The Magical Chorus

Very nice essay on Joseph Brodsky, by Keith Gessen, in this month's New Yorker, which recaps his life both in his own words and those of others like his great friend, Lev Loseff, whose biography has recently been published in English. Loved Brodsky's description of his first meeting with Auden, which he wrote to Loseff,

W. H. Auden drinks his first martini dry at 7:30 in the morning, after which he sorts his mail and reads the paper, marking the occasion with a mix of sherry and scotch. After this he has breakfast, which can consist of anything so long as it’s accompanied by the local dry pink and white, I don’t remember in which order. At this point he sets to work. Probably because he uses a ballpoint pen, he keeps on the desk next to him, instead of an inkwell, a bottle or can of Guinness, which is a black Irish beer that disappears in the course of the creative process. At around 1 o’clock he has lunch. Depending on the menu, this lunch is decorated by this or that rooster’s tail, or cocktail. After lunch, a nap, which is, I think, the only dry point of the day.

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Ward No. 6

Ward No. 6 is a short story written by Chekhov in 1892. It has appeared in various collections of Chekhov short stories, including The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories translated by Constance Garnett in 1921. In this story, Chekhov explores the inner working of a run-down lunatic asylum in a provincial town. He introduces the readers to a coarse porter who speaks mostly with his fists, various patients, a doctor who presides over this ward, and expresses his thoughts with a local postmaster. It was recently made into a movie , featuring Vladimir Ilyin. Here's a clip . There's also this very recent short film (30 min.) by Suzana Purkovic, with English subtitles.

Light and Dark

I'm still trying to sort out the ending. The story had to end tragically but was surprised that Rogozhin actually sought forgiveness in Myshkin after what he had done to Nastya, although I think that Dostoevsky intended the two to be read as one, along similar lines as The Double . He kept Rogozhin a shadowy figure throughout the novel, ever lurking in the dark of the Prince's soul. Try as he might, Prince Myshkin could not alter events and thus the fantasy world he had lived in upon returning to Russia crumbled before his eyes, leaving him at a total loss as how to reconcile himself with it. Once again, Dostoevsky plumbs great depths of the human soul. This is a psychological drama told in theatrical terms, perfectly suited for the stage. Characters appear and disappear as if moving from the shadows of the stage. I can see the "green bench" as the central stage piece. In the final part, one gets the sense that Lebedev is orchestrating events, and may even

The Morning of Our Motherland

I was watching a History channel special on Socialist Realism art of the Soviet Union and this was one of the grand canvases that is now stuffed away in the Tretyakov State Gallery . The painter was Fyodor Shurpin and he had a wonderful eye for detail, right down to the secret service black car on the road to Stalin's right. To the left, one sees a row of combines turning over the field of golden wheat, which became symbolic of Stalin's Soviet Union. Утро нашей Родины is from 1949, with Stalin radiating a post-war confidence. It is also known as Dawn of our Fatherland and other titles. Shurpin was one of the better artists to carry over from the pre-war years. The narrator pointed out how socialist realist art changed dramatically as a result of the war, becoming much more static and propagandist in appearance. He pointed to two stops along the Moscow subway as an example of this divide. Here, Shurpin essentially transposes Stalin for an earlier "Mother"

Chekhov's Gun

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