Pushkins Button

Having shown us how the story will end, Vitale next builds up her narrative piece by piece, sketching out not just a chronology of events but also the culture of the court at St. Petersburg. We feel privy to drawing-room conversations, summer balls that last until the early hours, state dinners and royal ceremonies. Were also ushered into Pushkins household, a place so real you feel you can see its interior, and whose inhabitants you come to know. But Vitale has not written the kind of history that impinges on fictions territory. There are no reconstructed conversations here; everything is documented. It is true that she sometimes speculates about the parties possible motives, but when she does so she clearly indicates to the reader that she is exploring possibilities, offering her opinion and her opinion alone. Indeed, without Vitales thoughtful insights, the book would be impoverished; having the benefit of her experience and immersion in the material is essential.

I strongly disagree with the previous reviewer about Vitales style, which is hardly that of "Vanity Fair." Vitale is a serious Italian historian, well-versed in the period and the subject, and she has done impressive original research. The cache of letters she discovers is _not_ intended to reveal to us that Georges dAnthes was shallow; in fact, Vitales contention throughout the book is that dAnthes has been maligned by history, blamed for the death of Russias great man when responsibility did not lie solely with him, or even with Pushkins beautiful wife (and dAnthes purported paramour) Natalia, but also with Pushkin himself, whose actions in those last months troubled and distressed his friends. Luckily, theres no law that says history must be written without verve and flair. Vitale in Pushkins Button has managed to pull off a nearly impossible task: to write a popular history thats not only an insightful and innovative piece of scholarship, but also a compelling and beautifully-written story.

The main drawbacks to Pushkins Button are stylistic. Instead of marshaling her facts and presenting them in a forthright manner, Vitale instead resorts to a kind of breathy, gossip-laden, Dominick Dunne for "Vanity Fair," type exercise. She also scatters tidbits of information that she claims will have some significant import later in the story, yet in most instances, this turns out not to be the case. If she is trying to write a mystery, there are way too many red herrings. She claims that a series of letters found in a trunk in Paris in 1989 and viewed for the first time by her, reveal some startling information concerning the events leading up to the duel. Written by DAnthes to his patron Barron Heeckeren (the Dutch Ambassador to Russia, who later adopted DAnthes and may have had a more-than-fatherly love for his charge), they convey nothing particularly startling. To those familiar with the background behind the main characters, the fact that the letters reveal that DAnthes and Heeckeren were shallow, supercilious hedonists is hardly news. Though she constantly hints that "all will be revealed," concerning the identity of the perpetrator of the "cuckold letters" that were disseminated amongst the Petersburg aristocracy, and that directly led Pushkin to challenge DAnthes to the fatal duel, the identity behind the letters is never established. This is but one example of myriad unsubstantial queries the author leaves hanging.

For those looking for a more carefully reasoned, and infinitely better written book that covers much of the same material, I would recommend Henri Troyats biography of Pushkin. Troyat, unlike Vitale, doesnt engage in empty conjecture and he has a thorough understanding of Russian history and literature, as he has authored several great biographies, ranging from Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Tolstoy, Elizabeth II, Alexander I, etc.