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Bulgakov's elegant first novel about the unfolding of the October revolution in Kiev--referred to as The City in the novel--has been rereleased by independent publisher Melville House this year, in the Michael Glenny translation. Told through multiple points of view, the book centers upon two days in the Russian Civil war, December 13 and 14, 1918, when the city of Kiev, up to then controlled by the Ukrainian Hetman Skoropadsky, a German puppet and ally of the Monarchist Russians, falls to the armies of Petlyura, a Ukranian peasant nationalist, a figure of mystery and rumor. The enemy of the Whites, Petlyura's troops especially target the Russian officers who have supported the corrupt Skoropadsky and the Russian imperialist presence.
The heart of the novel is the family of the Turbins, Alexei, a doctor returning from WWI, his little brother Nikolai, 17 and a cadet at the Russian military academy, and their sister Elena, the muse of a circle of Alexei's officer friends, as well as the Turbin's comic foil, Vasily Lisovich, known as Vasilisa (after the folk heroine Vasilisa the Beautiful) an almost Doestoyevskian idiot who is the Turbin's downstairs neighbor.
Admirably told, the novel reveals the hand of Bulgakov the dramatist as well as that of the prose artist, and aspects such as the dreams and Alexei Turbin's delirium in a fever from typhus very much herald the arrival of the surrealistic Master and Margarita.
The White Guard beautifully portrays the chaos of a civil war, and meditates on themes of family loyalty and friendship.
The prose work was published in 1925 as a magazine serial, but the magazine folded before the serial was complete. Stalin was said to have seen the play many times, it probably saved Bulgakov's life. The Master and Margarita was far more politically questionable and never saw the light of day in Bulgakov's lifetime. The popular play based on this story ran in Soviet Russia from 1926 to 1941--but the book did not appear until 1966.
We based our evaluation of book condition on the following criteria:
* New: Just like it sounds. A brand-new, unused, unread copy in perfect condition.
* Like New: An apparently unread copy in perfect condition. Dust cover is intact; pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind.
* Very Good: A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting, but may contain a neat previous owner name. The spine remains undamaged.
* Good: A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions.
* Acceptable: A readable copy. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (the dust cover may be missing). Pages can include considerable notes--in pen or highlighter--but the notes cannot obscure the text.
