Friday, August 07, 2009

The Twelve Chairs - post II

If you have any understanding of Russian history then there is delightfulness as the events unfold against a post-revolutionary background. There are still those that support the Tsar and there are many who dream of a different world to the one they face post 1917.

In the middle of that are the two conspirators, Ippolit and Bender, hunting for the chair. The old man who is chasing the vision painted to him by his mother-in-law on her deathbed and the young pretender.

They establish that the chairs have been distributed throughout Moscow and plan to head there to rediscover them. The problem is that to do so involves money and they have to beg and scheme to get the funds. The way they get them is to appeal to a group of those dreaming of a return to Tsarist days.

The jokes are directed at everyone in this book but for those that spend their days dreaming of an anti-communist uprising there is a degree of pity mixed in with the laughs.

Armed with the money they need those hunting the chairs head for Moscow…