Note: This was supposed to be posted last weekend, but it had to wait until this one

What does one do when one is stymied from reading books, not because of an absence of books as it was in the dark ages but because of a surfeit in the golden shadows of the a moderately corrupt republic (the term is Milosz’s for United States)? Read book reviews of course. And since gossip (for what are book reviews but high faultin gossip après the private, and alas much discounted (I include myself in that long list of sinners), act of reading to books that multiply to fill that Borgesian Library of Babel,) must be spread one way or the other, here is what I heard down in the vines.

The mystery of Van Gogh’s chopped ear occupies this book review, on the subject of the friendship between Van Gogh and Gauguin. While I have written, insufficiently perhaps, of Van Gogh’s influence of my own version of madness, it remains a sad thing that the poor man went nuts. But then could he have had painted visionary canvases at the rate he did in Arles and stay sane? But it appears that Van Gogh thought this was a minor matter when he commented, ‘"Old Gauguin and I understand each other basically, and if we are a bit mad, what of it?"

Trolling further at Guardian (which I personally think offers better book gossip than the heavy weight New York Times), I chanced upon this, for a change, acceptable essay by the usually “whiny see ma I have as delicate sensibility as Mr. Henry James” critic Pankhaj Mishra (his recent non-review of Vikram Seth’s ‘Two Lives’ in the NYT Book Review is one of the self gloating stupidities to grace these word weary eyes. Comrade Mishraji, talk more about the book at hand the next time, will ya?), on the subject of heavily subsided books sold to the Indian masses by the now defunct, and then glorious, Fatherland, i.e., USSR. Since I too, thanks to those Vishalandhra Travelling Buses, have eaten of this comradely manna, the above mentioned essay brought back many old memories, the most notable being of getting to read the Russian greats, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, in nice leather bound volumes.

I remember how, I along with my sister and my father used to troop into this book bus to savor the heady aromas of solidly bound books, in that country (and that still remain) starved of books. My sister used to troop to the section that sold illustrated fairy tales, comics and such like, while I hit the grim racks of Soviet Literature under the ever watchful eyes of Marx & Engels. I also now remember an insidious young person’s novel that I bought once in one of these buses. I forget the title now but then titles are not as important as the revolutionary, i.e., Kosmol archetypes such novels sought to inculcate in the young minds. That novel was set on a Central Asian collective farm, and revolved around a group of high school kids contributing to the revolution by building, with some adult assistance and supervision, a brand new building. Predictably the villain of the story, who is embodied by a reactionary mullah, doesn’t want this to happen as the new school building would abut his highly secretive hideout. So he creates troubles, and the novel revolves around the solution of these troubles, as well the unmasking of the dark secret harbored by the reactionary mullah, in the guise of a mad veiled sister.

So I, then ignorant about the forced collectivization and deportations of entire peoples under the Great Putsch-er, Koba aka Stalin, too was carried away by such a set piece, and thus suitably revolutionary novel, and for a while really did dream of going to the glorious Fatherland. However as all denouements of childhood daydreams go, before that happened, USSR dissolved and floated away, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn liberated me with his grim novels and experiments in literary investigation, on the subject of the Fatherland’s history. Shouldn’t we also, in passing, mention that mainstay of all IIT JEE penitents and anchorites, Problems in General Physics by I.E. Irodov?

That said I still want to go to Russia, to drink vodka, be addressed as Sashinka, get me one of those long patronymics that show up in Chekhov’s short stories, something along the lines of Sasha Alexeevich Pischik, and meet, perhaps not very intimately, the archetype of Pasternak’s Larissa! But till that happens, these are two interesting accounts of recent travels in Russia. The first is a mock travelogue by an anti tourist, which seems to be full of half ironic observations reviewed as:

“Kalder is fascinated by the monumental art now marooned in the desert of the post-Soviet era. Life has changed so much that these former icons of a regime began to look strange, in a way not initially intended by their creators. Kalder found in a city park in Yoshkar Ola a strange effigy of Lenin that looked like “a furtive cottager”, with his hands in his pockets, “fumbling with his gonads”. I have often observed that Lenin’s classic image – with his raised hand greeting the proverbial radiant future – could today be an effective mascot for a taxi rank. Pushkin’s statue in Pushkin Square in Moscow has one hand inside a breast pocket; so that what was intended as a poetic pose of contemplation now looks as if the poet is reaching for his wallet. Of course, this interpretation is heightened by the fact that, today, he faces the first McDonald’s in Moscow. That corporation tends to choose a key position in every city, generally close to the most important national monument. A comparative study of McDonald’s premises in the republics of Russia is prominent in Kalder’s travelogue.”

And the second is about an accidental bike trip, rife with accidents, into that very mysterious and cold land of Siberia.

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I see that I have many more book reviews that I found interesting but these, since I am now feel an afternoon nap coming on, will only get a quick mention. First, if you suffer ennui and unhappiness like most of us post-moderns do, you might want to take a look at Love, Life, Goethe to see if Goethe is good for you. Jane Smiley’s recent book on the business of writing, and also reading novels, is being serialized by Guardian. This is the introduction that goes into what triggered the book, and outlines her reading plan; in this Simely visits The Land of Genji; in this Smiley takes a look at Icelandic sagas; and this week she introduces us to the first successful female novelist in England with a very non English sounding name, Aphra Behn. James Fenton continues to illuminate for us, the strange life of Michaelangelo. By the way, his Oxford Lectures on Poetry are a must read. And finally Joseph Finder wonders what ever happened to the bitch goddess called Ambition, in the literary novel.

Happy trolling Comrades! You maybe, however, better off reading a book than reading about books.