Kurkov, Andrey "Grey Bees"

Kurkov, Andrey "Grey Bees" (Russian: Серые пчелы/Seryye Pchely) - 2019

This is not a book about the current war in Ukraine, it's about the one in 2014. Russian paramilitary forces had violently seized control of some city governments, and self-proclaimed "people's republics".

The region around Donetsk and Luhansk became a gray area. And that's where our protagonist, Sergey Sergeyich, lives. Only one other man lives in his village, Pashka Chmelenko, all the others have fled. Sergey raises bees. In the first part we get to know life in the gray area, you hear shots and detonations, but you are not attacked yourself. All the houses are still standing except for the church. However, they have neither electricity nor are they supplied with food in any way, so they have to walk to the next inhabited village.

Then it's time to let the bees fly. Since Sergey is afraid that they won't be able to do their usual work because of all the noise, he takes his beehives to Ukraine, where we get to know life in the other part of the country. The network still works to some extent there. But he is not welcome, so he gets away a second time and goes to Crimea, where he knows another beekeeper. There we get to know life in the part occupied by Russia.

In addition, we have an insight into the life and work of a beekeeper.

All very interesting. An unusual novel that says a lot about the current situation. There's a real feeling about how it would be.

I read on Wikipedia that his books are full of black humour, post-Soviet reality and elements of surrealism and I couldn't agree more.

From the back cover:

"49-year-old safety inspector-turned-beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich, wants little more than to help his bees collect their pollen in peace.

But Sergey lives in Ukraine, where a lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda has been dragging on for years.

His simple mission on behalf of his bees leads him through some the hottest spots of the ongoing conflict, putting him in contact with combatants and civilians on both sides of the battle lines: loyalists, separatists, Russian occupiers, and Crimean Tatars.

Grey Bees is as timely as the author's Ukraine Diaries were in 2014, but treats the unfolding crisis in a more imaginative way, with a pinch of Kurkov's signature humour. Who better than Ukraine's most famous novelist - who writes in Russian - to illuminate and present a balanced portrait of this most bewildering of modern conflicts?"

Petrowskaja, Katja "Maybe Esther"

Petrowskaja, Katja "Maybe Esther" (German: Vielleicht Esther) - 2014

A great tale of a Jewish family's history. One critic wrote that Katja Petrowskaja could have written a great novel, but only reproduced fragments. I think it is precisely these fragments that show more of what this family - representative of all other Jewish families - went through, all the little details that you don't often hear about.

A wonderful book.

From the back cover:

"An inventive, unique, and extraordinarily moving literary debut that pieces together the fascinating story of one woman’s family across twentieth-century Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Germany.

Katja Petrowskaja wanted to create a kind of family tree, charting relatives who had scattered across multiple countries and continents. Her idea blossomed into this striking and highly original work of narrative nonfiction, an account of her search for meaning within the stories of her ancestors.

In a series of short meditations, Petrowskaja delves into family legends, introducing a remarkable cast of characters: Judas Stern, her great-uncle, who shot a German diplomatic attaché in 1932 and was sentenced to death; her grandfather Semyon, who went underground with a new name during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, forever splitting their branch of the family from the rest; her grandmother Rosa, who ran an orphanage in the Urals for deaf-mute Jewish children; her Ukrainian grandfather Vasily, who disappeared during World War II and reappeared without explanation forty-one years later - and settled back into the family as if he’d never been gone; and her great-grandmother, whose name may have been Esther, who alone remained in Kiev and was killed by the Nazis.

How do you talk about what you can’t know, how do you bring the past to life? To answer this complex question, Petrowskaja visits the scenes of these events, reflecting on a fragmented and traumatized century and bringing to light family figures who threaten to drift into obscurity. A true search for the past reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated, Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost, and Michael Chabon’s Moonglow, Maybe Esther is a poignant, haunting investigation of the effects of history on one family."

In 2013, Katja Petrowskaja received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, one of the most important awards for literature in the German language.

Ulitzkaja, Ljudmila "Medea and Her Children"

Ulitzkaja, Ljudmila "Medea and Her Children" (Russian: Медея и её дети/ Medeja i eë deti) - 1996

This book was suggested to us by a book club member. It was said that Ukrainian history would be presented here through a family from Crimea. Well, after the description I had imagined something else and was glad to have read "Ukraine verstehen" [Understanding Ukraine: History, Politics and Struggle for Freedom] by Steffen Dobbert beforehand. I had heard a lot about the Ukraine, including the problems with Russia, long before they first annexed Crimea and then invaded the country, but it was good to hear more details that also helped to understand this book.

Medea is the good soul of the Sinopli family. She lives in Crimea, where her ancestors came from, and every summer the family comes to visit. Not only are they now scattered all over the Ukraine and other former Soviet Union countries, they also all have different problems and motives, as is usual in large families, which lead them to Aunt Medea. The family also has many different origins. While she would probably describe herself primarily as Greek, her ancestors come from many other places as well.

At the beginning of the book we are shown a family tree, which I think could have been a bit more detailed, especially since surnames, patronyms, nicknames, etc. are used again and again, which can lead to confusion. Also, the author mentions in the foreword that she is talking about her family, but I think this is more of a novel based on her family.

The various characters are described very well, you feel somehow in the middle of the family. In that respect it is an excellent book. I had already read "The Green Tent" by Ljudmila Ulitzkaja and found it simply remarkable. I probably also put too much expectation into this book, or was misprepared, but I didn't have the same feeling as I did with the first book. And most book club members had the same opinion. But that won't stop me from reading more books by this author.

From the back cover:

"Medea Georgievna Sinoply Mendez is an iconic figure in her Crimean village, the last remaining pure-blooded Greek in a family that has lived on that coast for centuries. Childless Medea is the touchstone of a large family, which gathers each spring and summer at her home. There are her nieces (sexy Nike and shy Masha), her nephew Georgii (who shares Medea’s devotion to the Crimea), and their friends. In this single summer, the languor of love will permeate the Crimean air, hearts will be broken, and old memories will float to consciousness, allowing us to experience not only the shifting currents of erotic attraction and competition, but also the dramatic saga of this family amid the forces of dislocation, war, and upheaval of twentieth-century Russian life."

Spell Ukraine

 UKRAINE ☮ UKRAINE ☮ UKRAINE

We elect a new mayor in our town today. While emotions have been high between the supports of each of the three candidates, I've been thinking. Aren't we lucky that we have a choice and that we can be sure that at the end of the day the candidate will win who has the most voters behind them? Look at countries where hardly anyone goes anymore because "they are all crooks". And then look at countries that have an election and people go but it is clear who is going to win. And then that guy does whatever he likes. That's a dictatorship, nothing else.

So, I thought to pick up another idea, again not mine, one that I found on Instagram (see here). Spell the name of the Ukraine with book titles. I've been trying to find one-word titled books that could mean something to the instigator of this war. Except for the first one, they all have something to do with war. But even Ulysses certainly would have a lot to say about this subject.

"Ulysses" - James Joyce - 1922
"Kallocain" (SW: Kallocain) - Karin Boye - 1940
"Ragnarok. The End of the Gods" - A.S. Byatt - 2011
"August 1914" ["The Red Wheel" cycle] (RUS: Солженицын, Александр Исаевич/Узел I - «Август Четырнадцатого», Красное колесо) - Alexander Solzhenitsyn - 1971
"In the Memory of the Forest" - Charles T. Powers - 1997
"Night" (F: La Nuit/Yiddish: Un di Velt Hot Geshvign)  - Eli Wiesel - 1958
"Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter" (GE: Von den Kriegen. Briefe an Freund) - Carolin Emcke - 2004

☮ Stand with the Ukraine ☮

I hardly ever blog on a Sunday but I think today it is necessary to send out a message into the void.

I saw this on a friend's page on Instagram who mentioned that Vicki from the antipodeanbookclub instigated this. For every yellow & blue stack which is labelled #solidaritystack Vicki will donate $2 to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) in New Zealand up to the value of $150 for their work in the Ukraine.

Not just because of that but just because I want to express my support for the Ukraine and the Ukranians, I thought I will copy the idea and post my stack here. Don't worry about any of the books, there is no message in which ones I chose, it was just the colours of the spines that I needed.

Obviously, this is not a political blog and I'm not going to start writing too much about politics unless it is connected to a book I read but I know everyone knows my opinion. The main goal of everyone should be PEACE. I hope I will see many more yellow and blue stacks of books.

☮ to 🇺🇦 ☮ to 🌍

Fatland, Erika "The Border"

Fatland, Erika "The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage" (Norwegian: Grensen: En reise rundt Russland gjennom Nord-Korea, Kina, Mongolia, Kasakhstan, Aserbajdsjan, Georgia, Ukraina, Hviterussland, Litauen, Polen, Latvia, Estland, Finland og Norge samt Nordøstpassasjen) - 2017

I usually don't review books here that have not been translated into English, yet. However, I have read that this one is supposed to be published soon and therefore, I want to whet your appetites already.

The author is a Norwegian journalist and she took a trip all around the Russian border. She visited every single country, even those that are not internationally recognized, like the de facto sovereign states in the Caucasus, though, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Adjara, Nagorno-Karabakh and Donetsk. It was not easy to get into some of them. To get into Nagorno-Karabakh, she had to travel into Armenia because you cannot enter it from Azerbaijan to which it still officially belongs.

She visited all those parts with a lot of difficulties and spoke to the people there who told her about recent and former history and you can learn a lot about that part of the world. I think it's good if we know more about the largest, very powerful and probably most dangerous country in the world.

We talk about a great, well-written book where we feel we are travelling with the author, we discover the countries with her, the people who live there and their history. Fantastic.

This is the second book about Russia and its history that Erika Fatland has written. Her first one "Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan" is on my TBR pile now. I am sure I will learn just as much from that book as I did from this one.

From the back cover: (translated)

"Russia's border is the longest in the world. Erika Fatland takes us on a trip to Russia's fourteen neighbour countries, from North Korea to North Norway and through the North-East Passage. The journey goes through wonderful landscapes and highly diverse communities what only have one thing in common: We are all Russia's neighbours.

It's also a trip through the dramatic stories of Russia's neighbours'. In any case, they have been influenced by the proximity of this mighty empire. We meet tsars that are addicted to conquests, brave adventurers and courageous individuals and Chinese dictators. The author visits contemporary conflict areas like the Ukraine whose borders with Putin's Russia have started to move again. 

Erika Fatland shows her special abilities again to get close to people whom she meets on her way and lets them tell her a bit about the big stories of living near the border."

 

Expected publication in English: February 2nd, 2021.

Erpenbeck, Jenny "The End of Days"

Erpenbeck, Jenny "The End of Days" (German: Aller Tage Abend) - 2012

Jenny Erpenbeck is quite a well-known German author so I thought it was about time to read one of her books. I was not disappointed. What an interesting book.

How long is a child going to live, what kind of life is it going to be? Who is going to be around, who will be there to mourn them when they die. In this book, we get a feeling on how different a life can go and how different the end can be. A very interesting concept of describing how certain decisions can end a life or prolong it.

A brilliant story that is written with so much poise, so much dedication, it's almost as if the author writes about someone she knows herself personally.

A very moving book, a great novel by a great author.

From the back cover:

"Winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Hans Fallada Prize, The End of Days, by the acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, consists essentially of five 'books,' each leading to a different death of the same unnamed female protagonist. How could it all have gone differently? - the narrator asks in the intermezzos. The first chapter begins with the death of a baby in the early twentieth-century Hapsburg Empire. In the next chapter, the same girl grows up in Vienna after World War I, but a pact she makes with a young man leads to a second death. In the next scenario, she survives adolescence and moves to Russia with her husband. Both are dedicated Communists, yet our heroine ends up in a labor camp. But her fate does not end there….

A novel of incredible breadth and amazing concision, The End of Days offers a unique overview of the twentieth century."

Alexievich, Svetlana "Voices from Chernobyl"

Alexievich, Svetlana "Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster" (Russian: Чернобыльская молитва/Černobylskaja molitva) - 2006

I knew about Chernobyl. We all do. We have all heard of the nuclear disaster in 1986. We have all heard about the dangers we all have been put in by nuclear power plants. And not just since Fukushima 2011. For us Europeans, it started a lot earlier.

We also knew that the Russians tried to hide the fact of the accident to the foreigners for as long as possible. What we only knew from hearsay was the fact that they even hid it from their own people, that they sent their own people into harm's way. Firefighters and other "volunteers" who were sent into the danger zone to clean up. And not just for a couple of minutes. Most of them are dead now and if it hadn't been for Svetlana Alexievich and a lot of heroic people telling their stories, we still wouldn't know what exactly happened in Chernobyl and its surroundings.

If you are at all interested in the future of our planet, in the environment, you should read this harrowing account of what money can do to people. Because that's what it's all about: money and power. Every war is fought over it and every decision in business is made over it. And who pays the price? We, the "little people".

A very powerful story that everyone should read, especially those who still think that nuclear power is the "cheapest" and "best" form of energy.

This book is a strong reminder of the quote "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children" (probably by Moses Henry Cass - according to Quote Investigator but attributed to many other wise folks and people).

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"'Voices from Chernobyl' is the first book to present personal accounts of what happened on April 26, 1986, when the worst nuclear reactor accident in history contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Svetlana Alexievich a journalist who now suffers from an immune deficiency developed while researching this book interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown. Their narratives form a crucial document revealing how the government masked the event with deception and denial. Harrowing and unforgettable, 'Voices from Chernobyl' bears witness to a tragedy and its aftermath in a book that is as unforgettable as it is essential."

Svetlana Alexievich received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015 "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time" and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2013. 

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

McMahon, Katharine "The Rose of Sebastopol"

McMahon, Katharine "The Rose of Sebastopol" - 2007

It is the time of Florence Nightingale, the Crimean War in 1854. How can an intelligent girl not want to follow in her footsteps?

This is the beginning of the novel, Rosa Barr follows Florence Nightingale in order to help her wounded compatriots. From then on, it drifts to the cousin who stays behind to Italy where Rosa's traces disappear. It has the tendency to drift into chick lit but fortunately finds its way back all the time. Not a bad read, a lot of different situations play into the story.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"In 1855 Rosa Barr, a headstrong young woman, travels to the Crimea, against the wishes of her family, determined to work as a nurse. She does not return.Three people have been intimately connected with her. One, her brother, a soldier and adventurer; the second a doctor, traumatized by the war, and harbouring a secret passion, and the third, Mariella, her cousin and childhood friend, who must now uncover the truth about what has happened to the missing nurse.Mariella's epic journey takes her from the domestic quiet of London to the foothills of Italy, and on to the ravaged Russian landscape of the Crimea, where she must discover what has happened to her captivating and mysterious cousin and uncover the secrets of those who loved her.. "

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Iphigenia in Tauris”"

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Iphigenia in Tauris" (German: Iphigenie auf Tauris) - 1787

A play by Goethe, one of the books you have to read in the German high school. Iphigenia is the daughter of Agamemnon who offers her to the goddess Artemis. Even though the goddess rescues Iphigenia and takes her to the island of Tauris, a lot of things happen as a consequence.

I am not a big fan of reading plays, I rather watch them. However, this is a very interesting story that teaches a lot about Greek mythology.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Goethe wrote in the early 1800's. His works encompassed poetry, drama, literature, theology, science, painting, and humanism. This romantic play begins in tragedy and progresses through several perilous adventures to its happy conclusion. Iphigenia is sacrificed to the goddess Artemis by her father. Artemis saves her and makes her a priestess. It was Iphigenia's role to consecrate the barbarian victims before they were sacrificed. She wants revenge on the Greeks and waits for one to come to be sacrificed. When a Greek finally arrives she does not initially recognize him as her brother."

I also read "The Sorrows of Young Werther".

Hesse, Karen "Letters from Rifka"

Hesse, Karen "Letters from Rifka" - 1992

I picked up this book at a school book fair because it looked quite interesting. The story is told by Rifka, a Jewish girl who has to leave the Ukraine with her family to go to America. On the way, she gets sick and cannot go with the family but has to stay behind in Antwerp. She writes down imaginary letters to her cousin in the margins of a Pushkin book and that way we learn about the lives of the Jews in Eastern Europe and the troubles they had to go through in order to get to lead a decent life.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family's flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others emigrate to America."

The novel is recommended for 9 to 12 year olds but I am sure it is still interesting for older teens.

I also recommend "Out of the Dust" by the same author, about life during the Great Depression. 

Lewycka, Marina "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian"

Lewycka, Marina "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" - 2005

The story of two Ukrainian sisters, Nadezhda and Vera whose family found refuge in England.

I read this novel with my book club a couple of years ago. I thought there were a lot of topics in this story that you can talk about, immigration, sibling rivalry, generation conflict, Cold War,  jealousy, sociology. It was great having a few East European members in the meeting who could contribute their views.

This was an easy book, fast to read, informative, interesting, enjoyable, powerful. Didn’t think it was very funny, even the author was surprised about this description. She relates tractors to Ukrainian people.  Lots of references and historic value about life in the Eastern European countries before the fall of the wall. The characters were built-up very well, the use of the English language wonderful, the expatriation part was interesting for me being an expat, as well.

There are quite a few interesting characters in the book, the most interesting is probably the difference of the two sisters, one was born in peace, one in war, one is 10 years younger than the other. When discussing this with the book club, we came to the conclusion that sometimes it’s worth carrying on with a book, it might be a great read.

We discussed this in our book club in November 2006.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2021.

From the back cover:

"Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside feuding to save their engineer father from gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of wealth. But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths secrets and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget."

I also enjoyed "Two Caravans"