(no subject)

[pantryslut]

I forgot to mention previously in regards to "Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking" that a large chunk of the last chapter finds the author wrestling with the ongoing popular rehabilitation of Stalin within Russia, from her perspective as the daughter of a political dissident emigre and, you know, person who is concerned with history. She doesn't come to any conclusions, really, which makes it all the more relatable. Just ever-tightening circles of "How? How? Him again? Himagain? HIMAGAIN?" Concluding (almost) with an old woman reciting Akhmatova from memory under a portrait of the mustachioed one, and our author's head nearly exploding with the cognitive dissonance.

I related. Not so much to the particular material (although that, too, to a much smaller degree; I mean, REALLY?), but to the alienation that a certain sort of historical knowledge brings.

Comments

[themagdalen]

Oooooooh.