Он лучше чем их (He is Better than Them)

"Он лучше чем их" ("He is Better then Them") novel by Grigoriy Grigorevich Golubov, in Russian, 1940, Rabak Publishing, Нижний Новгород, (Nizhny Novgorod Oblast), Russia, Hardcover, 256 pages, five drawings by author. This is a well written book, really enjoyable and utterly captivating. The story is simple: friends meet at a restaurant where guests can play while the house band takes breaks. There's always a table with five or six guys with guitar cases who sit around and talk and drink vodka ... at every break in the music one of them gets onto the stage and plays his guitar, never more than two pieces. When he is done the guys at the table either encourage the audience to shout "He is better then them!" or just keep talking and drinking. The mechanism of determining a winner is not explained but the outcome is never contested. At closing time, the amateur table pays, leaves a generous tip and all disappear into the night. As the ending was written strongly suggests there is no ending.

I did read this book for my activity of cataloguing and inventory of the book boxes during the "The Evart-Gunn Publishing Company Book Salvage Operation" (see first blog entry here).