122. Book club with Bulgakov & Bunin
I joined a book club this summer. It was organized through the InterNations expatriate community in St. Petersburg. I haven't discussed literature with strangers since my college days, and I much prefer reading books to talking about books. But this seemed like a great opportunity to venture into a new genre of Russian literature and meet some new people in the process.
The theme so far of all the selections has been the Russian Revolution, to mark the 100th anniversary of this pivotal event in the nation's history. There was at least one book club meeting held prior to when I joined the group; I have participated in two discussions so far. The first meeting I joined (on September 05) focused on "The White Guard" by Mikhail Bulgakov. You can read my review on Goodreads here. The second discussion (on October 03) centered on "Cursed Days" by Ivan Bunin. You can read my review here. The group plans to continue in November with "The Ugly Swans" by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - a bit different than the previous books, but it comes highly recommended by one of the Russian members of the group.
Both meetings included an interesting mix of people - around eight at the first gathering, and twelve at the second. The organizer is from England and a second participant is from Belgium (but has been living in Russia for 25 years). Everyone else is Russian: some are active participants in the discussion, some are there just to listen, and one gentleman is teaching himself English and always shows up with a hand-written book report that he reads to the group (he didn't make it all the way through the document either time before the conversation took off again in a different direction). Some of the Russian participants read the books in the English translation, and others in the original Russian text. The conversation is entirely in English, of course.
Both meetings have held been in bars. The first was a wine bar that I've been a few times that's near my apartment. It was a nice spot for our purposes until a jazz trio started playing and drowned out our conversation (it was good music, though). The second was a pub that attracts more of a beer-drinking crowd, but also conveniently located. It, too, was noisy with a sound system that played a loud mix of '90s American rock music.
The theme so far of all the selections has been the Russian Revolution, to mark the 100th anniversary of this pivotal event in the nation's history. There was at least one book club meeting held prior to when I joined the group; I have participated in two discussions so far. The first meeting I joined (on September 05) focused on "The White Guard" by Mikhail Bulgakov. You can read my review on Goodreads here. The second discussion (on October 03) centered on "Cursed Days" by Ivan Bunin. You can read my review here. The group plans to continue in November with "The Ugly Swans" by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - a bit different than the previous books, but it comes highly recommended by one of the Russian members of the group.
Both meetings included an interesting mix of people - around eight at the first gathering, and twelve at the second. The organizer is from England and a second participant is from Belgium (but has been living in Russia for 25 years). Everyone else is Russian: some are active participants in the discussion, some are there just to listen, and one gentleman is teaching himself English and always shows up with a hand-written book report that he reads to the group (he didn't make it all the way through the document either time before the conversation took off again in a different direction). Some of the Russian participants read the books in the English translation, and others in the original Russian text. The conversation is entirely in English, of course.
Both meetings have held been in bars. The first was a wine bar that I've been a few times that's near my apartment. It was a nice spot for our purposes until a jazz trio started playing and drowned out our conversation (it was good music, though). The second was a pub that attracts more of a beer-drinking crowd, but also conveniently located. It, too, was noisy with a sound system that played a loud mix of '90s American rock music.
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