- Paperback: 319 pages
- Publisher: McGraw-Hill (1975)
- ISBN-10: 0070088535
- ISBN-13: 978-0070088535
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.2 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
The White Guard (Vintage Classics)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Other than War and Peace, I can think of no better evocation of the random horror of war; like Tolstoy, Bulgakov doesn't allow us to draw easy conclusions in this, his first novel. The disjointed tapestry of a narrative is by turns anecdotal, fantastical (Satan swinging in the belfry is a wonderful image) and epic-heroic - and then just when you've settled in a comfortable reading pattern (as far as this is ever possible with Bulgakov) some terrible act of violence will shock you. It's not quite the finished article (see M&M), but the mixture of experimentation and classical realism is an engaging blend, making for a great read.
I would heartily recommend this to any fan of modern fiction, and anyone who's wondering where to go after Master and Margarita.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Anarchy in the Ukraine: A beautiful depiction of the imbecility of war and its messy aftermath
30 Mar 2008
Format:Paperback
I am one of those people who believe that the greatest novels have already been written. I also believe that they were written by Russians. Following on from the towering edifices of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky et al in the nineteenth century Mikhail Bulgakov (along with Mikhail Sholokov) was a worthy successor. This, his first work (originally recast into a play), tells the story of how the tumult of WWI/Revolution/Civil War impacted upon the unfortunate citizens of Kiev (then within the Russian Empire) as the city dissolves into a morass of confusion, turmoil and fear. White Guard royalists, Bolsheviks, Ukrainian nationalists, Cossacks, the rump German army, Poles, and even Senegalese troops, fight it out with nobody having the least notion of what is happening or even why. Commands and counter-commands, retreats, advances, rumours, counter-rumours, flight, corpses, chaos...
Whereas Tolstoy had sought to unravel the meaning and causes of war and Andreyev to describe graphically the horror, Bulgakov depicts the imbecility, the sheer monumental stupidity of it all, and its messy aftermath. He does this with a rare sensitivity through the experiences of the young Turbin family, a family of Tsarist patriots who live in an apartment in central Kiev. Following the death of their mother, twenty-eight year old Alex, a doctor, is left as the eldest, with his married (and abandoned) sister Elena, teenage brother Nikolai and their maid Anyuta. As ever with Russian novels in this tradition, we see the world through the eyes of real, thinking, feeling people, an ordinary family, caught up in the turbulence and having to make life-changing decisions with minimal or no information on which to base those decisions, and deeply concerned about the consequences of their actions on both their family and their own notions of self-worth. Like War and Peace, this book is a deeply moving look at the way different individuals respond to life's challenges and emerge as greater or lesser people.
The true tragedy for the people of the Ukraine (from 1922 a republic of the Soviet Union) is that this period of upheaval was followed by far greater horrors: the purges, the famine, the gulag, the Great Patriotic War; human sacrifices and loss on a scale that no other European country save neighbouring Russia and Poland has ever comparably suffered. As for Bulgakov, well it was a few years yet before he was to produce his fantasy masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, but this is a genuine classic, too.
Whereas Tolstoy had sought to unravel the meaning and causes of war and Andreyev to describe graphically the horror, Bulgakov depicts the imbecility, the sheer monumental stupidity of it all, and its messy aftermath. He does this with a rare sensitivity through the experiences of the young Turbin family, a family of Tsarist patriots who live in an apartment in central Kiev. Following the death of their mother, twenty-eight year old Alex, a doctor, is left as the eldest, with his married (and abandoned) sister Elena, teenage brother Nikolai and their maid Anyuta. As ever with Russian novels in this tradition, we see the world through the eyes of real, thinking, feeling people, an ordinary family, caught up in the turbulence and having to make life-changing decisions with minimal or no information on which to base those decisions, and deeply concerned about the consequences of their actions on both their family and their own notions of self-worth. Like War and Peace, this book is a deeply moving look at the way different individuals respond to life's challenges and emerge as greater or lesser people.
The true tragedy for the people of the Ukraine (from 1922 a republic of the Soviet Union) is that this period of upheaval was followed by far greater horrors: the purges, the famine, the gulag, the Great Patriotic War; human sacrifices and loss on a scale that no other European country save neighbouring Russia and Poland has ever comparably suffered. As for Bulgakov, well it was a few years yet before he was to produce his fantasy masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, but this is a genuine classic, too.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There are two ways to read this book: as a commentary on the carnival that is war and/or as poetry in verse. War is ridiculous and the ribald jingoism that goes with it is acutely captured in the hopes and fears and heroism of the Turbins. Hopes that predictably turn to ashes as once again our so called leaders are shown up to be (as almost always) just human and nothing but empty puff. On the other hand one can take the book as beautiful poetry set in verse because it is delivered with a style and bounce that exudes sheer class. I was clutching the folds of my pants - such was the vividness of the writing. Even the epilogue (background stuff) written by Nekrasov is captivating. I loved it all from the beginning right to the very end.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Pitch perfect
Bulgakov is best known for Master and Margarita, which appears on University syllabuses, yet that perfectly enjoyable book is, compared to this wonderful novel, too clever-clever... Read more
Published 6 months ago by bookishman
Don't fear Russian litrature!
I am no literati and cannot claim to be an avid reader of Russian novels but having stumbled upon Mistress and Margerita (which I confess I enjoyed although did not entirely... Read more
Published 9 months ago by T. S. Burns
Vintage Russian
Bulganov is a writer I know from The Master and Margarita. This book is ostensibly about his experiences in the 1918 revolution but is a criticism of authoritarianism in any form. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Dr. Alan Green
Sub-Tolstoyan
This edition was translated by Michael Glenny, a seasoned and reliable translator of Russian novels and more. Read more
Published on 31 May 2010 by Lost John
Chronicle of a disappearing world
No less than four sides vie for control of Kiev in 1918. White Guard follows the fortunes of the monarchist Turbin family during this fateful year. Read more
Published on 17 Jan 2010 by Dublin 4
Excellent book
Bulgakov portrays a wonderful depth of language in this exciting novel of one family in Kiev at the end of the First World War. Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2009 by G. Youngson
A vivid and enthralling portrait of a civil war
Obviously, one can't know what it's like to be caught up in the tumult of civil war but if any book can give an inkling it is this, Mikhail Bulgakov's first novel. Read more
Published on 2 April 2009 by Melmoth
Excellent story of ordinary people at war
`The White Guard' follows the story of a few days in the lives of a Ukranian family (the Turbins) living in Kiev during the final days of Russia's participation in WWI and with the... Read more
Published on 8 April 2004 by Depressaholic
1
This book is about people in an rapidly changing time. About their hopes and lyrical memories of the life they left far behind and fears for the future. Read more
Published on 3 Jan 2002 by lutik22@hotmail.com
The book of the author who is praised more than he deserves
...The White Guard reveals all the worst sides of the author's soul. The story tells about the Civil war at Kiev (Ukraine). Read more
Published on 10 Oct 2001 by Olga (o_levina@hotmail.com)
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