Weeping Liberty

.

Illustrating

the choice

Oliver Jeffers is a bright artist, illustrator and writer who usually makes his stories for children come alive with his drawings. He is also a citizen of our world so, when he read the Thomas L. Friedman New York Times article "Two Ex-Spies and Donald Trump" he made the picture above and uploaded it on his facebook page, where I drew it from.

Quite an accurate message. So now, don't just stare or wonder. "Do the right thing America. The outcome of this election effects not just you, but the rest of the planet."


 

A Classic in the Summer

It's like an indispensable need – reading a classic in the summer seems to counterbalance the indolence of the season. Joseph Conrad's "A Personal Record" could not have been a better choice.  

There's a light, but not in any way frivolous, temper in Conrad's revealing his thoughts when he narrates certain instances about his family, his adolescence and education in Poland (or Ukraine), then part of the Russian Empire; when he recalls his first barque in Marseille, his travels in Africa and the great influence uncle Tadeusz had on him; when he confesses the reasons that led him to pivotal decisions in his life, including his choosing the English language as his main one - how completely understandable! His comments on the writing process, literary criticism and the human nature are quite insightful and appealing.  

It is considered unreliable and digressive in structure, this diary however is the only formal account of the author's life. It revives the period between the Napoleon era and 1895 (the year he wrote "The madness of Almagier") and the extensive commentary section at the last pages gives a lot of explanatory details that clarify precisely how this time in History interrelates with the author's family.  In that sense, it can be considered as a historical and political record, too. 

The Greek edition (translated by N. Dinopoulou, A.Koutsou - Printa, 2000) includes two editorials – the ones Joseph Conrad wrote himself initially to accompany the two different versions of the "Record" in English and that is something that adds interest to the book. However, I cannot say the same for the appendix by Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz where he thoroughly analyzes the life and poetry of Conrad's father – unless it is included for encyclopedic purposes only, it does not contribute to the understanding of Conrad's authorship.  

Worth reading, in any case.

    Another World

A true representative of dirty realism, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez uses his common sweat-blood-and-sperm references in an unexpected, highly elliptical way, as a pattern for this collection of 55 short (to very short to flash) stories that give off the poetic atmosphere we encounter in a black-and-white film. Oxymoron if you think that the heroes in Melancholy of Lions are the well-known confounded sort of people we encounter in the rest of the Cuban author's prose – a man who systematically poisons his wife, an elderly doctor who specializes in abortions and imenoplasticas, transvestites, suicidals, prisoners, and other forfeited human beings struggling to sharpen their sense of life within. There are, also, the circus lions of the title, which plunge into depression when not fed on time. You can find  some chocolate mice among them, too; and Gutiérrez himself who, like an angel by Wim Wenders, wanders in this grotesque universe and records the adventures of bodies and souls with exemplary condensation, critical choice of words and a strong and wide sense of scepticism. Magical decadent realism, indeed.

Note: The image of the post is a detail from the cover of the Greek edition (Metaixmio, 2012) of the novel. It is very well translated by Cleopatra Elaiotriviari who also wrote the addendum. 

    Something  
        to Keep us warm

As in the previous post, the book of this post is also situated in a war period which the author, Sakis Serefas, chooses to reminds us that the words "multicultural" and "multiracial" are contemporary terms used to describe something old and familiar - the smooth coexistence of people of many different nationalities. 


In his recent book "It΄s snowing outside" (Polis Editions, 2016), a theatrical performance is organised to mark the 100th anniversary of the arrival of foreign troops in Thessaloniki (the forces of the Allies entered the city in October 1915 on the grounds that they provide support to Serbia and Russia during the Great War). On the scene of a popular cinema-theatre house, a psychic using her various mental tricks calls the ectoplasms of six Allied soldiers to appear. The Englishmen Richard Johnson and John Smith, the Frenchman Achille Breton, the Italian Pietro Loretti, the Russian Nikita Smirnov and the Indian Bambalam recount some very typical incidents from their daily life giving out the feeling and rhythm of the time.  

These lively, very comprehensive testimonies are, of course, owning to the flexible skill of the author and his very special, stroboscopic narrative style that links history with the present in a text that demystifies fallacies and highlights misattitudes amidst cold weather and apathy.

Note: The installation by  Régis Dho (D.R.) is a detail from the cover of the book. 

 Not a simple story

Sometime in the past, I said that reading children's literature wakes an adult's mind up in a refreshing and thoughtful way. This is the case for "Erika's Story", a biography of a woman who escaped the Holocaust when she was a baby – her mother, in a brave moment of consciousness, decided to throw her out of the train which took her, and tens of hundreds other Jewish people, to a concentration camp. The baby was rescued by a family that raised her as their own daughter. Tens of years later, Erika told her story to Ruth Vander Zee, an american author and teacher she met by chance in 1995. 

Erika is not her real name. Ruth Vander Zee changed it and transcribed the woman's story into this concise little book. Because of its format, the brief text and the simplicity of the language, the book is addressed to children aged 8 and above. However, the story can also be read by both children in their early teens and adults as it is an effective wake-up call for the racist and the anti-Semitic incidents that reappear in present days with alarming frequency and severity.

The photorealistic illustration of the book by Roberto Innocenti supplements the text with fine details that lead to questions and discussion.  It also creates a suggestive atmosphere that involves the children emotionally in the narrative which, despite the gloomy subject, exudes hope. "Erika's Story" could be read after "On n'a rien vu venir"  so as to demonstrate not only the similarity and the great relevance of the past with the present, but also the impact of a decision. History involves children and they should definitely learn about it. Talk about it, too. 

Notes: The book has been wonderfully translated in Greek by author and teacher Marisa DeCastro and published by Kaleidoscope Publications (2015). 

You cannot...

...have Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité without Sécurité. It's time to be more angry than sad. Thoughts and prayers won't stop the next attack. This war against civilization must be fought or lost. The free world has overwhelming economic and military advantages and must use them to take the fight to the terrorists and all who support them. Resist all attempts to blame anyone other than these murderers and their horrific ideology. Vive la France."

 

Garry Kasparov

Note: The photograph is from the outstanding "Seventh Seal" by Ingmar Bergman. The post was first published on 14 November 2015, one day after the Bataclan theatre was attacked.