Mikhail Sholokhov-And Quiet Flows the Don (1928)

Middling long Soviet-era--really Stalin-era--novel, the major work of Mikhail Sholokhov, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965. Sholokhov is a figure not unattended with some controversy. At numerous points in his life he was accused of either plagiarizing or not having written most of his most famous book, though it appears that modern scholarship with regard to the surviving manuscripts as well as computer analysis of his authorial style across all of his extant works has acquitted him of this charge. Without knowing anything else about him, he also arouses a sense of suspicion at first consideration, deservedly or not, by the circumstance of his being a working writer through the teeth of the Stalin reign of terror in the U.S.S.R. without ever having to go into exile, or be imprisoned, or shot, as our conditioning tells would have been the case with any writer of that time or place who was at all good, or honest, or courageous. Sholokhov, however, survived the entirety of this period in apparent good standing, and on several occasions is reported at least to have written fairly bold missives to Stalin himself regarding the dire conditions in his home region (The Rostov--Don River area in the South of European Russia, roughly northeast of Ukraine). He met the dictator on at least two occasions and was summoned (well, according to his Wikipedia page he was 'invited') to the Kremlin for a personal meeting in 1937. Whatever his character or position with regard to the regime I imagine it would certainly have required a degree of fortitude lacking in most western middle class men to endure a face to face meeting with Stalin in 1937. No one was so 'in' as to be certain nothing very bad wasn't going to happen to them at any given time. Sholokhov, born of a generation of men who between war, revolution, famine, and political violence died young in large numbers, lived until 1984 and was awarded many titles and honors in the Soviet Union.

An interesting thing about the IFE list is that while it is more or less a family-friendly set of titles for middle America, and includes a fair number of specifically children's or adolescent's books, it also has a decent share of books like this which deal with grimmer material. And Quiet Flows the Don is concerned with the lives of various members of a Cossack village, mostly male, from the years just before World War I and continuing through that conflict, the Revolution of 1917, and ending in the midst of the Civil War, in the book as yet unresolved, which followed upon the revolution, the closing episodes involving the capture and executions of various troops of "reds", though these episodes follow upon others in which it is the "reds" who are administering the executions. I think it is a good book, the style in keeping with the grand tradition of Russian novels, though the main characters are drawn from a much rougher and less polite segment of society than one usually finds in the classics of the 19th century. The descriptions of the country and the working and social life of the Cossacks were presented unobtrusively, woven into the narrative and all of that, but gave a vivid picture of the setting of the book nonetheless. The physical intimacy with the earth, and with animals of all sorts, though common to many older novels, made a more than usually strong impression in this. Against this background swept the drama and intensity of rape, adultery, casual violence between men, class exploitation of all kinds, war, political executions. Much of this, especially towards the end of the book, was in the service of Communist agitprop, which weakened the impact of certain episodes, though others had the quality of seeming to be authentic accounts of real situation, regardless of the politics involved. The politically motivated violence from the sections about the Revolution and the Civil War strike me as possibly honestly observed accounts of what went on at the time. It is not implied that the communist side was pristine or at all times just in its carrying out of executions and the like, though in the service of a necessary end.

The section on World War I I thought contained some good material. I have always found books about this war to be in general more interesting than books about World War II, because the old, classical Europe that is in the process of being blown apart is almost always still present in some degree both in the consciousness of the protagonists of the books and in the geography and manner of life of whatever country we are in. The descriptions of the initial skirmishes, and the last days, and hours, just before them, along the borderlands of Austria and Russia in August 1914 partake of this haunting quality that I find so attractive and central to my perception of so much about the nature of the world.

"The silence howled stupefyingly. From the open window of one house came the naive striking of a clock."

"1916. October. Night. Rain and wind. The trenches in the alder-grown marshes of Polesie. Barbed-wire entanglements in front. A freezing slush in the trenches. The wet sheet-iron of an observation post gleams faintly. Lights here and there in the dugouts."

The first world war is famous for its atrocious weather. Mainly rain, wind, cold and mud.

In the book at least, it took some time and build-up before someone took the decisive step of putting quick bullets into the heads of captured or otherwise defenseless members of the higher social classes during the revolution. One wonders about something like this coming to pass here, especially based on what one reads on the internet, the degree of utter contempt in which so many people seem to hold their fellow countrymen, and the desire to deprive their enemies of all pretension to to dignity and human worth, well beyond the point, as far as I can see, of any reconciliation.

The Bourgeois Surrender Challenge

Due to the 14-way tie for 9th place, we had to have an expanded tournament this time.

1. Top Gun (movie)...........................................................................................1,499
2. The New England Primer.................................................................................159
3. Orlando Figes--A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution.....117
4. Jose Saramago--Raised From the Ground.......................................................38
5. Alina Bronsky--The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine................................23
6. Victor Serge--From Lenin to Stalin.....................................................................5
7. R.R. Palmer-The Age of the Democratic Revolution...........................................3
8. Narratives of the Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke....................................1
9. William Masselink--I and the Children Thou Hast Given Me.............................0
10. William Masselink--Sermons on the Commandments.......................................0
11. William Masselink--J. Gresham Macken-.........................................................0
12. Ben Masselink--General Revelation and Common Grace.................................0
13. William Masselink--Why Thousand Years?.......................................................0
14. Ben Masselink--The Cracker Jack Marines.......................................................0
15. Edward Masselink--The Heidelberg Story.........................................................0
16. Ben Masselink--The Deadliest Weapon..............................................................0
17. Ben Masselink--The Danger Islands..................................................................0
18. Ben Masselink--Green........................................................................................0
19. Ethel Mannin--Young in the Twenties.................................................................0
20. Ethel Mannin--Stories From My Life..................................................................0
21. Ethel Mannin--Sunset Over Dartmoor................................................................0
22. Burbank and Ransel (eds.)--Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire.....0

1st Round

#22 Burbank and Ransel over #11 Masselink. The New Hampshire library database does have an entry for the winning book in its system, though there don't seem to currently be any copies of it available anywhere in the state.

#12 Masselink over #21 Mannin. With one exception, none of the other books in the first round have any presence in the New Hampshire State library system.

#13 Masselink over #20 Mannin.

The Masselinks are all related, There are some web pages devoted to the extensive genealogy of this moderately distinguished family, but I don't have the time to do more extensive researches into their respective scholarly and literary careers.

#14 Masselink over #19 Mannin

Ethel Mannin was a very prolific and long-lived British author (active 1923-1977) who probably wrote seventy or eighty books. She doesn't seem to be read much anymore.

#18 Ben Masselink over #15 Edward Masselink. This is the exception. Green: the Story of a Caribbean Turtle's Struggle for Survival is available at three locations, these being, for the record, the University of New Hampshire, the Finch Museum (?), and Lilac Public (?).

#16 The Deadliest Weapon over #17 The Danger Islands

The Sweet 16. 

#22 Burbank & Ransel over #1 Top Gun

#2 New England Primer over #18 Masselink. Kind of a grind it out victory for the #2 seed, which does not have a much stronger library presence than the Masselink champion.

#3 Figes over #16 Masselink.

#4 Saramago over #14 Masselink

#5 Bronsky over #13 Masselink

#6 Serge over #12 Masselink

#7 Palmer over #10 Masselink

#8 Clarkes over #9 Masselink

Elite 8

#2 New England Primer over #22 Burbank and Ransel

#3 Figes over #8 the Clarkes

#7 Palmer over #4 Saramago. Despite winning the Nobel Prize the Saramago book is not available at libraries easily accessible to me while Palmer's antediluvian historical tome is.

#5 Bronsky over #6 Serge

Final Four

#7 Palmer over #2 New England Primer. On a technicality. The New England Primer in the collection of the New Hampshire State library is non-circulating.

#3 Figes over #5 Bronsky. Figes's book is not available at my local libraries, while Bronsky's is, but due to multiple recurrences during the qualifying round, Figes is entitled to one upset, and he gets that here.

Championship

#7 Palmer over #3 Figes. Figes is not entitled to two upsets, giving Palmer a most improbable victory.