At last, my strength has failed me. For two years, almost exactly, I have been trying not to return to War and Peace. This book has everything, even now, especially now, when Russia is at war again. The good and the bad, the power and the glory, the vanity of all that, and the despair … The post The Language of War and Peace appeared first on Mostly About Stories ..read more

I am haunted by the ghosts of lost worlds. In a sense, this is what all literature is about – taking us into the past or into another world altogether and making it real to us so that we can live in it and love it. But I do not mean that sense of lost … The post The Ghosts in Isaac Babel’s 1920 Diary appeared first on Mostly About Stories ..read more

Alexander Herzen was a radical socialist thinker of Russian extraction, best known for his newspaper The Bell. I have written about him and his thoughts on this blog before, after reading Aileen Kelly’s biography of the man, The Discovery of Chance. Herzen was not just a radical thinker, he was also a talented writer, with … The post Alexander Herzen’s idea of Justice in My Past and Thoughts appeared first on Mostly About Stories ..read more

Daniil Kharms was an early Soviet writer who died, with a little help from the Party’s security apparatus, in 1942. Before that, his work for children allowed him – for a time – not to starve to death. That we have his stories and poems for adults is thanks to the hard work of brave … The post “Whenever I see someone, I want to hit them in the face” – Daniil Kharms appeared first on Mostly About Stories ..read more