JANUARY BOOK
A new year will soon be upon us and we'll be ringing it in with a series of classics, beginning with our January choice Dead Souls (link ) by Nikolai Gogol. The current lineup is Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude for February, followed by Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner in March. (February and March meeting dates will be confirmed later.) Our second Tuesday of the month slot falls on the lucky 13th of January (2026!) this time around, so hope to see the gang congregate for a post holiday therapy session at our regular Zawa Restaurant location (ZAWA) at 7pm. Newcomers and the merely curious always welcome. Happy holidays to one and all.
Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity, and pomp. As Gogol's wily antihero Chichikov combs the back country, wheeling and dealing for "dead souls"--deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants, landowners and conniving petty officials, few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov's proposition.
