“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.”
— Joyce Carol Oates
Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. All that is left is the entrance to a temple and the remains of a cart
Actually, given what is in the Teffi collection, I would never guess that she has been thought of as a humorist. The pieces are autobiographical, with maybe a little fictionalizing sprinkled in, and are observant and well written, with the ironic tone I associate with lots of great writers, but Teffi is not constantly going for the joke, like Mark Twain (or Zoshchenko). Teffi’s pieces about her childhood, the Revolution, exile in France were more insightful than funny. She – I mean, this book – is easy to recommend to anyone more interested in history than literature.
The title is a little off. Teffi met Tolstoy as a child, and got a good, sensitive little story out of it. But she knew her colleague Lenin far better, and the piece about him has a lot more insight. Teffi on Lenin’s speaking:
The title is a little off. Teffi met Tolstoy as a child, and got a good, sensitive little story out of it. But she knew her colleague Lenin far better, and the piece about him has a lot more insight. Teffi on Lenin’s speaking:
Lenin simply battered away with a blunt instrument at the darkest corner of people’s souls, where greed, spite and cruelty lay hidden. He would batter away and get the answer he wanted:
“Yes, we’ll loot and pillage – and murder too!” (“New Life,” p. 106, tr. Rose France and Robert and Elizabeth Chandler)
After 14 Months’ House Arrest, Trial Of Russian Director Kirill Serebrennikov Finally Begins
The award-winning stage and film director is accused of embezzling from the Gogol Center, the award-winning avant-garde theatre he runs in Moscow. Reporter Oliver Carroll provides some background on both the director and the charges — which many observers say are trumped-up — and points out some basic weaknesses in the prosecution's case. … [Read More]
Poet Tony Hoagland, 68
"In seven poetry collections, the most recent, Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God, published this year, Mr. Hoagland found insights and imagery in the everyday: a pool in an Austin, Tex., park; a spaghetti strap on a woman's dress that won't stay put; an old man dying awash in paranoia from too much Fox News." …Read More
Canadian Writers See Steep Income Drop
Canadian writers are making less money than ever — with incomes from writing dropping 78 per cent from 1998, according to a report released Monday by the Writers’ Union of Canada. The numbers, accounting for inflation, have been undergoing a steady drop. According to the report, writers made $9,380 in 2017, down from $12,879 in 2014 — a 27 per cent drop in just three years. … Read More
A ‘Velvet Revolution’ — Alex Ross On Claude Debussy
“Debussy accomplished something that happens very rarely, and not in every lifetime: he brought a new kind of beauty into the world. … His influence proved to be vast, not only for successive waves of twentieth-century modernists but also in jazz, in popular song, and in Hollywood. When both the severe [Pierre] Boulez and the suave Duke Ellington cite you as a precursor, you have done something singular.”
It’s Often The Simplest Prose That’s The Most Difficult To Translate
"It's the challenge of the seemingly unadorned sentence or expression that passes so naturally it seems to 'write itself.' While the translation of these sentences can sometimes occur just as naturally, more often than not it requires vast amounts of hairpulling. Few things are as difficult as ease." Mark Polizzotti offers some examples from his work translating the Nobel winner Patrick Modiano. … [Read More]
A Spirited Case For Translators
Literature in translation has never been a priority in the Anglo-Saxon world. While, in a country like Italy, more than half of fiction titles published will be translated, in the US the share of the market is much smaller, somewhere around three percent. Translators are poorly paid and, for the most part, unsung. How encouraging, then, to see a growing advocacy for translated literature and a spirited defense of those who practice this art. … Read More
Why Are Some People Terrible Dancers?
Dancing, moving your body around, and trying to be sexy are all fairly vulnerable acts. Because if you do a bad job, people think you look stupid, you get rejected, and you wind up embarrassed. This fear of embarrassment often makes people stiff and uncomfortable on the dance floor. … Read More