What is the secret city of the title? Petrograd? Yes, partly. But much
more is it the citadel of the Russian proverb which recites: "In each
man's heart there is a secret town at whose altars the true prayers are
offered!" And so what we have in this book before us is first (and
always foremost) the story of several lives. Petrograd itself, with its
insane atmosphere on the eve of the Revolution, is painted for us
persistently, with many patient and wonderful brush strokes. The
Revolution, or the first weeks of it, are narrated for us with an
eyewitness's veracity and an eyewitness's incompleteness. But Petrograd
and the Revolution ... all that ... are put before us only so far as
they enter into the lives of a few people--a family of Russians and
three casual Englishmen. Which is as it should be. Petrograds change,
revolutions come and go; but the secret city of the human heart is not
transformed. Human motives remain. Human passions ebb and flow. Human
hopes perish--and are reborn.
The people of Mr. Walpole's novel are completely realized. They are as
much alive as if they moved in the flesh before you. The reader may be
baffled by them--many a reader will be, though to most readers they will
be comprehensible before the closing chapters. But baffling or not,
there is no disbelieving in them. Two of the most important--Alexei
Petrovitch Semyonov and John Durward, the narrator--are characters in
Mr. Walpole's earlier novel, _The Dark Forest_. It is not absolutely
necessary that before reading The Secret City you should read _The Dark
Forest_, but it is much to be desired that you do so. Otherwise you
will be unable to fathom Alexei Petrovitch (the overshadowing character)
as adequately as you ought to from his first entrance.
But about the others, the others besides the sinister Alexei Petrovitch.
Take poor old Markovitch, for example. It's not easy, of course, to see
him as anything but a self-befooled, ridiculous figure until you grasp
that he had three ideals to live up to. The first was his wife, Vera;
then there were his hopeless inventions; lastly, there was Russia. Came
a time when, as young Bohun, one of the Englishmen, put it: "He'd lost
Russia, he was losing Vera, and he wasn't very sure about his
inventions." At the last he clung to Russia, hopefully. This
revolution meant something wonderful for her--and for the whole world!
Take Vera, beautiful and with immortal pride; with a great and candid
courage, too. She had her sister, the girlish Nina, she had her
husband. What was this tragedy of love that came to her and destroyed
everything? Nina, tempestuous, lovable, like a child--why in the name
of all that is merciful should _she_ have to suffer? Thank God! there
was a happy ending here!
Others--a half dozen or so--that we mustn't speak of singly. Even such
minor characters as Uncle Ivan and Baron Wilderling are etched
perfectly. We would say a few words about the background.
Mr. Walpole makes Petrograd as memorable a city as does Tolstoy his
Moscow, with Napoleon gazing upon its rounded domes. And that is
memorable indeed, as any one who ever read _War and Peace_ will certify.
An intensely colorful city, lighted by stars and bonfires, exhaling the
stink of the swamp and Rasputin's corpse, coldly menaced by the frozen
Neva River, a volcano of human destiny with its thick ice melting
rapidly from the heat of terrible flames underneath. A city where a
great slimy beast seems to appear apocalyptically from the sheeted
waters of the canal. A city where always there stands silhouetted
against the evening glow the immense figure of a black-bearded peasant,
grave, controlled, thoughtful, watching. A city of dream--only the
dream is true.
There can be no doubt about it; this is a noteworthy book, a beautifully
written book and--what is best of all--a book with a backbone. You may
like it or you may not; you will be unable, we believe, to withhold
admiration.--From a review in _The New York Sun_.
"Hugh Walpole has proved his right to eminence. _The Secret City_ is a
worthy successor to _The Dark Forest_. His art in presentation is
consummate. But the trait that stands out in his writings is his
humanity."--_Chicago Daily News_.
"This is, we believe, Mr. Walpole's best novel, a finer book even than
_The Dark Forest_. Its descriptive passages are many of them superb; we
get the sense of the strange and alien forces lying beneath the somewhat
Europeanized surface of Petrograd in a truly remarkable way."--_New York
Times_.
"It is one of Mr. Walpole's achievements in this book that along with
his philosophic study of Russian minds and matters, he maintains a
running, throbbing story of the romance-tragedy of the Markovitch home.
Its form and style confirm it in a place of great literary distinction.
Being the sort of book one desires to keep as well as to read, it
sustains the final test of a fictional work."--_New York World_.
"Hugh Walpole has equalled himself at his best and far surpassed himself
at his second best. A novel of the rare sort that is meant for the
delight of discriminating readers."--_Washington Star_.
"The best recommendation of his novel is its excellent quality as a
story: its absorbing interest in character."--_Boston Herald_.
"The story is tensely dramatic in its incidents and situations, its
characters are real and interesting.... You cannot merely read this
book, for if you mean to keep on you must think and keep on
thinking."--_San Francisco Chronicle_.
"Mr. Walpole is a story-teller with something in him besides fine
facility, and it is fascinating to consider this excellent example of
his work."--_The New Republic_.
"Somehow, by the magic of his words, Mr. Walpole, in his portrayal of a
people in the process of evolving, makes his readers understand better
what has taken place in Russia than political experts in many an
analytical treatise."--_Springfield Union_.
"One of the best sustained, most continuously interesting and dramatic
stories Mr. Walpole has written."--_New York Globe_.
"It is his best work as a piece of literature and it is his most
important as an ethical, sociological and political study."--_New York
Tribune_.