Geoffrey Elliott

I sampled this book periodically over the course of a few months. There is some heavy going in this book, which is not simply a family record, but a scholarly look too at the years of the Russian Revolution and the repressive rezhimes of the Soviet Union. In the midst of all this the fluctuating fortunes of the author's grandparents, David and Manya Redstone (an Anglicized form of Roitenshtern) are also portrayed in some detail, reflecting laborious and lengthy research. What I found most interesting were the sections directly related to the family, and, most particularly, the later parts where author Elliott reflects on his own personal memories of his grandparents, with whom he lived for a short time after the accidental death of his mother (his father had already abandoned his family). Geoffrey Elliott, now retired from a successful career in investment banking, waited more than thirty years to finally and painstakingly piece together his grandparents' story. This is an admirable piece of scholarship, but most of all it is a labor of love. I came to this book after reading another book, SECRET CLASSROOMS: AN UNTOLD STORY OF THE COLD WAR, which Elliott co-authored with a JSSL classmate, Harold Shukman. While I greatly admire From Siberia, with Love, I wish Elliott would go a step further now, and simply write a straight memoir of his own early life, which I am sure would be fascinating. I would recommend this book highly to students of Russia and the Soviet Union.… (més)

First of all, I live waaaay across the ocean from these guys, and it wasn't easy to get a copy of SECRET CLASSROOMS, but I did manage it. I heard about the book from another writer - T.H.E. Hill, author of the recent SIGINT-themed novel, VOICES UNDER BERLIN. Most of the stuff in this book about British national service requirement (the draft)and how JSSL came into being was all new to me, and I found it most fascinating. But I think the real reason I related so easily to the descriptions of the native-speaker Russian teachers, the pressure to succeed, the frantic studying, the vocab drills and the work, work, work that went into learning this difficult language is simply because I've done all that. As a student at the Defense Language Institue in Monterey, CA, in the 70s I went through all the same stuff, so I found it very interesting hearing and "seeing" it all from the Brit point of view. I had my own "Liza Hill" in a lovely Russian lady named Lyubov Yakovleva, who spoke English with a Cambridge lilt, and not only did she correct our broken stumbling early attempts at speaking Russian, she also often corrected our English! Shukman and Elliott nailed the companionable yet highly competitive atmosphere of language school, a place where I made some lasting friends. The authors make much of how so many of the JSSL kursanty went on to distinguished careers in many fields, and I have found the same to be true of my friends from more than 30 years ago at DLI. Learning a language opens your mind and broadens your horizons. That may sound trite and corny, but it's true. Shukman, Elliott and their fellow kursanty mostly did okay for themselves. You can look 'em up. Reading SECRET CLASSROOMS made me wonder if any such book has been written about DLI. I am still writing down my own life, in comfortable slices. DLI is on my "to do" list. Watch for it. In the meantime, read SECRET CLASSROOMS. It is positively dense with interesting facts and information. I loved it. Well done, men. MOLODTSY!… (més)