Flowers...

- When you read a new book, poem or play it is really important to understand it. Why does author wrote it? Very often authors hide their ideas in symbols and make different allegories. And even more often it is rather hard to understand, if the author wants to tell anything or this is just a detail. At the beginning of the play "The Sound of a Voice"  by David Hwang flowers immediately catch the readers attention. But what are they?

- They certainly have deeper meaning. 

- Do they? Maybe they are just flowers for "design" of the story?

- I think flowers symbolize the circle of life. They are an allegory of life and death.

- I have always thought that flowers are symbol of beauty, but not the circle of life.

- Well, let's think logically...

- Ohh... "Ms. Logic"...

- ... 

- Ok, I am sorry. Let's think logically...

- If we think logically, we'll pay our attention that at the beginning of the play flowers are very fresh, but when Hanako dies - flowers are dead as well. Flowers are alive as long as the main character is alive. The circle is rather clear, isn't it?

- Hmm...yes. Now it is clear and rather simple. All of the above make a lot more sense.

Intimacy of the Soul

I really enjoyed the poem "Ars Poetica" by Archibald MacLeish. It shows the purpose of the poem. Though I still think that the poem always have some meaning in it, because person writes what he or she feels in the moment. Maybe it will not have any meaning to others, but it will have some meaning to the author. Poems show feelings, emotions, opens what happens with the author during this period of time. In stories or novels we can see the story and, of course, we can see what troubles the author. However, I think that poems open all the "intimacy" of human feelings. It is like to lift the veil from the most sacred that you have - soul.
I want to add a poem written by Anna Akhmatova, Russian writer, who had a very difficult fate. The poem "Requiem" is one of her best pieces, where she shows all her feelings. It is the last cry from the heart of wife and mother:

The quiet Don bears quiet flood,

The crescent enters in a hut.

He enters with a cap on head,

He sees a woman like a shade.

This woman’s absolutely ill,

This woman’s absolutely single.

Her man is dead, son – in a jail,

Oh, pray for me – a poor female!

No, ‘tis not I, ‘tis someone’s in a suffer –

I was ne’er able to endure such pain.

Let all, that was, be with a black cloth muffled,

And let the lanterns be got out ... and reign

just Night.

I’ve cried for seventeen long months,

I’ve called you for your home,

I fell at hangmen’ feet – not once,

My womb and hell you’re from.

All has been mixed up for all times,

And now I can’t define

Who is a beast or man, at last,

And when they’ll kill my son.

There’re left just flowers under dust,

The censer’s squall, the traces, cast

Into the empty mar…

And looks strait into my red eyes

And threads with death, that’s coming fast,

The immense blazing star.

<...>

1939

( link to The whole poem)

On a knife-edge

What makes a good movie? Actors, scenario, effects? Yes, all of the above is very important but, for me, the good movie is the one when all your attention is in the movie, when you become part of it, when you live with the characters. "Argo" is one of those movies when you have to watch it till the very end or you can't fall asleep.

This film shows us the story of six American diplomats during Iranian revolution of 1980. The American embassy was occupied by the Iranians, but six diplomats ran away and find shelter in Canadian embassy. If Iranians find them - they will be killed publicly; their lives are in great danger. To save them the State Department and CIA made up the Canadian film group that was looking for place where to film a movie named "Argo". Tony Mendez, the CIA agent flew to Tehran to help people to return back home.

This film tells you a serious story where your life is a prize if you stay alive. When I read "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi I didn't have such detailed picture of what had happened in the country, how people had changed. "Argo" shows everything. I especially liked the view of the crowd because this is the real power. People's faces, anger, screams, the strength of the people - all of these influenced the viewer a lot. You are under the stress till the very end of the film as you don't know how it will ends.

This film is worth watching. Two hours will pass as two minutes. If you want to see the history on the screen - this is the right choice to make.  

                                                                Trailer of the film
 

Everything began with a bicycle...

"<...> He was remarkable for always wearing goloshes and a warm wadded coat, and carrying an umbrella even in the very finest weather. And his umbrella was in a case, and his watch was in a case made of grey chamois leather, and when he took out his penknife to sharpen his pencil, his penknife, too, was in a little case; and his face seemed to be in a case too, because he always hid it in his turned-up collar. He wore dark spectacles and flannel vests, stuffed up his ears with cotton-wool, and when he got into a cab always told the driver to put up the hood. <...>"

A. P. Chekhov, The Man in a Case, page 1

- Very often authors use different symbols to show the importance of what they are talking about, don't you think Ms. Reason?


- And what will happen if I don't understand that, don't understand the meaning? 

- Well, sometimes the symbol is obvious, sometimes rather hard to spot; however, in my opinion, it is very interesting to really get what the author wanted to say. For example, I don't think that the appearance of the bicycle is a coincidence in Chekhov's "The Man in a Case".

- Bicycle is just the bicycle. I don't think that it has much meaning to it.

- Hmmm... I can't agree. I think the bicycle is the symbol of the progress, of the movement forward. Byelinkov is " the man in a case", who doesn't want to move forward, who always tries to make "a case" that will protect him of outside influence. That's why he can't ride the bicycle and falls down.

- Ok, I got this part. Then, following your logic, Varinka is the symbol of progress, isn't she?

- I don't think that she is the symbol of progress, but she is more open to the people, to the future. I can even say that she is more alive. She wants to live, wants changes in her life. And she definitely doesn't want to live in the case.

- And the bicycle?

- She says to Byelinkov that it was rather easy for her to ride it. The bicycle is the symbol of the change. She is not afraid of changes - she can ride the bicycle.

- Oh, I see. All of this makes sense now. It even shows the characters deeper, gives more meaning to them.        

Antosha Chekhonte

"Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress"

A. P. Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a Russian writer. Today he is most famous as a master of short stories and plays. He was born in 1860 in Taganrog, Ukraine. At the age of 16 the family moved to Moscow. After he had finished the school, Chekhov enrolled in the Moscow University Medicine School. At the same time, to help the family, he started to write short comic stories about the life of the Russian village. However, he didn't use his name; instead, he had a pseudonym Antosha Chekhonte, that sounds rather familiar with his name. Chekhov became famous; his stories were published by several St. Petersburg papers, such as "Novoe Vremya" (New Time). In 1884 he graduated from the Medical School. He practices and writes at the same time. However, after a fiasco with the play "The Wood Demon", he stopped to write and traveled to the east of Siberia to practice as the doctor. In 1892 he returned back, bought a house in a village Melichovo (not far from Moscow) and became a "full-time" writer. During this period of life he wrote such famous pieces as "The Man in a Shell", "Lady with the Dog", "Uncle Vanya", "Ward #6", and others.

There is one special thing about the literature of Chekhov  There is no critical social commentary in his works. He developed his own style of dispassionate, non-judgmental author. Though some other authors could't accept this style, there were others, who praised him. Among them were famous Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov.  


He died at the age of 44 because of tuberculosis. He did a lot to develop Russian literature. Today it is really hard to imagine Russian literature without Chekhov. His works had a great impact on literature in ninetienth- twentieth centuries. His plays are part of repertoire of theaters all over the world. To end I want with the quote of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov  as it shows what kind of men he was: "Take care of a human inside you". 

 Acting in "The Cherry Orchard"
An introduction to Anton Chekhov

Grown-up?

"... I sealed my act of rebellion against my mothers dictatorship 

by smoking the cigarette

 I'd stolen from my uncle two weeks earlier..."

(Satrapi, Persepolis, 117)

- When children become grown-ups? I think, this is the main question for all children. When do you  pass this imaginary line of childhood?

- Technically, you become a grown-up at the age of 18, don't you?

- That is a good point, Ms. Reason. Why do children then do all these crazy things while they are teens?

- Hmmm... they want to protest against their parents' care, because they think that it is their own life.

- Well, I think, I know that. I was so impressed by the chapter The Cigarette in "Persepolis". I think, this is a good example of teenage maximalism. Though Marjane Satrapi wrote it rather seriously, I notice a bit of sarcasm. She kind of makes fun of herself at the age of thirteen, and now she understands, how childish it was to think that with the first cigarette you become a grown-up.

   

The Cost...

I was so impressed by the chapter called "The Shabbat". Though this chapter is rather short, it has so much meaning to it.

The cost of the war is a human life. I don't think that we ever think about this until it happens to us. To my mind this is what have happened to Marjane. People have already "accepted" bombing, that was a part of "everyday routine". However, when Marjane hear that the bombing was in her neighborhood, something clicks inside her. She is so fearful that her parents and grandmother are dead, that she immediately runs back home from the shop. I can't imagine what emotions she has when she finally sees her mother, alive and unhurt.

 Moreover, the graphic novel helps the reader to see the story, to feel the emotions. Sometimes pictures "say" even more than words do. When she understands that their neighbors are killed by the bombing, the reader sees only the black square, as no words can ever explain what she felt.

"The Shabbat" illustrates the life of people during the war, when the usual day can suddenly become the last one.