Czar's Madman

The plot of Kross's first novel to appear in English may indeed ``most resemble the quick scene changes of Italian operas,'' as the narrator says, but this Estonian author's approach is provocative, original and highly political. Timo von Bock, a 19th-century Estonian baron possessed of romantic ideals, falls in love with and marries a peasant girl, the chambermaid of the young lady he had been expected to wed. He then frees the serfs on his estate and criticizes the czar in a letter--for which he is imprisoned. After nine years, he is declared mad and placed under house arrest at his estate, where his every movement is monitored by relatives and retainers loyal to the czar before the baron finally dies under mysterious circumstances. Timo's peasant brother-in-law, who has been educated by the von Bock family, narrates the proceedings in a deceptively measured, almost dry style that offsets the powerful emotions gripping all the characters. Kross (b. 1920his nationality is not given, nor is original language supplied/ fred jordan at pantheon says kross is estonian, wrote novel in estonian; see above/pre ), who spent nine years in Soviet labor camps, uses the cat-and-mouse games of Timo and his enemies to critique imperial Russia's relationship with its Baltic province and, by extension, the authoritarian regimes of our own times. (Jan.)