QUIET FLOWS THE DON

by Mikhail Sholokhov ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1996

This enormous, turgid, ponderously impressive novel (which won its author the 1965 Nobel Prize) describes in tireless detail the life, loves, and moral reeducation of Grigory Melekhov, a Russian Cossack who lives through, and participates in, the transfiguring events of the Bolshevik Revolution, the First World War, and the Civil War between his country's (Communist) Red Army and the opposing (counter-revolutionary) ""Whites."" Sholokhov is a kind of middlebrow master of extravagant romantic imagery, given to extended fits of treacly sentimentalism. But his pictures of Cossack village life have a pleasingly rough vigor, and his characterizations--especially of such striking figures as Melekhov's lover Aksinya and his friend (and betrayer) Koshevoi--pretty much compensate for this overlong book's tedious battlefield scenes and simplistic politics. Readers interested in modern Russian literature will want to attempt it, but shouldn't be surprised if they find it hard going.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1996

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 1376

Publisher: Carroll & Graf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996

Categories: FICTION