A day with Stalin

I just spent a Day with the former leader of the Soviets. I was taken on a typical Russian "tangent" (I'm sure there's a technical name for side stories, but like I said, I'm not a writer or anything remotely close) and read and entire biography of Stalin in a few chapters.

And it wasn't just that, it was a brief history of the Soviet Union. I had forgotten that Stalin had been a seminarian, and about to be ordained, too, before he was expelled for being a socialist. Reminded of the "Liberation Theology" priests of post Vatican II, but that's a topic I will leave to the experts, like my friend Joe, whose blog you can and should read and that's why I have his link in mine.

Anyway, as predicted, the original tangents are becoming a cohesive story. I went to jail so I could meet the men (I'm not being sexist, it's just men) that are working on technology that will help the government figure out who called the American embassy. The problem is that instead of having GE run the project and subcontract parts of it to Lockheed Martin, Boeing and others, you have two guys that are fighting for the favor of the Stalin and a Lenin prize, so the leaders of these two teams keep trying to sabotage each other, while the engineers, who are all political prisoners, could not care less because, as one of them put it "You should realize that you can't take everything away from a man, because when you do, he is no longer under your control, he is free again" (I told you it had great quotes).

If this is true, if this is how Socialism really worked, it's no wonder it imploded the way it did. Then again, the author was forced into exile by the system he is describing, so he's not what we could call impartial.

Now I know where this is going. It's only a matter of time before he throws me into another loop, I'm sure of it.

By the way, he won it in 1970

I neglected to tell you that he won the Nobel prize in 1970. I'll try to be chronological in the future, but I make no promises.

I wasn't thinking of posting every day, and maybe I won't, but as I was reading last night I wanted to write about the seemingly chaotic exchange that takes place in chapters 7 through 9. These two guys are talking about the deepest questions of mankind -happiness, the meaning of life- in a non-chalant way, like discussing the weather. Now, I don't necessarily agree with their points of view, which are very materialistic, but I recognize the genius of teasing the reader by barely touching upon these issues without really going into them. It leaves you wondering if the storyline will bring you back to that discussion or if it was just like the splash of bright red paint that all abstract paintings seem to have, something to capture your attention. It's as if the writer was saying "look what I'm capable of, so hang on and I'll show you a thing or two".

It is also very interesting how some people might find it hard to find something to believe in, but we all tend to more or less know what we don't believe in. How is that?

Solzhenitsyn, first impressions

I can tell he's Russian. I could tell even if I didn't already know who the writer is. He is similar to Tolstoi and Doestoevsky without being like them. You have the tangents that make you feel like you're reading five different books at the same time, but they are not self-encompassing, he doesn't take you for a circular walk before returning to the main story like they do, I have a feeling that this tangents will become the story and I will find out that they were not tangents at all, but lines that meet at some point in the future, it's just that my outlook was wrong.

I can tell you now, I'm hooked. I can be in my apartment in Crystal City or in Old Town Alexandria, but that doesn't matter... When I open the book, I'm in Russia, years before I was even born. I can see the streets, the dim lit offices, feel the cold of the Moscow winter. This book is already worth it, even if it's only for the beautiful and realistic images it has created in my mind. Better than a museum full of paintings.

But I should say something about the plot. There's an atomic bomb in the wrong hands. A Russian official that goes against his sense of loyalty and reports it to the US embassy. An American military attache that doesn't speak Russian and dismisses the call, tells the guy to call the Canadians instead, they speak better Russian... Even in this little detail, Solzhenitsyn captured the stereotypical American living abroad, the one that expects the rest of the world to speak proper American English -not even British!- American. But then the tangents start and I'm thrown in jail, celebrating Christmas with German prisoners, working in the radio lab and trying to figure out how to get real news, not the sanctioned version of the world published by Pravda.

I know I'm up to something, I just don't know what that is yet. I'm sure I'll find out soon.

The basic idea

Nobody said New Year's resolutions had to be restricted to 365 days, however, that is how I'd always thought of them. Until yesterday, January 3, 2010. I'd been to the bookstore the night before and bought two books: Doestoevsky's short stories and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "In the first circle". The next evening, I was sitting at home reading Solzhenitsyn and thinking how great it would be to own that collection they have at my University of all Nobel laureates in literature. I contacted the publishing house once (it's a Spanish company) but they didn't have it in stock anymore. So then I thought "Why don't I buy a book of each winner myself?" - It sounded crazy, but so logical I was surprised I hadn't thought about it before.

I then decided to make it my new year's resolution, but there's a problem. The greatest number of books I've ever read in a year is 56, and that's when I was in college, when there's all the time in the world to read. Now I have a full time job and I have to fight traffic every day. Then again, nobody said I had to finish in a year. Actually, it's even better if it takes longer.

I'm not a critic, I don't have a degree in literature. I simply like to read. All my comments will be based on this very simple principle, I read for pleasure, and I like what I like. Now let's start this adventure.