Taras Bulba - post II

You can start to see why this book is rated by some many writers and critics as it has all the right ingredients with battles being a chance to display courage and honour and the love story involving Andri something so powerful it can rip a family apart and divide a community

Bullet points between pages 28 - 98

* The life in the Sech, the Cossack training camp is an eye opener for Ostrap and Andri Taras’s sons, and among the drunkenness and fights there are introductions into the brutal side of Cossack existence – such as burying alive a murderer under the coffin of their victim

* Taras is restless in camp and intrigues against at Ataman to try and get the Cossack leader to declare war on the Turks. His plan succeeds but there are still doubts that they should break their peace pact with the Sultan

* Just as the Cossacks get ready to attack the Turks a messenger from another village arrives and tells then that the Jews and Poles are attacking them and shutting up their churches – news that is greeted with an almost instant pogrom

* The Cossacks head for Poland and Ostrap shows he is a brave leader and fighter and Andri is so brave he dives in where other troops fear to tread so the father is pleased as they halt and lay siege to the Polish town of Dubno

* As they wait for the city to surrender because of starvation Andri is visited by the maid of the Polish noble woman he spotted two years before at the seminary and he travels through a secret passage to be with her and leaves his family and tribe

* Reinforcements come and the Poles bolster their resistance then the Cossacks hear that the Turks have attacked the Sech so the group splits in two leaving Taras in charge of the troops left in Poland – with the father facing his own son in war

The last pages come tomorrow...