tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post8035404140666425274..comments2024-02-26T13:12:10.143-05:00Comments on Lizok's Bookshelf: War Stories for Victory Day: Another Grekova Novella & a Sorokin Short StoryLisa C. Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10139281544357167953noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-24573587890800121632010-05-17T20:33:16.920-04:002010-05-17T20:33:16.920-04:00Marie, I'm looking forward to meeting you next...Marie, I'm looking forward to meeting you next week and am glad to hear of your interest in Ulitskaya and <i>Daniel Stein</i>! <i>D.S.</i> is one of my favorite post-Soviet novels. <br /><br />I get a fair number of questions about the English-language translation so I'm hoping to learn more from Overlook at BEA about when it will come out.Lisa C. Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10139281544357167953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-70245020546890166362010-05-17T19:35:24.209-04:002010-05-17T19:35:24.209-04:00I've read two books of Ulitskaya's and lov...I've read two books of Ulitskaya's and loved them both, so I'm going to look out for Daniel Stein. THanks for mentioning it!Marie Cloutierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14938166831865436287noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-74923588340634959172010-05-14T00:30:04.494-04:002010-05-14T00:30:04.494-04:00Alexander, thank you for your comments! I'm tr...Alexander, thank you for your comments! I'm traveling right now so don't have the book in front of me but the collection is <i>Первый субботник</i> probably the same one as your e-book, and the stories, according to Sorokin's site, are dated 1979-1984. <a rel="nofollow">This page</a> shows the book's publication date as 2001.<br /><br />I think I read the meaning of the flowers very much like you do. My interest in the flowers as medicine draws on things we have all mentioned that look at the flowers from various angles: they have compounds that can help treat memory and the heart but can have other effects (e.g. that distortion) when misused.<br /><br />Lily of the valley seems to fit better than snowdrops because of the song (<a rel="nofollow">here on Youtube</a>), which was so popular that even I know it and associate it with the word ландыши... the song feels like a subtext to me, with mentions of first love and undying feelings. Rather like the "soppy" (a good word for it) start of the veteran's story. But even the soppiest romance (or idealization of such) can go bad, which could make the memories have all sorts of negative or toxic effects... just like nice little flowers that can poison you. Sorokin ties the language, flowers, and memories together beautifully.<br /><br />Oddly, when I went to tutor a student the other day, there were dried lilies of the valley on the table in our meeting room!Lisa C. Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10139281544357167953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-58618918148542453532010-05-13T18:21:26.426-04:002010-05-13T18:21:26.426-04:00oh, thanks, for mentioning "Ландыши". I ...oh, thanks, for mentioning "Ландыши". I remember it from when I was four or five. It was a shlagger then. My parents got a 45 rpm single-size disc 'Russian hit parade' (we were in Australia then) and the song was played again and again.Alexander Anichkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08716415983965000292noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-79629656827728686782010-05-13T18:18:47.711-04:002010-05-13T18:18:47.711-04:00Lisa, it's really strange about подснежники-sn...Lisa, it's really strange about подснежники-snowdrops. I've just checked the e-book version that I have and the link Languagehat provided when the story first came up, they both say "ландыши собираю" and then "плоды ландышей" (fruit of lily of the alley). You are saying it's in a collection of stories from 70-80-s? What is it? <br /><br />Russian wiki is fuller than the English and has a photo of the berries, which are deadly poisonous, the most poisonous part of the plant.<br /><br />But, more importantly, I have a horrible feeling my suggestion that lily is the key to the story may have been misunderstood. The man in the story starts by telling his love story in a perfectly reasonable, soppy sort of way, like many other war stories are. Before that he opens his sack to show off his harvest, leaves and berries, fumbles with them. Then the normal narrative starts to disintegrate, first looks strange, then bizarre, then completely absurd and broken. <br /><br />The way I understood it is that the poison of the lilies starts affecting the man and possibly the narrator. He loses his thread, then his mind fails him completely. So it's like an LSD 'trip' story.<br /><br />And the link to HG Wells' The Purple Pileus is in the similar technique of using a toxic plant to create dramatic effect. Wells' character wants to kill himself when his wife betrays him, eats some red mushrooms, but instead of dying develops a rage, comes back home, frightens the wife and throws out her lover - and regains control of his life. <br /><br />I've never heard of ландыш being used as a drug, but the its use in medicine suggests such possibility.Alexander Anichkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08716415983965000292noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-85961291845268973152010-05-13T17:01:02.404-04:002010-05-13T17:01:02.404-04:00Alex, I also hadn't heard of using lily-of-the...Alex, I also hadn't heard of using lily-of-the-valley for medicinal purposes... though I grew up knowing about the toxicity. <br /><br />I meant to add a link earlier to the song "Ландыши" (<a href="http://www.karaoke.ru/song/187.htm" rel="nofollow">here</a>), which seems relevant, and which has been going through my head ever since I read the word in the online version of the story.Lisa C. Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10139281544357167953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-46807329609168541942010-05-13T09:38:50.517-04:002010-05-13T09:38:50.517-04:00I've never heard of lily-of-the-valley used in...I've never heard of lily-of-the-valley used in folk medicine, although I haven't had much chance to find out. Most ordinary people are well aware of its toxicity, and will even caution you from keeping the fresh-cut flowers indoors, especially around sleepers.<br /><br />Curiously, it's the toxic compounds in lily-of-the-valley that have also found pharmacological use. Actually eating parts of the plant leads to heart arrest. The isolated compound -- in appropriate doses -- is used to treat heart fibrillations and arrhythmias.<br /><br />This is kind of similar to warfarin, which started out as a rat poison and found new use as an anticoagulant in human heart patients (for the same reason it's effective as rat poison).Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17860696958452364390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-88232353919922133142010-05-10T09:09:03.817-04:002010-05-10T09:09:03.817-04:00Thank you for adding the link, Languagehat: I hadn...Thank you for adding the link, Languagehat: I hadn't seen the online gallery, and the photos are, indeed, wonderful.Lisa C. Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10139281544357167953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-82772277899740819492010-05-10T09:03:46.076-04:002010-05-10T09:03:46.076-04:00Don't miss this wonderful photo gallery of Rus...Don't miss this wonderful <a href="http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/showcase-158/?hp" rel="nofollow">photo gallery</a> of Russian WWII veterans.Languagehathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285708503881129380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-18221256779454482512010-05-10T08:52:09.567-04:002010-05-10T08:52:09.567-04:00Alexander, yes, I think you are right about the to...Alexander, yes, I think you are right about the toxicity of the flowers.Lisa C. Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10139281544357167953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-11006303146160342312010-05-10T08:45:07.089-04:002010-05-10T08:45:07.089-04:00Thank you for the suggestions, Alexander! I have t...Thank you for the suggestions, Alexander! I have the second book in the Simonov trilogy, and the reading does look easy -- I've looked several times for the first book but have never found it for sale. I'll have to see if I can get it through interlibrary loan. <br /><br />For those who read English translations: <i>The Living and the Dead</i>, the first novel in Simonov's trilogy, plus his <i>Days and Nights</i>, are both available.Lisa C. Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10139281544357167953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-47980611226821359882010-05-10T08:42:54.930-04:002010-05-10T08:42:54.930-04:00oh, and just a warning in case anyone decides to t...oh, and just a warning in case anyone decides to take the results of your research literally: don't try to eat snowdrops or lily of the valley, they are poisonous, as far as I know.Alexander Anichkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08716415983965000292noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7932429135630556215.post-77827313348367334632010-05-10T07:22:14.787-04:002010-05-10T07:22:14.787-04:00Lisa, thanks for mentioning my comments.
The ultim...Lisa, thanks for mentioning my comments.<br />The ultimate Russian war writer is of course Konstantin Simonov. His trilogy The Living and the Dead is long, but easy to read. The Stalingrad diary 'Days and Nights' is superb. My favourite is one of his last works 'Lopatin's Notes' (Записки Лопатина).<br />I also liked very much Grigory Baklanov's 'His Batallion' ("Его батальон") and Victor Astafyev's 'The Shepherd and the Shepherdess' ("Пастух и пастушка"). I think both are available online.Alexander Anichkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08716415983965000292noreply@blogger.com