Life in general

I know I haven't posted in a while and I apologize, sort of to myself, more than anyone else. This filing season has been a crazy one where 14 or 15 hour days (like yesterday) have been far too common. In any event, I'm back.




By now it is clear that the writer's intent is to express his point of view on the great issues of mankind. His characters ask such questions as "What is happiness?" "Where do I belong" "What is my purpose in life" even the title, "In the first circle" refers to a drawing in the dirt made by Innokenti (whom I suspect is the "traitor") in which he drew three concentric circles, the first of which depicted Russia, with the outer one being all of mankind. He wants to be a citizen of the world and live in the third circle, but he can't, because a system full of barricades and men with guns forces him to stay within the first one. In that you can definitely see the author's personal point of view about socialism, but it makes a greater point, one that a friend of mine made just yesterday on his facebook: "Am I meant to be where I am, to do what I do, to be who I am?" The interesting thing is that my friend is a lawyer, living in Washington, D.C., the antithesis of Innokenti's environment, however, they both share the same feeling, they are both looking for some sort of purpose in life that, as of now, has been hiding from them. I guess it's true what they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It made me remember a conference in college in which the professor explained in a very convincing manner how socialism and capitalism tended to the same end, but through different means. I guess he was right.



I don't share Innokenti's lack of purpose and I don't think my friend actually feels that way -maybe he as just having a bad day because he had to read a particularly boring brief- but I do understand how one can be lost in this maelstrom called life. It helps to have anchors -family, friends, faith more than anything- to keep you grounded and give you that sense of purpose, but just imagine how many millions of people in the world don't have any of that, how many millions were raised under Socialist rule not to have any! I remember reading a book once about socialist indoctrination for the special forces of the KGB written by a defector and how he described that every session started with reciting the party's oath and saying out loud "there is no God". If there is no God, Why do you have to deny him so? I don't deny the existence of unicorns; it doesn't even cross my mind because they don't exist. People like that are like monuments that were stripped bare during revolutions, sure, they still stand, they are even functional, but they are sad, dejected, devoid of their original glory.



So don't read the book if you're looking for a thriller! I can recommend you many others, instead.