National November Writing Month or NaNoWriMo is a great project. Last year I’ve done it for the first time, which helped me to realise that writing fast is not my forte. I’m a slow writer, I rarely pour out more than 1000 words a day, 500 is more of a rule.… Read the rest
Back to Animals: Faith, Soul and Consumerism
Ever hungry Hyde Park squirrel as a metaphor of the consumerist culture
Think about what really makes us different from animals? Is it our ability to empathize and be altruistic sometimes? But then altruism is regularly found in animals, especially social species, and is assumed to serve as an adaptation mechanism to preserve the community or ecosystem.… Read the rest
Turning to Listen. Russian Soul
Обращение в слух by Антон Понизовский
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Обращение в слух, which can be translated as Turning into a Listening Ear, is an important work marking the return of the so-called ‘novel of ideas’. The book won the biggest Russian literary prize this year – The Big Book.… Read the rest
A Quick Guide to Cancer: Can We Eradicate It?
A chamber that cures diseases including cancer featured in the sci-fi film Elysium (credit – Columbia Pictures, 2013)
In the recent scifi Elysium there are wonder-chambers that scan the human body and remove all the cancer cells and diseases and thus keep a person immortal.… Read the rest
The Fifth Estate vs Mediastan: Assange, Wikileaks, Freedom, Cinema
D. Bruhl as Daniel Berg and B. Camberbatch as Julian Assange in the Fifth Estate motion picture
What is freedom?
Is this an ability to act according to one’s wishes without fear of being punished? Can you call something freedom when it takes freedom from the others?… Read the rest
From Businessman to Writer: Andrei Rubanov. Russian Prison
Andrei Rubanov presenting his book Chlorophilia
Many writers create amazing things they’ve never lived through just out their imagination. Still I find writers who experienced terrifying shortcomings of life are able to create truly vibrant prose. Andrei Rubanov is a modern Russian author who has both a very adventurous personal history and a vivid imagination.… Read the rest
Modern Russian Writers: Ludmila Ulitskaya and Her Soviet Chronicles
Ludmila Ulitskaya (photo credit – Dmitry Rozhkov, via Wkimedia Commons)
The Soviet Union collapsed 22 years ago and we now have the whole generation of writers in Russia thinking about the recent Russian history and trying to understand and portray the Soviet phenomenon in their stories.… Read the rest