White Guard

Mikhail Bulgakov lived in House No. 13 on Andrew's Descent during the 1918 Ukrainian civil war and this novel has many autobiographical features. However, this is a novel, not a memoir. Bulgakov captures not only historical facts, but also the essence of a fictional, quintessentially Ukrainian, family you will not soon forget. Bulgakov is a master of sketching character and capturing the moment, but Bulgakov achieves much more. Notwithstanding the setting, or perhaps because of it, the novel is more about personal and family relationships than it is about politics. The politics of the time are not absent, but they are primarily a backdrop to the traumas the Turbin family suffers. The end result is a deep look into character and love in the midst of tragic crises.

This novel was never fully published in the Soviet Union until after the author's death. One reason may be the fact that a touching portrait of a family who sympathized with the "White's" was counterproductive to Stalin's "Red" totalitarian regime. The play based on the novel, however, was very popular, apparently even with Stalin who reportedly watched it numerous times.

While the novel transcends politics, it fully inhabits the time and place. The sense of Kiev is palpable, as are the competing factions and loyalties within the city in 1918. "The White Guard" has plenty of action both on stage and off. It is not dry history, but a fully realized novel of impressive depth.

(One final point, this book is realist in contrast to Bulgakov's more famous [[ASIN:0679760806 The Master and Margarita]] which is a surrealist portrait of the Soviet Union and a primary source of inspiration for Rushdie's [[ASIN:0812976533 Midnight's Children: A Novel]]. I make this point both to convince you of Bulgakov's importance in literary history and to warn you that the two books are masterful in very different ways.)

I recommend this book for:
- someone who enjoys Russian/Soviet authors, but understands White Guard is closer to Hemmingway in its story lines and characters than it is to Tolstoy;
- someone planning to visit Kiev and wanting to get some grounding the city and one of its most famous authors
- someone who enjoys "historical fiction" and is interested in Kiev just after WWI

I may have suffered a bit from "anticipointment" in that based on what I heard about Bulgakov and my interest in the setting of this novel, I was ready to be blown away. Instead I found myself enjoying it, but definitely not feeling like I had stumbled upon a classic. White Guard is worth reading, but certainly is eclipsed by the earlier generation of "Russian" authors from the 19th century and later Soviet Authors like Vasily Grossman. Those are of course extremely high standards to meet! So in fairness to Bulgakov, its worth pointing out he tells a memorable tale and does a nice job of bringing the city of Kiev to life as one of his primary "characters." One definitely gets a sense of the chaos and uncertainty in the city between the end of WWI and the take over by the Soviets. On the downside, the human characters feel a bit stock -- the author doesn't really develop them, they are just there fully formed without the reader knowing enough as to the hows and whys. It is interesting that the novel was subsequently made into a play, because in reading it, it feels like the reverse was true and that the author assumed familarity with the characters from their stage run. This is probably a product of the fact the characters probably WERE familar to Bulgakov since the story is based on his actual experiences at the time of its setting. All in all, a fine book, but if you don't need to read about this particular period and you do want to be blow away, read Vasily Grossman's "Life and Fate" instead.