Looking for Kochetov

(http://bookmix.ru/book.phtml?id=1873062)
no copyright infringement intended

There is a Romanian expression (a bit slang), a ţi se pune pata.

Pată means stain. You suddenly get obsessed about something or about somebody. There is apparently no reason, no history, nothing to explain it. Like a stain on your brain, and it stays there, you cannot get free of it any more.

Some years ago I got such a stain on my brain, for a book. A book by Kochetov.

Not another author. Just Kochetov. This is weird, you'd say. Well, were it the only weird thing in my life, I would have been almost okay with everything!

It is hard to find in the whole history of Soviet literature somebody more Stalinist than Kochetov. Other authors were more or less nuanced in their political views, tried more or less to take distances. Not Kochetov. He remained a staunched Stalinist to the end, long time after Stalin had died.

Then why Kochetov? Behind the apparent irrationality of an obsession there is always a rationale. I don't know. Maybe a desire to understand more an epoch, or to judge it with today's understanding. Or to understand it in my own terms. Or maybe a nostalgic regret for all these years that have passed over me and are gone for good. I don't know.

A book written by this Kochetov in 1952, The Zhurbin Family, enjoyed a certain fame on this part of the terrestrial globe. It was translated in Romanian, in 1953. I didn't have the chance to read it. By then I was just a kid in the first grade. Once, in a summer school camp I saw the book at another boy and I had it for an afternoon. I was able to read the first two chapters, and that was all.

And then, everybody forgot about the Zhurbins. Other books, other authors, other heroes came and left. Other historical epochs, other problems, other ways to understand life and to react to it.

Well, suddenly some years ago, the memory of the book came to my mind and I felt an irresistible impulse to read it.

In order to read it, firstly I had to find a copy. Easy to say.

I visited all antiquarians in Bucharest. Nobody knew about it. Kochetov who? I asked then the bouquinistes. No one knew about it. Kochetov who? I kept asking.

It happened that last year I was in the States for two weeks or so, and from these two weeks I spent in New York exactly one evening and the following morning.

An evening and a morning in New York, that's not too much. During the evening, among other things I walked on Bedford Street, the hipsters' place in Brooklyn, and I entered a bookstore there. I remembered the place very well: in 2009 I had bought there The Wild Party, a fabulous 1928 edition illustrated by Reginald Marsh. Maybe one day I will talk here about it.

So I entered the store with some joyful curiosity. The bookseller announced me just in that moment that the program was ending, so everybody had to get out. It was already nine o' clock.

I didn't like his tone, but he was right. What to say? Actually there was something to say. I asked him about the book of Kochetov. Koche.. who? Never heard about. That offered me the opportunity to exclaim, how is that possible? I left then the store putting a dignified mask over my usual look. Not far from the bookstore, on the Berry Street, just a couple of blocks away, I found a splendid place with German beer, grilled wursts and a nice jazz band: the Radegast Hall and Biergarten. That made me forget about Kochetov and his Zhurbins for the rest of the evening.

Several days after that, I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts with my son, walking on one of the streets near Harvard Square. He wanted to show me some really beautiful mansions that were ranged one after the other on Brattle Street. One of them was famous. It had served as headquarters for General Washington during the Siege of Boston, and much later in 1837 became Longfellow's mansion. The whole street looked very classy. I remembered something I had read some years earlier: the name of the street in the very old times had been the King's Highway. Really royal, indeed!

We continued our walk on other streets nearby, talking at random about different things. We passed the Divinity School, and I told my son that the Niebuhrs had taught there (actually I was wrong: Reinhold had taught at New York, and H. Richard at Yale). I had read one of H.Richard Niebuhr's books, Christ and Culture and I talked about it with such enthusiasm that my son ordered it on the spot, using his cell (he gave me later that evening, when we were at his home, another one of Niebuhr's books, The Social Sources of Denominationalism; I read it when back in Bucharest).

As we were talking we approached an antiquarian situated very close to the university. The bookseller here was nice, however the temptation was too big, and I asked him about the Soviet author and his book. I even added that I would be okay with an English translation, though it would be more preferable if he had a Romanian edition. Of course he didn't know anything about and I realized what a shameless stupid arsehole I was. Fortunately I found another book (this one by Yasunari Kawabata, The Master of Go) and I bought it, praising the chance to find that book in that place. And I was right: a day before I had bought a dvd with a Chinese movie by Tian Zhuang-Zhuang, The Go Master, having only Spanish subtitles, so the book was a helpful companion to the film (the subjects of the book and the movie were different, however the epoch and the heroes were the same). Well, as I said, the bookseller was very nice, and I should add the name of the bookstore, as it is the oldest foreign book dealer in US (and the fourth oldest overall): Schoenhof's Foreign Books.

Back in Bucharest I went on asking the bouquinistes about the Zhurbins. Nobody knew anything about the book or about the author. Only one said, yeah, I remember, some twenty years ago I used to have some copies; I was offering them almost for free, otherwise nobody would have bought it. You've come twenty years too late my friend!

There are more places in Bucharest where these street book sellers can be found. One is at the University. Another place is in front of the Obor marquet. There are other places as well, but these two places are my favorites. I always spend a bit of time to browse what they have. It's like browsing diverse epochs, the titles of the books, the illustrations on their covers, they speak a lot about the mentality of the period in which they were published, and sometimes it's about periods that I lived.

And the books at the bouquinistes or antiquarians speak also in some subtle way about the culture of the city, the present and the past, the popular culture especially. You know a place also on the books you find there. Be it Bucharest, be it Istanbul, be it New York, or Paris, or London. Hou Hsiao-Hsien, the great Taiwanese director, made his movie about Paris (Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge) starting from a book speaking about the city (with a wonderful title, by the way, Paris to the Moon).

They have, these guys, sometimes other books even much older. Once I found something that was really unique: a Balzac edition, a Romanian translation printed with Slavonic characters, published sometime in the first half of the 19th century.

Well, one week ago, I got a call from one of these bouquinistes: are you still interested in the Zhurbins? I found a copy for you.



(Kochetov)

(Cambridge)

Longfellow: Agassiz

Louis Agassiz giving a lecture, 1870
source: Schweizerischer Beobachter
(http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/A/AGA/louis-agassiz.html)
no copyright infringement intended

Agassiz had been among the best friends of Longfellow, and his death was a hard blow for the poet.

I stand again on the familiar shore,
And hear the waves of the distracted sea
Piteously calling and lamenting thee,
And waiting restless at thy cottage door.
The rocks, the sea-weed on the ocean floor,
The willows in the meadow, and the free
Wild winds of the Atlantic welcome me;
Then why shouldst thou be dead, and come no more?
Ah, why shouldst thou be dead, when common men
Are busy with their trivial affairs,
Having and holding? Why, when thou hadst read
Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then
Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears,
Why art thou silent! Why shouldst thou be dead?

(http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/agassiz/)

A poem artfully crafted: the name of Agassiz is not mentioned, while being suggested by the landscape invoked with such greatness -  the man who has devoted all his life to the Earth's natural history, a paleontologist, geologist, and glaciologist, a respected professor, and an indefatigable explorer.

The first element invoked in the poem is the sea (the familiar shore.. the waves of the distracted sea), and I would say Longfellow had the prescience of things to come: later the name of Agassiz would be given to an immense lake that had existed in the glacial period, covering the whole middle of the northern part of North America, larger than all today's Great Lakes combined, and holding more water than all today's lakes in the world. The prehistoric existence of the lake had been postulated in 1823, and it was in 1879 that it was baptized with the name of the great naturalist.

Well, we can criticize Agassiz today as much as it's in our like: more than a creationist, he was an adept of polygenism, considering human races as of different lineages, each race with an origin of its own. But he was a man of his epoch, active and passionate in the scientific disputes of those years, Cuvier versus Saint-Hilaire and all that followed - Darwinism didn't find an easy promenade. But all these adversaries were so to speak the same family: a band of brothers, fighting each other in the name of Mother Science. Always science is advancing through fierce struggle between opposite theories, thus merit should be recognized to all combatants.

As for Longfellow, he kept all his life the image of the first encounter with a pleasant, voluble man, with a bright, beaming face. It had been in 1847, and many other encounters followed.


(Longfellow)

(Cambridge)

Fogg Museum of Art

Fogg Museum of Art, Cambridge, MA
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fogg_Art_Museum,_Harvard_University.jpg)
no copyright infringement intended

It is the oldest art museum of Harvard, and it has serious collections of Italian Renaissance, Pre-Raphaelites, Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, among others.

The image above, on Quincy Street, in Georgian-revival style,dates from 1925. Earlier the museum was housed in another building, that one in Italian Renaissance style. That older building was eventually demolished (in 1974).

Well, beginning 2008, the building from the image closed for a renovation project: a new building will house all three Harvard Art Museums. Meanwhile selected works from Fogg are on display at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, located nearby, on Broadway (of course the Broadway from Cambridge, don't jump on conclusions).

• Albert Bierstadt: In the Sierras
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Blessed Damozel

(Cambridge)

Rev. Gomes Passed Away

Rev. Peter J Gomes
(1942 - 2011)

I was visiting the campus of Harvard University for the first time. It was the summer of 1987. There were several firsts. The first time I was in America. The first long walk I was taking outside the home where I was hosted (the apartment of my son and my daughter-in-law, in Watertown, MA). I reached, in this first long walk, the city of Cambridge (it was a forty minutes walk). The first place to be seen in Cambridge was Harvard Square. So the first time in Cambridge, the first time at Harvard, the first American university to visit.

I entered the campus of the university and I joined a group of tourists, stopping in front of various buildings and listening to their stories. A very momentous visit. I came back often in those places, and each time I discovered more things, with more stories. And Harvard Square became one of the places that I love most in the world.

Maybe one time I will tell here my stories about Harvard Square. I have now stories of my own. my wonderful experiences I lived there, my great discoveries.

Let's come back to the day I was there for the first time, visiting together with the group of tourists the campus, passing by the most important buildings and learning the stories.

We entered a large church, it was the University chapel, Harvard Memorial Church. This was another first for me, the first church in America I was visiting. I asked what was the denomination. I expected to be an Episcopal church, it looked like. I was told it was a non-denominational church. Everybody was welcome, regardless of religious convictions, and the service was organized with the intention to respect everybody's faith. It was my first contact with a religious attitude based on inclusiveness: mutual respect instead of mutual exclusion.

After many years I heard about Reverend Peter J. Gomes, the minister of the Harvard Memorial Church: a distinguished theologian who maintained that our approach to the Bible was always mediated through our culture. That is why the Bible was used along the human history to teach mutually exclusive ideas: defending slavery and considering slavery immoral, enshrining male dominance and defending the dignity of woman, supporting and fighting racism, condemning homosexuality and including in all dignity any human being in the Church of God. We tend to understand the Bible through the lens of our cultural and historical context. And Rev. Gomes went so far as to condemn the Bibliolatry: worshiping the Bible rather than worshiping God, making the Bible an idol.

Each of us have her or his own religious convictions, and many of us are very far from the way taken by Rev. Gomes; many of us are in total opposition to such views. But I think we can admire a man of profound courage in his convictions.

Well, it is much more to say about Rev. Gomes. He was far from offering a linear picture of himself, to be easily accepted. He was the only black, gay, Republican preacher at Harvard most people have ever met. The oddest thing about an oddity, said he once, is that there are so few oddities like you.

Peter Gomes passed away on February 28.



(Church in America)

(Cambridge)

Beyond Harvard Square

(Cambridge)

The Stairs at COOP

(Cambridge)

Tibetans in Harvard Square

This is a sensible topic and each side has its points. Everybody agrees that Tibet was occupied by Communist China. We should also agree on two other facts: firstly that it is hypocrite to get the economical benefits of the global trade while boycotting the Olympics organized by the main manufacturer in the world; secondly, that sport should have no connection with politics.

(Cambridge)

Love in Harvard Square

Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The dream place for anyone looking for freedom of spirit. It's in the air there, the liberty of mind, it's so strong you feel like drunk. It's the place where all ideas meet, whatever radical, whatever crazy, whatever different. It's the spirit of Quartier Latin (however, prends garde, it's America).



I'm dreaming at a book not yet written, Love in Harvard Square. Marquez, and Pamuk, and Boell, and Pavic, all together. No, only Marguerite Yourcenar. When I was in Harvard Square for the first time, I met a guy from Montreal, we spoke about Yourcenar.



It was in 1997, my first trip to America. My son and my daughter-in-law were living by that time in Watertown. I went for a walk and took the Mount Auburn Street up. After one hour I was in Harvard Square. Love at first sight.



A very small coffee & tea house was in front of the square. A narrow room, half of it occupied by the counter. A map of the world hanging on the wall. I spent there fine moments. It's no more, out of business.




A guy was selling a Communist tabloid. I started to laugh. I knew too well what Communism meant. The guy was trying to explain to me that the experiment had failed because the bad guys had forgotten the purity of ideas, I was keeping on laughing.



The other day Tibetans were demonstrating in the Square against the Communist government from Beijing. There is a small Tibetan store, beyond the square, close to a tiny bookstore selling Marxist literature. Both of them fighting to remain in business, without success. Business is harsh: America is a free country, however it's America.



Love in Harvard Square. I'm drinking a cup of coffee just beyond the square. A large terrace, this is really Quartier Latin like. The same kind of folks, the same look and feel.



I'm dreaming. My travels, real or imaginary, in geography or in time, in China, or in Turkey, or in search of the lost kingdom of Khazars, or in Macondo, or following the books of Zora, or following Kapuscinski in Africa and in Russia - or in Yugoslavia, together with Anthony Loyd, My War Gone By I Miss It So - Piano Carpini or Marco Polo, or the old Milescu... and Pamuk, and Pavic, and Marquez, and Zora Neale Hurston, and Kapuscinski, the wizard of the narrative (when he was forgetting that he was a journalist). Dreaming at remote places, where I would dream at Harvard Square. Dreaming at books to be read while dreaming at Harvard Square.
The book of Loyd: discovering that nobody remains innocent in a conflict, predators and victims together; discovering in true honesty his vitality only in the morbid attraction to be there, on the field of war; honest to himself up to cynicism; you cannot witness a war without being implied. Philip Caputo in A Rumor of War comes somehow to the same feeling: you cannot be true in blaming the war if you are not there, on the field.
How would it sound a story of Eileen Chang taking place here, in Harvard Square? Lust, Caution placed here in Cambridge? The movie of Ang Lee is two hours long. The story of Eileen Chang is ten pages. Focused on one moment, that's it, everything else thrown in rapid flashes. Ang Lee created a whole universe from a book that had concentrated the whole world in a kernel.

Or Henry Miller and his correspondence with Anaïs Nin?



Jhumpa Lahiri writes about folks living here, not far from Harvard Square, and torn between their lost Indian identity and their new American one. A new book of her comes by the end of this month, a collection of short stories.
Harvard Square, bordered by two book temples: the COOP, the Harvard Book Store. And the antiquarian, close, on a small street. You get down several steps, you find French books, German, Russian. Living in the whole universe there, in Harvard Square...


The Singer sewing machine in a window, and all kind of stuff, old cameras, fishing tools..., close to the Harvard Book Store.
To travel through the Book of Psalms, with Freemantle, dreaming at long journeys in India and Arab countries. The Freemantle edition of the Psalms, illustrated with drawings of extraordinary animals, real or imaginary, with exotic flowers and trees, with images of vivid cities from Thousand and One Nights. Freemantle worked on his edition for thirty years: a love gift for his wife.


And the entrance in the campus of the University, the small wooden house where Washington spent one night. A bit farther, beyond the campus, the museum of glass flowers, the work of a life of two glass workers, crazy botanists. They had lived in Prague, among other dreamers, their work was bought by another crazy lover here in Cambridge. The Science Center, hosting MARK - I, the computer of Howard Aiken, from 1944: its devices along a whole wall.
The Swedenborgian church: well, that's another story. All in due time.

Love in Harvard Square. I'm a crazy dreamer.







(Cambridge)

(A Life in Books)