Welcome to our Book Club!
Book Club meetings are held via Zoom on the last Thursday evening of odd-numbered months beginning at 7:00 p.m. (Portland time). Listed below is the Zoom meeting link as well as a link to “Discussion Questions” for the upcoming reading selection (courtesy of Book Club coordinator and discussion facilitator Alan Ellis). Discussions are open and flowing, with discussion questions serving as a sequential roadmap. Selections can be read in the original Russian and/or in translation, and excerpts are cited in both languages during discussions. Our focus for 2024 is 20th-century Russian classics, and we welcome your participation! (Давайтe!)
We are currently reading Twelve Chairs by Ilf and Petrov—discussion scheduled for Thursday, May 30th.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
“Ilya Arnoldovich Ilf” (Илья Арнолдович Ильф) was born in 1897 as lehiel-Leyb Aryevich Faynzilberg (Иехиель-Лейб Арьевич Файнзильберг) into a poor Jewish family in Odessa where his father worked as a clerk in a bank. At that time Odessa was home to thousands of Jews, and almost as many humorists. Yevgeny Petrovich “Petrov” (Евгенйи Петрович Петров) was born in 1902 as Yevgeny Petrovich Katayev (Катаев) into a middle class Christian family in Odessa where his father worked as a teacher. (Yevgeny’s brother Valentin, who would also become a famous comedy author, suggested the plot for Twelve Chairs.) The pseudonyms “Ilf” and “Petrov” came into being in 1927 when Ilya and Yevgeny, having met while working as satirical writers for a rail-workers’ newspaper called “Gudok” (“Whistle”), formed a literary partnership that would last 10 years and bring them international fame. (Early in the partnership they published under a number of whimsical pseudonyms, including “Fyodor Tolstolyevsky”!) Petrov half-jokingly remarked that writing together did not come naturally: “After all, we are not even related to each other, not even the same age, even different nationalities—one a Russian (with an enigmatic Russian soul), the other a Jew (with an enigmatic Jewish soul).” Despite their lampooning of Soviet society, the Bolshevik regime, and even Marxism itself in Twelve Chairs, publication was granted in 1928, in part because of a temporary relaxation of literary censorship begun by Lenin, and perhaps also in part because of the novel’s divergent ending. To the chagrin of frustrated Soviet censors, the book enjoyed widespread popular acclaim. A few years later the duo was permitted to travel to the Depression-ravaged U.S.—a trip that resulted in the publishing of photos taken by Ilf (who had a passion for photography) followed by a satirical novel based on their observations (which were not totally unflatteringly). The authors’ careers ended tragically, first with Ilf’s death from TB in 1937, then Petrov’s death five years later in a WWII plane crash. As for Twelve Chairs, sales surged after Stalin’s death in 1953 thanks to a “thaw” in censorship.
ABOUT THE NOVEL
A cult classic in Russia, Twelve Chairs has been adapted for numerous movies internationally, including the 1970 version by Mel Brooks. The novel’s main protagonist, the inimitable Ostap Bender, is a penniless vagabond who, via charm and gile, manipulates himself into the search for a treasure trove of jewery hidden in one of twelve chairs confiscated by the Bolsheviks from an aristocrat several years earlier following the Revolution. Bender’s competitors in the hunt are a narcisistic bureaucrat and opportunist priest. The caper spans the USSR, comically exposing prejudices and corruption along the way (a la Gogol). Divided into three parts and forty short chapters, the novel is around 400 pages long. Enjoy the ride, and we hope to see you in May!
Click on the meeting dates below to join!
7:00 PM THURSDAY MAY 30TH