Books by-the-month: January

T. S. Eliot was wrong when he said that "April is the cruelest month–" [he was wrong about a lot of things, like, ya know, his raging antisemitism, but, anyway, meh: a phenomenal poet] he’d clearly never experienced the nightmare that is returning to work, and the world-in-general, in January. In an election year. 

"Oh, what a long year this January has been!" I literally proclaimed yesterday. 

It's January 9th. 

Bleak times.

But with the festive season long gone, January can feel bleak and never-ending, not helped by the sidewalks lined with the corpses of Christmas trees, the days shorter and the darkness encroaching upon what feels like lunchtime, plus resolutions tugging away at your conscience? HARD PASS. So with the January blues in full swing, I offer a reprieve: an uplifting book.

I jest I jest. January is the birth month of too many of my close friends to count, including my husband. And who am I kidding I love winter coziness and any excuse for hyyge and all thing snuggling. Add a book to the picture of me + fireplace + snow outside + cup of hot something + Tatiana? Bliss. (Apologies for the wintery rant, southern hemisphere friends...)

 

In this new series Books by-the-month, I'm endeavoring to play the role of curator, assembling mini book collections across time and genre, according to themes endemic to the months on the good ol' Gregorian calendar. Holidays, yes. Seasons, sure. Themes the seasons inspire, why not? I also welcome any and all of your suggestions in the comments, friends!

 

And with that said, I give you January's mini list. Whether you’re looking to expand your mind, take up a New Year’s reading practice, or simply distract yourself from the chilly, soggy realities January has to offer, these books are sure to soothe you (at least mentally) for a day or two (plus the month or so those two days feel like... because, it's January).

 

*

January Theme: "Fresh Starts" and "Self Improvement"

 

1. Build The Life You Want by Albert C Brooks and Oprah Winfrey

On the solar calendar, January is all about the New Year's resolutions, and boy oh boy does our culture love to offer every one of us a million offers to improve. Lose the weight! Quit smoking! Save more money! Finally start therapy! Kick your weird habit! Start a juice cleanse! Have better relationships, conversations, anger management, sleep! Stop being a total jerk! 

 

The list is endless. And so is the pressure.

So my choice for this January "self improvement" category is a book of science-backed, evergreen wisdom on improving your overall HAPPINESS. And the first lesson is all about how we as a culture don't fully understand our own happiness, and how doing so can make a huge impact on how we experience the world, connect with ourselves and others, and shape a reality that brings us more peace, contentment and joy. 

 

Because apparently you can get happier. And getting there will be the adventure of your lifetime. So sayeth Oprah and author, researcher, academic and lecturer on happiness at Harvard University Arthur C Brooks. 

 

"In Build the Life You Want, Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey invite you to begin a journey toward greater happiness no matter how challenging your circumstances. Drawing on cutting-edge science and their years of helping people translate ideas into action, they show you how to improve your life right now instead of waiting for the outside world to change.

With insight, compassion, and hope, Brooks and Winfrey reveal how the tools of emotional self-management can change your life―immediately. They recommend practical, research-based practices to build the four pillars of family, friendship, work, and faith. And along the way, they share hard-earned wisdom from their own lives and careers as well as the witness of regular people whose lives are joyful despite setbacks and hardship.

Equipped with the tools of emotional self-management and ready to build your four pillars, you can take control of your present and future rather than hoping and waiting for your circumstances to improve. Build the Life You Want is your blueprint for a better life."

I hope you are as moved by its practicality, compassion, and candor as I was. 

January Theme: Reverend Martin Luther King Junior Day

2. Several reads on Martin Luther King Junior to celebrate 

There are many ways to celebrate the life of the peerless speaker, activist, leader, man of G-d and visionary humanitarian, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. It is being suggested by sociologists that in the 2010s-20s we are living during the second Civil Rights Movement, and where better to look to understand our present and our future, than to examine the courage of our origins. 

 

We have the gift of listening to his recorded speeches, joining in festivities, reflecting with friends and family. But of course, my favorite way to do this is to read books. Books have the capacity to create atmosphere like none other, and here are some essential reads about the man who lived up to the name of ‘King’ — the leader of America's civil rights movement.

• "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63" (1986),
• "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965" (1998),
• "At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68" (2006)
• "The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement" (2013),

 All by Taylor Branch.

The first book in Branch's multi-volume King biography, "Parting the Waters," was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1987. The two following books were also highly praised and in 2013 he provided a single-volume overview. Totaling almost 3,000 pages, Branch's exhaustive biography provides a deep look into King's life and legacy.

In addition,
Here is a wonderful list of MLK celebration books from the always book-savvy LA Times.

January Theme: :: Deepest Winterrrrr ::

3. "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy

In 2011 I wrote books-by-the-season, and regaled you with many books for the wintry months. From the first magic of The Chronicles of Narnia to Italo Calvino's singular If on a winter's night a traveler, to the psychological thriller masterpiece that is Rebecca—I waxed on and on and stand by my choices!

Winter can make for an irresistible setting for a book (believe me I... wrote a book set... in Siberia. So). From the glass-like surface of a frozen lake to the frenetic power of a white-out squall, the dead of winter offers countless evocative and extreme conditions that conjure magic, channel psychological heartbreak and push characters to their absolute limits. But January offers the longest of nights and bitterest of cold, and thus makes perfect meteorological grist for atmosphere, making you clutch your mug of tea a little closer.

And who does any of this better? Than RUSSIAN LITERATURE. You heard me. If you are a London Still venteran you know I love allthingsRussian (just to be clear in 2025: all things arts and culture, and not politics for literally ... the last 100 years?) 

 

And while Bulgakov is my dearest love, there is no greater place to start, end, and linger along the streets of Moscow than in the heartbroken arms of Tolstoy's great heroine, Anna Karenina. 

 

[:: Sweeping orchestral swell! ::] 

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was serialized between 1875 and 1877, and first published in book form in 1878. Tolstoy considered it his first true novel— (note that War and Peace appeared in 1869! He must've felt very strongly!) Those two novels, of course, are considered among the two greatest novels not simply of Tolstoy's, not simply of Russian Literature, but two of the greatest novel and frankly, works of art, of all time.  William Faulkner famously answered, when asked to name the three best novels, "Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina."  And Anton Chekhov reputedly said, after visiting his hero: "When you know you have achieved nothing yourself and are still achieving nothing, this is not as terrible as it might otherwise be, because Tolstoy achieves for everyone."

 

Tolstoy wrote many other (truly wonderful) short stories, and works like The Death of Ivan Ilyich (my "gateway drug" to all Russian Literature— thank you Jean Gaede by Russian Lit teacher Junior year at Interlochen Arts Academy), The Kreutzer Sonata, and Hadji Murat are also held in high esteem. Tolstoy was also a profoundly influential thinker— a radical Christian, a vegetarian (nearly a vegan), a pacifist. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in both Literature and Peace multiple times, and it feels criminal that he never received either honor (to be fair, it was early days for the existence of the award.)

 

So thanks very much in part to my previously mentioned life-transforming Russian Literature class in high school (once again, thank you Jean Gaede), and additionally in part to a childhood best friend Arielle who married a gosh darn Russian Literature professor, I was hooked. I picked up a copy of Anna Karenina one frigid, lonely, heartbroken winter years ago, and, after owning it for less than a week, I was performing medical-grade triage on the collapsing spine of my copy. Unputdownable isn't the word. Because it far exceeds that.

With its sempiternal themes of envy, fidelity, ambition, success, power, pity, lust and the greater machinations of a "civilized" society, Anna Karenina is the perfect place to begin your Russian literary journey, for it will be an odyssey. 

 

Sure sure, I hear you moan, but what is the novel about? Well, it's roughly 350,000 words are "about" marriage and adultery, but also farming, and war, and religion (and philosophy in general), and about economics, and about the difference between life in Russia and life in Europe; and, in a large way, about how to live a life, and the time-worn question of destiny versus personal agency. It offers few answers. Just better and better questions.

The modernity of the characters is leave-you-breathless astonishing: how they all, from young Kitty, to the author's alter-ego Levin, strive for meaning; how they so often fail (as the cuckolded husband Karenin does when he confronts Anna's adultery) to put into words what they desperately yearn to express; how one society princess is "awfully, awfully bored" and laments the "same everlasting crowd doing the same everlasting things" (Tolstoy's princess is a literary antecedent of F Scott Fitzgerald's Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby: "What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon … and the day after that, and the next thirty years?")

Tolstoy observed that the way to begin a novel was to "plunge readers right into the middle of the action." This is borne out in Anna Karenina: the opening chapter plunges us into themes that will be explored fully later. We learn in the first paragraph that "everything had gone wrong in the Oblonsky household. The wife had found out about her husband's relationship with their former French governess and had announced that she could not go on living in the same house with him."


Part One's most enduring scene, however, is Anna's arrival where, just after she has exchanged eye contact with Vronsky (her fatal attraction), a guard is crushed by a train: "A bad omen," she says to her brother, tears streaming down her face. As readers, we know she is doomed. And we are hopelessly hooked.

A little note on translations, while we are here.

In translating literature from one language to another in general, it is important to convey not only the literal meaning of the story, but the culture, dialogue, thought flow, and essence of the characters being conveyed in a way that makes literal and emotional sense to the reader who experiences the world through the lens of another language.

Because Russia holds such an extra layer of foreign mystery to Westerners, cultural conveyance is of even more import.

Russians (and of course, subsequently, their language) are very direct in their everyday conversations. They say exactly what is needed, often coming across as harsh or rude to the smiley, overly polite English-speaking world that values socially manicured manners and friendlyness above all else. 

 

 

So who does this best? The contemporary husband and wife team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky are considered by many scholars to be the gold standard of Russian Literature in English translation. Not only in the prose (which is *ga ga ga gorgeous*) but crucially, in the dialogue. Also crucial is the footnotes. Their footnotes explain EVERYTHING you could ever want to know about what you are reading in a comprehensive but concise way. 

[Two little] CONS:
The bummer about many of Penguin Classics editions (that Pevar and Volokhonsky publish with)? --
1. the font is so tiny you could totally get an ocular migraine.
2. The covers...? The American covers anyway are ...  not inspired. And the saying be hang, judging a book by its cover is fine be me because book covers matter.

The Sentence by Anna Akhmatova

And the stone word fell
On my still-living breast.
Never mind, I was ready.
I will manage somehow.

Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again—

Unless…Summer’s ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
For a long time I’ve foreseen this
Brilliant day, deserted house.

The Passage of Time

Time, it seems, has a funny way of imprinting itself on your memories. The grey land of Nerchinsk, with its worn roads, its forests, fences, and horizons laced with countless metallurgical operations—all of it had altered.

Or perhaps it hadn’t.
 Perhaps it was merely their perception, altered.

The sky, once leaden was now a luminescent blue—heavy as eyelids fighting sleep. Clouds of smoke came belching up from little chimneys in great billows, where once there had been only threads, fading into night. The already stark landscape of the taiga with its muddy hills and lonely trees, obliterated into swamp and shrub and an undergrowth of rubble. The barrack sheds and village shacks once only smudges of blackened wood, now betrayed faded shocks of color—window shutters, painted doors and makeshift murals. Silence had been pumiced by sounds of picks and carts and heavy hammers, creaking gates, cows and chickens, silverware and screeches. Above all, the wailing whistle as the train approached from the parallel tracks of the ever-growing Great Railway.

Eastern winds that once wafted smells from deepest Asia, now blew only minerals from the ever-expanding mines: the sour sickness of sulfur, the sharpness of silver, and the harshly cleansing scorch of salt that burned the nostrils as you searched to define it further.

Not to be forgotten, was all of them—memories, shadows and friends alike. They had been rubbed down, they lay worn and raw like scraps of glass washed up upon the shores by the frigid waters of the Nercha. One could see what could never have been seen before: that Nerchinsk indeed held good men, and dark ones, and those so torn apart by madness they scarcely knew themselves. Time leached all that was impure from the companions until all that remained was the world-weariness, the churlish tempers, and the intricate psychological scaffoldings, which could not be kept up or down under the pummeling of Siberian days.

It was these little things.
Nothing can compare to the first moments one realizes that time has more than simply “passed,”
     but indeed, that things are older.
And they were.
Older.
Days passed and grew to weeks, weeks grew to months, which succeeded each other one after the other, and swiftly grew to years.

They were nearer to ash, to dust, to eternity, than they have ever been before.

The Book of Dmitri

Dmitri Pavlovich Petrovsky had been born with twines of music lodged tight about his heart.  Like a rusted barbed-wire, it clutched at him and the harder he struggled, the deeper the barbs would cut.  The wounds festered, encased in the pus of his dead imagination. 

Coming from a family of folk musicians in a city as bright as Petersburg made no difference whatsoever to a boy so innately fraught by the simultaneous demands and admonitions of a world in which he felt he did not belong. Depression blanketed the boy from the time he could remember, though his family was quick to dismiss it all as “family flair” or “histrionics.” His father, mother, and two older sisters were kind people of fair-complexion, tall, warm artistic types with open faces and straightforward values.

    “Mityushka, zheezn’maya, doosha’maya[1] !” They cried, “Nyezh-naya Mitya[2]!” They did not, they could not, know what to do with him. Nor did he know what to do with himself.

Dmitri’s personage had always been a shroud of mystery—broad shoulders hunched over a lanky body as if to protect the heart that ached within. His face beautiful, but tender and surrounded by a mop of dark, messy curls. Large expressive hands with long fingers worked up into fists plunged deep within his pockets, or else wringing, itching to be used to play his cello. His small but ferociously intelligent eyes held all the world at arms length, shielded further by the spectacles he’d worn since childhood. 

If the truth of a man lies within him, then it stands to reason one might then be able to simply open him up and grasp at that truth the way one carves into a carcass to extract the tenderest cuts of meat.
But there are certain men whose inner truths are far too delicate, and whose constitutions far too strong to penetrate. In such a case, one must simply wait for the truth within to creep out of its own accord, like a creature that may break apart if pressure is put upon it. Perhaps it was so with Dmitri.

How could the shackled heart, and the poetry that mocked within him; how could the stench of fear,  the cacophonous clamor of uncertainty, and the darkened depths of spirit; how could any of it ever be expressed?

It was the cello, in the end, that set him free. That gave him peace. Inside the chords and notes and arches of melody, he found an expanse of space where all of what he longed to be could fit— that unnameable, unknowable self.

He tagged along, of course, to play in the city venues with his family— folk songs soared and crowds cheered as his father lead with accordion, his mother on balalaika and sisters on violins.
He was grateful to his family for the instrument itself (handed down from his grandfather), and for the ability to play it. But his family, however musical, could not hear his music at all.



*


To look at him before Nerchinsk one would think Dmitri Petrov had no reason for pain. His curls, his higher education, and lovely family—of course one would think he had no agonies. But there are pains and there are pains.

Once in Nerchinsk, no cold, no labor, no punishing treatment, no single thing could mar him more than the love that raged within his breast for her. The love he felt but could not utter, which he knew with every scrap of his being to belong not to him, but to the only man he admired, the man he respected above all others. If only he could say what everyone already knew to be true. Everyone, that is, but her.

He felt that ancient barbed twine unravel itself and come between them, it lodged itself into Shura without her knowledge, and once enmeshed it yanked and ripped at his already riled heart, and made it throb in agony. One moment he would revel in her scent, the next he could weep with guilt.

When together, the three of them were such a happy triangle. But Dmitri recognized he was the  hypotenuse in a shape perfectly right without him—an attachment, not at all unlike a third wheel on a cart— excessive, unnecessary for it to function, but somehow with its presence the entire structure had better balance. Countless times he nearly spoke, nearly moved to kiss her; Tell her! His mind bawled, Take her in the arms you know were designed to enfold her within them! But every time, he thought of what would happen if he did. Crippled by loneliness, fear penetrated his love—the alchemical result was aloofness. Or often, viciousness.

He knew that he could never be alone with her without wanting desperately to touch her. Could not touch her without wanting to posses her, to make her his own. So he barely spoke to her at all. He would waste his life away beholding a painting upon the wall of a locked house he would never be allowed to enter…

    “…Mityushka! Zheezn’maya, doosha’maya…Nyezh-naya little Mitya!”

There was nothing to be done.
Nothing he could do but honor them.
And play of course.
He could play his cello.
Every strand of aching music, every forlorn concerto, for her.



[1] Жизнь моя, Душа моя, “my life, my soul!
[2] Нежная, tender Mitya

On translations

Larissa Volokhonsky & Richard Pevear

"Dear Al,
Do you suggest a specific translation of 'The Master and Margarita?' Also, you're right, covers do matter! Thank you.
From, M "


Dear M,

Why yeeeessss. Да. Oui. Sí. Ja. 是

On translations:

In translating literature from one language to another in GENERAL, it is important to convey not only the literal meaning of the story, but the culture, dialogue and thought flow, and essence of the characters being conveyed.

Because Russia, but particularly Soviet Russia is such an extra foreign mystery to Westerners, cultural conveyance is of even more import.

Russians (and of course, subsequently, their LANGUAGE) are very... VERY direct in their everyday conversations. They say exactly what is needed, often coming across as harsh or rude to the smiley, overly polite English speaking world. But keep in mind, Russia is cold, you don't want to have long talks in the street. And in Soviet Russia people never wanted to display their true emotions or feelings in public, lest they be overheard, doubted, and subsequently punished for any reason. Out in the "world" Soviet Russians were (and in many ways still lingeringly are) very suspicious. There was no sidewalk restaurant culture (anyone might overhear your lunch conversation!), shopping and socializing were not about personal pleasure but about necessity.

HOWEVER, once a Russian trusts you and welcomes you into their HOME? Well, you might not ever make it out for they will shower you in love and affection and pet names and pickles and guitar serenades and litres of vodka and ostensibly a veritable tsunami of emotional openness and truth we hear so often in their music. This is so prevalent in their language I don't even know how to fully convey it other than in ALL CAPS. [*she yells*] TO YELL AT YOU ABOUT IT IN ALL CAPS!!

You know who does this best?

     Husband and wife team Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
     They nail it.

Not only in the prose (which is *ga ga ga gorgeous*-- particularly in their recently released War and Peace, a translation that made the book readable and not dry at ALL)
     but crucially, in the dialogue.

Also crucial is the footnotes. Their footnotes explain everything you could ever want to know about what you are reading (and probably many things you did not realize you wanted to know, plus a few things you didn't really need to know but now you feel like a freakin' Master-MIND and Margarita...sorry...). Anyway they manage to do all of that in a comprehensive, yet utterly concise way. Best footnotes out there. [1] Here is a link to their brilliant essay on The Master and Margarita -- I highly encourage a perusal.

CONS: The bummer about the Penguin Classics edition of M&M?
     1. the font is so tiny you get an ocular migraine.
     2. The main character's name is 'Bezdomny' which is the literal word for "Homeless"-- it is clearly a direct joke, like Dickens naming a bumbling workhouse officer Mr. Bumble. However, there is something about using the word "Homeless" as his actual moniker throughout the book that... irks me. Not sure why. Just personal preference I suppose.
     3. [::sigh::] The cover...? The American cover anyway is (I'm so sorry Kasimir Malevich!!) not whimsical. It is "An Englishman in Moscow" and basically just not what I want...
          ...which is a black cat. 

And YES, M, yes: covers matter. 
They matter very much. 
[*evidence below*]

...*THIS...*

I want bat-shit Bulgakov-crazy shit liiiiike...

[1] truly

The Gentleman's Daughter

On some days Shura was ordered to clear the courtyards, other times she was made to haul logs, draw water, or to hew wood for kindling and stack them uniform as soldiers; and if the logs were not hearty, the water not clear enough, the wood not placed sufficiently in tight, symmetrical piles, she was ordered (in a tone colder than the temperatures she endured) to do it again.

Shura worked. Slogged. Waited.
Waiting was another hell of the convict.
It had its many depths.

Recently, however, Shura had been turning in her hard labor and working many a late night in The Gentleman’s office.

*

Shura knelt scrubbing mold from the lavatory basins when The Gentleman approached her from behind.
    “Hello” he said, in his distinctive, quiet voice.
    "Good day, Sir."
He was holding a pamphlet he shook lightly as he declared,
    “The guards say your Russian has become quite impressive, Shura.”
    “I have always had a talent for language, Sir.”
Shura saw language like a puzzle to be put together, her instincts always leading her to the absolutely correct next piece as it locked into place.     
    “—And that you do not merely speak, but read and write. Is that so?”
    “I do not think that my husband," she smiled, "would have it any other way.”
It was true, Mikhail made certain Shura could speak, read and write Russian, not merely for her own good, but because he could not have quelled her insatiable questioning if he tried.
The Gentleman stepped closer and handed her the pamphlet,
    “Would you care to demonstrate?”    
   

*

She would work while moths, beetles, snow and wind all beat against the November-colored windows as she transcribed, scribbled and translated. The hours were long and loathe at passing, but despite that she was of course quite comfortable in comparison to her prior tasks of drudgery. Besides, The Gentleman always provided her with hot tea, a fire, and, though modest in appearance, a cushioned chair. Yet even as she finished and put away each paper, there always seemed to be something else — just one more task in need of completion.


She shared the tasks with another girl whose name she understood to be called Sarangerel (she learned to be the Mongolian for 'moon-light,') though was always known to everyone simply as, Ana.

Ana always sat beside The Gentleman’s desk at a squat little table of her own; posture determinedly upright as she wrote endlessly on page after page of import and export, entry and discharge documents in handwriting as precise as religion and just as scrupulous. She was small, body rigid, relentless in its productivity, with a manner so reserved she seldom spoke.

Ana was in fact none other than The Gentleman’s daughter.

Perhaps it was due to his overly protective stance that she remained so silent — he kept her close and unvisited, forbidding anyone to speak to her; not only the prisoners but to fellow sentries, guards and keepers; and soon she had managed to learn a life of silence so effective she scarcely seemed fussed by the conversation kept from her by a imperceptible paternal boundary.

Shura had heard whispers that Ana was a mix of local races, and she did indeed possess a composition of features Shura had never seen before in her life, had never known possible! So unusual were her qualities that at times she could not help but stare upon her workmates’ tawny skin tone, her small, flat nose, the height of her cheeks, the prominence and beauty of her bones. Her face was shaped like a heart and clothed in a light headscarf—not as Shura would have worn secured beneath the nape of her neck, but wrapped under and below her chin in what the Russians called the babushka (or "grandmother") style.

The night was dark as tar. And quiet, still as anything. Shura thought she could hear her heart beating beneath her shawl when all at once Ana looked up and nodded silently toward her, unsmiling.

A scrap of blackest hair was swept across her forehead resting like a perfect leaf, as her lean brows framed her completely foreign eyes — not only foreign, but ferocious: articulating a universe of strength and intelligence, and so piercing a blue they betrayed in every way the blood connection to her father...

Oh judicious blood, thought Shura, to select so striking a quality…

But Vladamir, I hardly knew you!

Hitchcockskya

Me: Hi, this is Alexandra Silber, I'm calling for Vladamir.
Them: [dead silence, then] Da.
Me: Well okay, [nervousrapidfirenerdyvoice] soooo I am doing some research on the katorga forced labor system in Imperial Russia [isoundliketheguyfromTheSimpsons] and I was told that Vladamir was available for a discussion sometime today?
Them: [silence.] Vladamir is out. [more silence]
Me: Okay...well I--
Them: --HE WILL NOT RETURN.
Me: [what?!] ...um, EVER?
Them: Da. EVER. I go now. Goodbye.

...whoa...

The Trick

My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business.

 -- Harry Houdini

In hon(u)or of the great, revolutionary and inspirational Harry Houdini's 137th birthday, a special magical excerpt. And, like all good magicians, I couldn't possibly give away the very end...

*

     “Christoph?” she called to him one evening entering around the screen that marked his bedroom. “Madame S has restored the embroidery on your waistcoat and asked me to bring it to you. I told her I would…” She smiled, “…with pleasure… ” she added

     “Place it on the trunk thank you,” he grunted, eyes closed in trance, unmoving. She did. Meditation? She asked herself, or another mood of his? Remarkable how changeable he is, she thought, I do wonder if he is the victim of some sort of addiction.

She beheld Christoph hanging upside-down from the edge of his bed like a kind of bat immersed in the depths of a dark, capsized meditation. More remarkable to her was how little she cared. Her flirtations with Christoph were nothing more than an amusement, a way of filling the days, of passing the hours. When she searched her heart, she was almost astonished to find it utterly empty and her conscience utterly clean. Curious, she observed, before apathetically moving on.

But before she reached the doorway his voice cut through the air, “Shura!” His voice was a thin, sharp blade, “You would like me to teach you one, wouldn’t you?”

     “What?” she asked, turning. He was still mystically inverted.

Christoph crunched his body upward and sat upright, promptly staring at her. His hair was long these days, dark and wavy, his massive torso complimented by the stark ivory tone of an undershirt revealing the curve of his Adam’s apple, the irresistible depression of his throat. His expression was penetrative. Something told her he was meditating on her. At this she clasped her hands behind her back, her face suddenly coy and playful like a little girl. “Oh,” she coaxed with her eyes and stood gazing at him in this manner.
     “No thank you,” she replied. She meant it.

     “Something then,” He stated it plainly. His voice even and firm. “I shall tell you something…”

     “Alright,” she agreed, “something…” and with that, he indicated she sit beside him on the cot. It was time. But how secretive he was. How protective. He reached below his cot and presented her with a small, red, wooden box, hand-painted red upon the lid was a haunting image of a tiger.

     “Open it. Take a good long look.”

She examined what appeared to be a very ordinary box, but deeper and with greater space within it than appeared to be possible from the outside. She blinked and placed her hand inside to feel it’s depth and was shocked to discover that the bottom of the box was not real at all but fixed with two tiny mirrors to create the illusion of depth.

     "You didn't see the illusion because you weren't expecting one," Christoph said. "You believed I was not misleading you and that this box was actually a normal box. Those beliefs serve you perfectly until you walk into a wall. Now close the lid, think of the illusion, and open it again."

She did as she was instructed and as she opened the painted lid was shocked by a double trick— the mirrors were gone, the box no longer appeared to have such depth and not only that, the box contained her hair ribbon, neatly folded as if it had nestled there of it’s own accord.

Christoph watched her as she tried in vain to figure out how it was done. He relished her confusion. "Do not worry, Ochi Chernye [1], I once showed this box to Leon Herrmann and he could not figure it out either." Unless Christoph witnessed your mouth agape, eyes widened, pupils dilated—he apparently did not consider the trick a success.

     "Illusions work only because magicians know, at an intuitive level, how we look at the world. Even when we know we're going to be tricked, we still can't see it. Perhaps we do not wish to see it. Magic is a deception, Shura. Our minds don't see everything—-the world is too vast, too full of stimuli. Therefore the mind creates little shortcuts, constructing a reality for they way we want and need things to be, for what things are supposed to look like. Magician’s capitalize on that petty little humanity,” he smiled.  Something in his expression altered. “Magic as an art reveals the everyday fraud of perception. People soon become aware of the tension.”

Christoph clapped his hands together, and began drawing them apart.

     “This tension exists between what is…” he said, revealing a seemingly suspended playing card, rotating between his fingers, “and what appears to be…” and he clasped his hands together again, revealing his empty palms with a final flourish. "...and, after all, is that not the story of the world...?"

*

[1] Russian: literally, "black eyes," often translated as dark eyes, also a hauntingly beautiful traditional Russian Gypsy song, and a phrase used as an affectionate pet name

Happy Birthday Boris Pasternak

Without a doubt, Doctor Zhivago (До́ктор Жива́го) is one of the great novels, and certainly on of the most important pieces of contemporary Russian as well as 20th century works of literature today (first published in 1957). The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a physician (hence the "Doctor" bit...), romantic, and poet. Yuri's life is affected by the 1917 Russian Revolution, the subsequent Russian Civil War, as well as the great love of two different but equally remarkable women.

The story of Doctor Zhivago's publication is almost as dramatic and sweeping as the novel itself. Many are surprised to learn that although it contains passages written in the 1910s and 1920s, Doctor Zhivago was not actually completed until 1956.

The novel was then rejected by the Russian language literary magazine/journal Novy Mir (Новый Мир-- Russian for both New World and New Peace) which mainly published prose that approved of the general line of the Communist Party, because Pasternak's political viewpoint within the novel (as well as without) was opposed by the Soviet authorities. (The author, like Zhivago, showed more concern with the welfare of individuals than with the welfare of society).

Remarkably, in 1957, the Italian publisher (and, ironically, the rampant Communist!) Giangiacomo Feltrinelli smuggled the book manuscript out of the Soviet Union (thanks to the remarkable 20th century thinker Isaiah Berlin--please check him out!) and simultaneously published the very first editions (in both Russian and Italian) in Milan, Italy. Amazing. It was published in English (translated from Russian by Manya Harari and Max Hayward) the following year.

It was most likely the publication of Doctor Zhivago that was partly responsible for Pasternak being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, but the Soviet government requested that the Nobel committee not award him, which they refused to do. Pasternak was subsequently pressured by Soviet authorities to reject the Nobel Prize in order to prevent a scandal in the Soviet Union. Pasternak died on 30 May 1960.

Doctor Zhivago was finally, at long last, published in the Soviet Union in 1988.

Author Boris Pasternak was born today in 1890. He was most famous in Russia as a poet, and as the Russian translator of Goethe and Shakespeare. But it is the echos of his poignant novel Doctor Zhivago that continue to ring on so profoundly for me, and for many others the world over. Filled with his very own quiet wisdom, delicate prose, infinite feeling so affectingly observed without a trace of sentimentality but always with the very finest psychological accuracy mixed with poetry, Yuri Zhivago's tale is a universally human a story told so perfectly it is hard to imagine it almost never saw the light of day. It goes to prove the point that everything worth having in the world is worth fighting for.

Pasternak is a man who should be revered and celebrated the literate world over, and today and every day I applaud him. He is, without question, one of my greatest artistic and literary inspirations and I am grateful for him, for his revolutionizing of Russian poetry, for Yuri, Tonya and Lara.
I am glad he was born.
Happy Birthday Boris.

"And now listen carefully. You in others - this is your soul. This is what you are. This is what your consciousness has breathed and lived on and enjoyed throughout your life - your soul, your immortality, your life in others. And what now? You have always been in others and you will remain in others. And what does it matter to you if later on that is called your memory? This will be you - the you that enters the future and becomes a part of it. And now one last point. There is nothing to fear. There is no such thing as death. Death has nothing to do with us."

In My Life: Comrade Baker

kit baker

the berkshires, massachusettes

2010

Nicknames I've Been Called: A List

1. Shura 

One of the many Russian diminutives given for the full name Alexandra, it was bestowed upon me by a former beau (Kent to be specific) in Glasgow after watching a performance of Maxim Gorky's Children of the Sun (Дети солнца) at The RSAMD. 

2. Sexy Lexi 

High school silliness bestowed upon me by another childhood "Major J" in response to a truly horrible short film we made entitled "The Sex Particle and the Adventures of the Impossible Woman." (Which role do you think I played...?)

3. Owl

Once again, I refer you to my love of owls in general, followed by the story of Ruthie and her eldest daughter mistaking my name "Al" for "Owl" whilst reading her Winnie the Pooh. And it stuck... forever...

4. Alex

So... yes. For the first 15 or so years of my life I tolerated this absolutely incorrect nick name because first of all, it is a rather obvious diminutive. Second, it is difficult for anyone, let alone an always moving around/ unsuspectingly shy child to fight the tsunami of adults and peers who assume without even asking really, that this is your rather obvious diminutive. Thirdly, when you have a rather long name, I have found that in general it makes people a little uneasy. And fourthly, I believe people (especially British people I might add...) are very anxious to "familiarize" themselves with you as soon as possible, and shortening your name to the very first rather obvious diminutive is the very best way to do that.

I could write an entire essay on "Alex." I don't really know who she is. Truth be told, I am fairly certain that the fact I tolerated being referred to as Alex for so long a while was a reflection on that very point-- I was not sure who Al/Alex/Alexandra was exactly, and I, like every growing and developing person, was making those discoveries daily.

I was ten years old the first time I went away to summer camp at Interlochen, and I remember the counselors asking about nicknames. I introduced myself on that very first day as "Al"-- it was what my family and very closest friends called me back home and it was already starting to feel right. "Hello, my name is Al Silber." Yes, I thought. I loved the idea of being able to start fresh in that way-- to wipe Alex clear off the face of the map, at least at summer camp. (Incidentally, I have always loved my full name but I found that it was a bumpy road with an awkward pit stop at "Alex.") So it is not surprising to me that I always felt more at home and myself at Interlochen than anywhere else.

A very small number of people continue to call me Alex in the present day. People that knew me "when" back in public school, those who probably do not know me very well, and/or people that have argued their case very convincingly (example: Marc Kudisch would not take no for an answer.  Basically, he presented a very good case that practically had bullet points. It was impressive and detailed and basically he gets a hall pass. Fine. He is allowed...). 

I have a few friends named Alex- one girl and three boys, and Alex is, without any doubt in my mind, their name. It suits them all in various ways. And please! Do not get me wrong, I am not offended or irritated by an Alex referral, it is simply, and without any doubt, not my name. :)

5. Poo & Schmoops

The same high-school and college boyfriend who called me Shura (Kent) was obsessed with the word "Poopie." I don't know why. It was his thing. I don't know how it began but it became a reallybigdeal.
As a result, he began to refer to me by this, his very favo(u)rite word, and it eventually morphed itself into the far more socially acceptable "Schmoops." I am glad to say that to this day, despite new relationships, time and distance, whenever we speak on the phone the call always begins with "Hey Schmoops." Nice, that.

6. The Sibs

Don't ask me why my pals at RSAMD referred to me as "The Sibs."Why the "L" was so callously left out. Or why the "The" was present. Why I wasn't merely "Sibs" but "The Sibs."I don't know. But I do know it was pretty serious business.

7. Poor Julie

The entire cast of Carousel 1.0. For a bazillion obvious reasons.

8. Sashenka 

My "Chosen Sister" Arielle is as obsessed with allthingsrussian as I am. It is one of the many many things that bonds us. There is nothing like knowing that someone has been there since the very beginning, yes. But there is also nothing like knowing one can casually throw out a Bulgakov reference without a second thought, and know, with full and total certainty, that it will be caught.

Fictional but totally possible Arielle and Al conversation:

Arielle:  I'll have a Narzan

Al: We're all out of Narzan.

Arielle: How about beer?

Al: They're bringing beer this evening.

Arielle: So what do you have?

Al: Apricot juice. But it's warm.

Arielle even married a Russian. Who teaches Russia Literature. And the language. That, my friends, is commitment. Anyway, long story short? She is Ariellushka and I am Sashenka. And that is even more bubbly and tasty and delicious than Narzan. The end.

9. High Ho Silber

The lady that ran the Scholarshop at Interlochen started it. I'm actually pretty surprised this fairly straightforward pop culture reference wasn't in my life a bit sooner.  Every time I walked into the Scholarshop to purchase some sheet music or a bottle of water or simply to get warm, that lovely woman would say "High Ho!" It was pretty wonderful.

10. Bub

Another pet name from a boyfriend. It evolved over time of course. Here are the steps it took:

a. When D got his wisdom teeth out his face exploded, which prompted me referring to him as "Bubble Face" for obvious reasons.
b. But soon, the swelling went down and somehow, the adorable-ness of this name remained.
c. I continued to refer to him as Bubble
d. then, to reciprocate (or perhaps to give me a taste of my own medicine, or perhaps simply not to feel left out?), he referred to me as Bubble
e. From there, as per usual, Bubble became too long and we started referring to one another as simply Bub.
f. Eventually a song was composed (as was our want) set roughly to the tune of the iconic Llyods TSB commercial song that went a little something like this:

You have a face
a bubble bubble face
you have a face
a bubba-dubba-bubba- Bubble FACE!

11. Soph!

Sometimes when you play characters.... it sticks. Exclamation point included.

12. Sunny 

I have always been terribly fond of allthingsRussian such as Russian literature, culture and history. But nothing has fascinated me more than the life and times of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra (originally a German Princess, born Alix of Hesse), the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia who ruled from 1894 until Nicholas' abdication on 15 March 1917.

There is much to say, to touch on, to convey; too much in fact. The atmospheric air of the particular chapter in history. Alexandra's queer dependence on mystic monk Grigory Rasputin. Their almost charmed family tarnished by the hemophilia of their youngest child, only son and heir, Alexey. The rise of the Bolsheviks. The wars. The unrest. One era violently escorting in another. (Incidentally, I am a fan of the 1971 film starring Michael Jayston and Janet Suzman--check it out.)

However, the most important aspect of my fascination with N & A is their unabashed love for one another particularly in a time of such overwhelming social, political, familial and personal upheaval. They loved each other. They were really in love. And despite every questionable decision, every short-sighted choice, they never strayed from that central truth. Even, in almost every way, to their own destruction. It draws me in every time. (Truly, there is far too much to articulate about my passion for N & A flippantly here, it deserves it's very own exploratory post).


Nicholas and Alix had first met in 1884 and when Alix returned to Russia in 1889 they fell in love. "It is my dream to one day marry Alix H. I have loved her for a long time, but more deeply and strongly since 1889 when she spent six weeks in Petersburg. For a long time, I have resisted my feeling that my dearest dream will come true." Nicholas wrote in his diary, and Alexandra fully reciprocated his feelings. They married in late 1894 (eve after Alix stood up to her grandmother Queen Victoria of England, refusing to marry the man Queen V chose for her!)

Regardless, suffice it to say that the intrigue runs deep. (Not merely because of the Tsarina's rather wonderful name...) Indeed, every time I come across a man named Nicholas I make a rather large fuss. And not one but two images of the royal pair can be seen in my apartment-- one on the refrigerator the other in a display case above my bookshelf. And that new apartment? It has a name. And that name is The Winter Palace.

Alexandra's  family nicknamed her "Alicky" or "Sunny," and the latter was picked up later by Nicholas. Recently, I have become rather wonderfully acquainted with a new Nicholas who takes it upon himself to call me Sunny... No. Arguments.

13. ... and, of course, you can call me Betty, but Betty when you call me you can call me...Al

Now, without question, I love the name Alexandra. And I feel that I am Alexandra. I respond to it, I feel I am capable of rising to it, and I respect all that is Alexandra Silber; but she is another facet of this multi-faceted Self (though equally valid and cherished).

When I finally attended school at Interlochen full time, Al Silber was in full bloom and even my teachers referred to me as Al. It felt marvelous.

Then, when I began college I thought I would have to start being a bit more "grown up" and "serious" and "professional," but no, Alexandra was some people's preference but Al was still holding on strong.

I then thought I would have to transition as I began a professional career. But no, when I began in The Woman in White, the casting directors, musical directors, cast mates, production team, and even Trevor Nunn and Simon Callow were calling me Al. Before you knew it, "Al Silber" was being bandied about the industry as if it were my professional name to the point where when Ruthie referred "Al Silber" to her manager in New York, he responded by telling her that he wasn't looking for any balding middle-aged Jewish comics...

Yes indeed, it usually sparks a bit of a conversation and that is no bad thing! At the very least people remember it. They may wonder why such a feminine woman has such an incongruous name, or why any glamorous woman would want to be labeled with so slight a sobriquet. Then they get over it. Or they don't. But most of the time they do.

In fact I went to a photo-shoot for my next project last week and the cast list had my name written thus:

Al(exandra) Silber

YES. That was it! Total mixture and domination achieved!

Well... all I can say is, when you know with all of your being that something is right, don't question it. Two little letters can sometimes pack a real punch, and seventeen years after my initial stake in the ground at summer camp, Al is still going strong. She, as well as the name, is stronger than ever.

Al. The one. The only.  It is, almost inexplicably, my truest name. My truest self. 

*

"Because it is my name. Because I shall never have another in my life..." 

-- Arthur Miller, The Crucible

The Russia Diaries: Olkhon Island Photos

"We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds."

--Anton Chekhov

The Russia Diaries: Moscow Photos

 

"I didn't choose Russia but Russia chose me. I had been fascinated from an early age by the culture, the language, the literature and the history to the place." 

-- Helen Dunmore

The Russia Diaries: St. Petersburg Photos

"Time will pass, and we shall go away for ever, and we shall be forgotten, our faces will be forgotten, our voices, and how many there were of us; but our sufferings will pass into joy for those who will live after us, happiness and peace will be established upon earth, and they will remember kindly and bless those who have lived before."
-- Anton Chekhov

The Russia Diaries: The Tale of Rabbi Lieb

We found the bakery. It was there all along. Like Brigadoon. We sat down and enjoyed some rather splendid baked goods and coffee.
Then I got all philosophical.*


*how fascinating to know now, how prescient this video would truly become...

The Russia Diaries: 12 August - The Moscow Metro

Soviet resolution to build The Metro

We take the glorious Metro! The people's Palace of underground delights. 

The Moscow Metro (Моско́вский метрополите́н) serves the city as well as the neighboring Moscow Oblast towns of Krasnogorsk and Reutov. This first underground railway system in the Soviet Union was opened in 1935 with a single 11-kilometer (6.8 mi) line and 13 stations (it will soon have 188 stations and be over 313km). [Also! The beginning of the Cold War led to the construction of a deep section of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line. The stations on this line were planned as shelters in the event of nuclear war...holy crow...]   

There was an intense governmental glorification of The Metro, for it was not only one of the Soviet Union’s most extravagant architectural projects (with reflective marble walls, high ceilings and grandiose chandeliers, many Moscow Metro stations have been likened to an "artificial underground sun," in fact, the vertical design emphasis encouraged citizens to look upward as if looking up at the sun, and to boot, the Metro's chandeliers were one of the most technologically advanced aspects of the entire project). Stalin ordered the metro’s artists and architects to design a structure that embodied svet (radiance or brilliance) and svetloe budushchee (a radiant future).  This underground communist paradise reminded its riders that Stalin and his party had not only delivered something substantial to the people in return for their sacrifices, but the monument was in their honor and glorified the people themselves. Most important of all: proletarian labor produced this svetloe budushchee.

 
... I mean... where else in the world is the rumble of trains accompanied by the tinkle of chandeliers? I marvel that taking the Metro is a rather solemn, official experience. Everyone is entirely silent, the announcements deliberate, officious and almost reverent. The hum of the electric lights combined with that of the churning escalators lull the upright people who look straight ahead and stand very still.  "This is as close as the city would get to a church, I suppose," I whisper to Kit as we make our way down the stairs. He just turns around to me and nods, taking the social cue that THEY DON'T REALLY TALK IN THE METRO AT ALL, and perhaps lightly suggesting that I take the hint as well.

All of this as we prepare for the sleeper train to St. Petersburg tonight. 

 

The Russia Diaries: 12 August - The Young

"You're sixty years old. Medicine won't help."
- Anton Chekhov

* * *

Later exhausted and drained from our "very sensible" trip to the post office we drive to  Novodevichy Cemetery only to discover it is closed. Damn.

We sigh, concede to return next week and walk around the beautiful river bank, taking in the setting sun, the extremely, demonstratively affectionate couples snuggling on benches, the dogs, the ducks and babushkas all sitting still as anything, lost in thought.

We buy cold drinks and head back to the car, ready to pack up and head for the train station, The Red Arrow, and for our sojourn to St. Petersburg.

On the way home, Vadim tells us his children and Emanuelle will be in Petersburg at the same time.      "Perhaps you could met?" he suggests, "though it is a very large city and they will all be at the disco..." he grimaces. "I worry for them," he admits, "and... how I envy them."

The lost time. Lost opportunities. That is a theme with Vadim. In Irina one can clearly see the Russian characteristic of acceptance, of spiritual endurance.

But in Vadim it is another matter. Vadim knows of and cares little for the details of economic ideologies, but on a human level, thus far, he appears to be an individualist, and almost, one might say, somewhat ashamed of it.

     "Nastia..." he sighs, "Nastia signed up for fashion school in Milan and got on a plane by herself at 19. She doesn't even know what that kind of freedom really feels like to the likes of me. Communism is a distant shadow of her past, something she barely remembers. And why should she? Why?" And he is quiet for a long time.

We drive along. I wonder if he is thinking about the juicer. I wonder if he is thinking about Nastia's current Italian visa troubles. The day we arrived she had gone to the Italian consulate and been denied her student visa. It was a paperwork issue, and after Kit assisted Vadim draft an English letter clearing the whole mess up, everything was off with her student acceptance letter and all was well. But she returned home understandably distressed. And it was precisely this distress, this notion that world is her oyster for in many ways, it is; that was the thing that both amused and hurt Vadim. That, and of course, Emanuelle. And the juicer. And perhaps the notion that she is leaving not only his house but his world. The only familiar world he knows.

This isn't about the juicer or the boyfriend or the fashion school. It isn't all about her growing up. It is more about an uncertain and unfamiliar world. For her, for him, for everyone. It isn't simple. And yet, in truth, it is.

     "And Arkady?" he continues, laughing loudly, "Arkady is a born businessman! An entrepreneur! He owns a flower shop with his mother on Tverskya! He renovates old cars, races them, and sells them! He is studying for his doctorate in science! Everything he touches turns to solid gold!" He shakes his head, smiling. Confused perhaps, but proud. "And did you know he knows everything? And, by the way, he is always right. He won't stop talking until you agree with him! Where would Arkady's place be in Communism? They are so lucky and so... ignorant..." he sighs. The Young.

They all nod.

And it is in this moment when I truly feel that I am Arkady's age. No. More than that. Not only his children's age, but I feel a part of the generation that shares the auspiciousness of his visions.

I nod too. But my nod is a vow: to not to waste the opportunity that is my life, nor the gift that is my freedom.

The young and The Old.
I wonder.
I wonder if it is always the same.