Where would this defect of caring too much for beauty lead him? Mostly Andrii, who had a weakness: women. The personal story within all of this was about Andrii and Ostap, the two sons. And they were ruthless in battle, the bloodier the fight, the more they wanted to be in the middle of it, and were arrogantly proud whether they won or lost. All this according to Gogol, and he certainly made the life sound splendid.īut they were also racist, swearing to kill all 'Musselmen', hating and mistreating the Jews who did business with them. They lived to the utmost, drank themselves stupid when not on the march or in battle, generously gave away all their plunder just to be able to share. Honor, integrity, brotherhood, that is what they understood better than any other men of the world could. The description of the bond between the Cossacks was certainly idealized here. Through a bit of deviousness and some good timing he gets his wish and the whole Setch goes off to fight against the Poles, each Cossack to meet his Fate in some form. He wants his sons to be blooded in battle, to learn what it truly means to be a Cossack. But hanging around drinking and playing is not enough for Taras Bulba. He takes them to the Setch, to learn to be warriors and work the academic polish off of them. We meet Taras Bulba when his two young adult sons come home from school. It is sad and joyous like one of those Ukrainian songs which have helped to inspire him to write it.' Gogol has written in “Taras Bulba” his own reproach to the nineteenth century. 'An understanding of Gogol’s point of view gives the key to “Taras Bulba.” For in this panoramic canvas of the Setch, the military brotherhood of the Cossacks, living under open skies, picturesquely and heroically, he has drawn a picture of his romantic ideal, which if far from perfect at any rate seemed to him preferable to the grey tedium of a city peopled with government officials. However, I also watched the trailer for that movie, so while reading I was able to picture Brynner as Taras and Tony Curtis as his son Andrii.

I vaguely remembered seeing the film that starred Yul Brynner as Taras Bulba, but I learned at Wiki that the movie was very different from the story. So I went to Project Gutenberg and chose this book. I have read one title by this author and remembered that I had intended to read more some day. I came across the name Gogol a few weeks ago while reading a book about Ukraine. I will come back someday and finish the book properly, so this review is only for Taras Bulba, not for the entire book. But I am not in the mood for the rest of them. I have finished Tara Bulba, the first of six stories in this collection by Nikolai Gogol.

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