I became familiar with Akhmatova in high school, though I confess I've only read her poetry here and there, not in any dedicated fashion. There was this mysterious and enchanted quality to my imagination of her, as if I could only see her through a glass darkly. So when someone recommended this as a worthwhile biography to pick up I found I still felt this strange curiosity about Akhmatova that I couldn't quite explain, alongside this curiosity to try and get at a female writer's life as if it could somehow guide my own. In retrospect, perhaps I was foolish in choosing Akhmatova in this regard as no one could be more unlike me in disposition or in circumstances. This is an intensely detailed account not only of her life, but of the times she lived through, the constantly changing and constantly challenging Russia she lived through. It's a period I know about abstractly, but never devoted as much attention to as here where war and rations and terror and poverty take on a very real form by displaying just how much they affected an individual (isn't it easier to understand the trials of one over the trials of many?).

She is very tragic. Sometimes it is because she is so passionate. It seems impossible to have both passion and peace. You see her faults very clearly throughout this biography and there were times as an outsider I thought if only she behaved differently, how much better things might have been. She does not come off as likeable on the page, though it seems she was generous throughout her life and had such elegance and self-possession in her carriage that no one could quite resist paying attention to her. Of course, she does not need to be likeable, and I appreciated the insight we had into the highs and many lows of her life.

(The three-star rating should really be three and a half. What I wouldn't give for a more nuanced rating system on this site.)

Elaine Feinstein is so cool, and this is a very good biography.