Elena believes her mother was once “cheerful and ironic, before she turned into a law-abiding citizen so much in need of order.” (p.99) Why do you think she changed? How did Elena avoid falling into the same trap?.How does Elena first learn about vranyo? How do Russians play the game of vranyo in their daily lives? How is this game played in Elena’s family? Where did it originate? How does it keep recurring throughout the course of the book? In what way is a “mountain of crumbs” a metaphor for the failing Soviet Union?
Explain the significance of the book title.Revealing the human scale of the crumbled Soviet dream, A Mountain of Crumbs is an elegy to the lost country of childhood and youth, where those who left can never return. In this powerful and affecting memoir, Elena Gorokhova recreates the world that both oppressed and inspired her. Yet to her mother it feels like a betrayal, perhaps the most terrible of all, in a lifetime of Soviet deception. gives Elena her only chance for personal happiness. Their suffocating nurture exacts a price, and when Elena upsets the expected order, she becomes an outcast. “They pretend to pay us,” says her older sister, summing up Soviet life, “and we pretend to work.” Her mother, born eight years before Russia turned into the Soviet Union, is a mirror image of her Motherland: overbearing, protective, and difficult to leave. How do you preserve the spark of enchantment amid the mandatory courses in scientific communism and banners proclaiming “We thank the party for the people’s welfare” above lines for toilet paper? Elena searches for the magic missing in her life and finds it in the English language- a passion that in the Soviet Union verges on the subversive.Ĭontrolled by the state the same way she is controlled by her mother, Elena learns early to play the national game of pretending. Soviet Russia of the 1960s and 1970s, where Elena Gorokhova grows up, is a bleak, disillusioned world, a land that promises everything but delivers little. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. This reading group guide for A Mountain of Crumbs includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Elena Gorokhova. Reading Group Guide for A Mountain of Crumbs Reading Group Guide for A Mountain of Crumbs
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