Languor Management

Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love

I recently met Lara Vapnyar at a birthday party, and now you can, too! That is, if you consider a reading hosted by Leonard Lopate at the Brooklyn Public Library a party...

Saturday, December 6 @ 4pm - Brooklyn Public Library, Central Library, Lower Level, Dweck Center, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn

The man with one face

Kevin is hideous—a fact not lost upon him. He has understood this to be true for much of his life—certainly his entire adult life. All the same, one must be discreet. Kevin may be hideous but he does go to some length, if not to hide it, then at least to lessen the blow, so to speak. So he’s unattractive—even terribly so—but should he stop living his life? Of course not. It’s just that Kevin has to think a little more than the rest of us about how he puts his best face forward.

Speaking about time

Nabokov gives a pronunciation lesson.

[Via Maud Newton]

The winners of the Russian "Big Book" literary awards were announced Tuesday by the Russian National Library.

The main prize went to Vladimir Makanin and his Chechen-war-themed novel "Asan." The novel's hero, major Zhilin (a nod to Leo Tolstoy's "Prisoner of the Caucasus") leads a long-term, down-to-earth business operation in war-torn Chechnya, providing fuel to both sides of the conflict and building a house for his family somewhere in faraway, safe Russia. It is quite likely that this nonflashy book will become, and for a long time remain, the main book about the recent wars in the Caucasus.

Yum.

Incontinence

A poet's wife passed away...
He loved her even more than his tenure!
His grief was wild and terrible--
But the blow didn't kill the poet.

After the funeral he went home--hit rock bottom.
Then everything took on a new perspective,
And he composed a poem:
"A poet's wife passed away."

1909

--Sasha Chernyi (Translated by me)

Spring of the Dead

Roots start to stir

Trees and bushes.

Snow has thawed from the grass

And crosses.

 

Beneath the spring moon,

Defrosted bones

Kick themselves awake

And wander the graveyard.

 

Skeletons crawl from

Cramped, slimy holes.

Men in white outfits—

Some women, too.

 

The men shake hands

Then withdraw in the lunar garden

Where earthly things

Speak like this:

 

Rustlings. Sighs. Whispers.

Rattling of bones.

But from the depths of an alley

A mournful mumbling can be heard:

 

“Madam! I’m afraid

I’ve got some bad news for you:

Alas, my body has decayed—

So there is nothing left of me to love!”

 

1910 by Sasha Chernyi (translated from Russian by me)

Mr. and Mrs. Genius

At the 92nd St Y: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff discusses her biography of Nabokov’s wife of 52 years. Based on Nabokov’s diary, letters, and family correspondence, Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) "brings to life one of the greatest literary love stories of our time." The Nabokovs' nephew, Vladimir Sikorsky, shares his memories about his famous aunt and uncle.

Sunday, November 9, 3:00pm: Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street. For a whopping $27, but still.

Welcome to Warsaw

Irina Reyn, author of the novel What Happened to Anna K. and the editor of the anthology Living on the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers Take on the Garden State, will be reading "The Wolf Story," which first appeared in One Story #89 on Friday, November 7, at Pianos (at 158 Ludlow St. at Stanton St. on the Lower East Side NYC). Her drink of choice (my Kryptonite) the dirty vodka martini.

I'm otherwise engaged, but you should go!

Last-minute notice

Three Russians reading at the Samovar tonight:

Take this opportunity to introduce yourself to the work of novelist Alan Cherchesov (Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia), and poets Andrey Grishaev (Moscow), Igor Karaulov (Moscow), and Nailya Yamakova (Saint Petersburg). This evening, the writers present their work in Russian, and all new English translations will be read by Sasha Suvorkov.

The writers are in New York following a residency at the International Writers’ Program at the University of Iowa as part of the Open World Cultural Leaders Program. The group is hosted in the United States by CEC ArtsLink and IWP. The Open World Cultural Leaders Program is supported by the Open World Leadership Center and the National Endowment for the Arts.

RSVP to [email protected].

To the envy of the world

A peasant, feeling betrayed by his wife, permanently abandons the world. From Sovlit.com: A translation of Leonid Leonov's short story The Tramp.

 

Provided with everything needed for conquering life, Chadaev lacked only the gift of laughter; but even this bitter injustice of nature brought an advantage to him: he was feared. The war spared his tall, reddish body, which looked like a pine tree against the sunset; he returned intact, having received not so much as a black-eye. But then suddenly, petty misfortunes, like mice, began to plague him. He fought with them for a whole year, getting crazy from the battle, but still hordes of them attacked to gnaw at his celebrated good fortune. On days of respite, he bitterly looked into himself but could find no cause for his ruin. Only now, traveling to this latest punishment of fate, did he recall one adventure at the front...and although a muzhik is not ashamed of any sin that is covered in a soldier's greatcoat, this recollection burned and gnawed away at Chadaev's very essence, and there was no way to root it out.