Manic Bookstore Cafe

I am working on a couple of projects simultaneously (as often happens), and they all converge in the heartbreaking letter I read yesterday from a poet named Valerii Pereleshin who was living in Shanghai. Illness and discomfort, distance from family, concern about endings whether in literature or in life. In 1944 Pereleshin's mother was in Harbin--a "Russian city on Chinese territory"--where he had grown up after they fled Russia in 1920. Pereleshin (who became Father German when he took his religious vows in Harbin) had served more or less happily as a priest in Pekin for a number of years. But having been transferred to Shanghai, he wrote to his mother that it was "gray and uninteresting" after Pekin. His discomforts were physical and psychological, exacerbated by broader conditions about in the world. During the war, the mail service between Shanghai and Harbin was less than ideal. Pereleshin regularly wrote to his mother to tell her he is writing regularly--i...

Activity on this blog tends to surge when I'm on leave (a relatively rare occurrence), and yes, this year I do have a sabbatical. My research topics are related to health and Chekhov, which is part of why Yuri Corrigan's little book, Chekhov's Antidotes: Prescriptions for an Age of Unrest  really hit home. Also, the book is brilliant. In thoughtful, perfectly paced prose Corrigan takes us through four ideas he synthesized from across Chekhov's career. And though he never says LOOK HERE, FRIENDS AND COMRADES! THIS IS ABOUT OUR SOCIETY! that is kind of what he means. Let me give you the subtitles to each of four chapters: "On responding to the pain of others"; "on healing and resisting culture war"; "on mitigating modern loneliness"; "on discerning the meanings of life." Each of these topics feels phenomenally current. The argument--laid out with the elegant reasoning of a philosopher who wants to speak to a broad audience--unfolds ...