Olga Grjasnowa: All Russians Love Birch Trees

My lovely pal Greg sent me Olga Grjasnowa’s novel All Russians Love Birch Trees (Other Press) this week. The novel is translated by Eva Bacon & I greatly admire Ms Bacon’s translation of the original German text and Olga’s novel. The novel is funny and crisp and an insightful, subtle social commentary.

Here are a few snips I enjoyed while walking and reading in the sunshine today:

“The patient died yesterday, we’re finishing off his last cigarettes”

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“But my professor was my professor. He sponsored foster children in Africa and India. His multiculturalism took place in congress halls, convention centres and expensive hotels. To him integration meant demanding fewer hijabs and more skin, hunting for exclusive wines and exotic travel destinations.”

*

“On my third day in Germany I went to school and was promptly demoted two grades. Instead of practicing Algebra I was supposed to colour mandalas with crayons.”

O’Hagan on Bellow’s biography

Over at the LRB, Andrew O’Hagan has written a review on The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915-64 by Zachary Leader.

“Bellow had a dark talent for making relationships disagreeable. He disported himself with friends the way one might with enemies, and often, in these years, he appears riddled with enmity, paranoid, full of doubts about loyalty and fears of rivalry.”

“If he hadn’t possessed such a sublime way with metaphor, one might struggle to ignore the fact that he was probably the biggest pain in the arse in the history of American letters

“‘What matters,’ Bellow wrote to Peltz when he complained of being used, is that good things get written …”

I’d like to take issue with Bellow’s assertion to his friend Peltz as it’s such a complete crock of shite and sadly very much the excuse many asshole artists (& beyond) employ to be similarly indulged and excused for being plate glass arses.

Beckett wrote “good things” certainly far superior things to anything Bellow wrote. He did not behave like a total asshole in the process. His letters and biography attest to this fact. Far more important than “good things get written” is treating your fellow human being with some modicum of respect and dignity. For that will follow you just as deeply into the grave as any stack of books you leave behind you.

I think it’s safe to say that Bellow has present day successors and current, active competition vying for the position of “biggest pain in the arse in letters”.

Eduardo Galeano

“Many political writers don’t seem to understand that everything is possible as a subject: a fly buzzing in the air, a lighter, a window, the sound of footsteps. The most important thing is a point of view: Where are you placed? From which point of view are your eyes seeing? From which point of view will you tell us what you are feeling, or what you think? In some ways, Upside Down is a political book; in other ways, it’s not. But one must be careful when discussing these matters. It’s easy to disqualify a writer or an artist, by saying, “Oh, but he’s political.” It’s like saying it’s shit.”

“Open Veins is now considered a classic in Latin America. How many copies have been sold?

I don’t care about that.

Writers tend to care about the sales of their books.

It’s enough that I earn a living as a writer. It’s honest work. I don’t do it to get rich. There are certain things I need to say. But I don’t care about how many books I sell, or where they are on the bestseller lists. I don’t give a damn.”

An old interview in The Atlantic from 2000 with the late Eduardo Galeano read the rest here

This is what happens after you die

MOSAIC publishes weekly features on science and medicine. I particularly appreciated this one by Moheb Costandi.

WARNING: This is not for the faint of heart who don’t have an active, interrogative interest in this subject!

“Most of us would rather not think about what happens to our bodies after death. But that breakdown gives birth to new life in unexpected ways, writes Moheb Costandi. ”

Click here to read entire piece.