Journey into the Mind's Eye

Review by Philip Blazdell

When you first pick up this book its purple cover and exotic artwork suggest that, perhaps this is something special. You may well turn the book over and read the blurb on the back which says, 'Lesley Branch was four when the mysterious Traveller first blew into her nursery, swathed in Siberian furs and full of the fairytales of Russia. She was twenty when he swept out of her life, leaving her love-lorn and in the grips of a passionate obsession. The search to recapture the love of her life, and the Russia he had planted within her, takes her to Siberia and beyond, journeying deep into the romantic terrain of the mind's eye.' And then perhaps you will flick through a few pages at random to see if the text grabs you. Perhaps you will pick out random quotes, 'these Asiatic wastes were to become, for me, the landscape of my heart, that secret longing which glides before our eyes between sleeping and waking...' or '...granting out wish is one of fates cruellest tricks.' By this time you should realise that what you hold in your hand is something special, a truly wonderful book and quite simply one of the most poignant love stories ever written.

It is hard to review this book as each time I sit down to write a review I find myself diving back into the book and losing whole afternoons immersed in the author's wonderful prose. I swoon as she loses her innocence to the mysterious traveller ('so, how do you like being ruined in a rapide'), conducts clandestine affairs with him in seedy French hotels, attends Russian mass with him in beautifully described churches and ultimately wanders the barren and often hauntingly beautiful landscape of Siberia in search of something to fill the gap that his sudden and mysterious disappearance left in her life.

The books works well on several levels. On one, simplistic level, it is a wonderfully told and poignantly observed love story which will melt even the hardest of hearts. On the more profound level this book works well as a guide to Russia's people, their turbulent and often bloody history and the sublime landscape of Siberia.

Quite simply this is a brilliant book and one which deserves to be read time and time again. The publishers should be congratulated for reprinting it.