but people do, with various actors, all of which confirms my belief that I don't want to see these books as a movie because it will never match what's in my head.
I am also reading Gayle Forman's Where She Went, which is sort of a Before Sunrise (one of my favorite movies, with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) set in New York. It's supposed to be YA but I honestly don't think it should be. Adam is a young but burned-out rocker and Mia is a rising classical musician. They used to date but have not seen each other in three years, their relationship disintegrating in the aftermath of a horrific car crash that injured Mia and killed the rest of her family (this is a sequel to If I Stay, which deals with the crash, but I am staying away from that one because I have my depressing book threshold. Said the girl that is rereading a trilogy large chunk of which deals with starvation and prison camps. WSW can be read alone).
When the story opens, Adam should be on top of the world, but instead he is barely holding on - permanently one step away from a panic attack, bitter, locked down. He can barely get through the day. Mia's leaving seems to have damaged an essential part of him that never got fixed. And then he walks by the hall where she is giving a concert and, on impulse, buys a ticket. Mia invites him backstage and, somehow, they decide to spend an evening together, before they have to fly to their different destination. They spend all of it talking and the book goes back and forth between the present and three years ago, and the events that led to her leaving him.
It's a gorgeous gorgeous book and I love it. I wallowed in the emo and the hope and (no spoiler, I assume, for anyone who knows how books work) the happy ending. So good! Go read!
