“The foreman matters more than anything else in a prison camp: a new one gives you a new lease of life, a bad one can land you six feet under. Shukov had known Andrei Profofyevich Tyurin back in Ust-Izhma. He hadn’t worked under him there, but when all the “traitors” had been shunted from theContinue reading “RKS Literature: Paying Attention to the Gulag Hierarchy (Solzhenitsyn)”
Category Archives: literature
RKS Literature: The Perpetual Sentence in the Gulag (Solzhenitsyn)
“Another thing the searchers looked for in the morning: men wearing civilian dress under prison clothes. Never mind that everybody had been stripped of his civilian belongings long ago and told that he’d get them back the day his sentence ended (a day nobody in the camp had yet seen).” “One Day in the LifeContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Perpetual Sentence in the Gulag (Solzhenitsyn)”
RKS Literature: Everyone Taking Their Cut of Bread at the Gulag (Solzhenitsyn)
“Shukov had drawn a few thousand bread rations in jails and prison camps, and though he’d never had the chance to weigh his portion on the scales, and anyway was too timid to kick up a fuss and demand his rights, he knew better than most prisoners, that a bread cutter who gave full measureContinue reading “RKS Literature: Everyone Taking Their Cut of Bread at the Gulag (Solzhenitsyn)”
RKS Literature: France: Love, Slander and Nonsense
“Have you ever been to France Monsieur Martin?” Candide asked. “Yes”, Martin replied, “I have been through several provinces. In some, half the people are mad, in others the people are too cunning; there are some in which they are gentle and foolish, and others where everyone is witty. And in all these provinces theContinue reading “RKS Literature: France: Love, Slander and Nonsense”
RKS Literature: The Rabble of Paris (Voltaire)
“Yes, I have seen Paris. It has all those types of people. What chaos! A swarm of people where everyone is seeking pleasure but hardly anyone finds it; at least that is how it seemed to me. I did not stay long. When I arrived, pick-pockets at the Saint Germain robbed me of everything IContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Rabble of Paris (Voltaire)”
RKS Literature: The Regimented Assassins of Europe (Voltaire)
“I have hardly ever come across a town that does not desire the ruin of its neighbouring town, a family that does not destroy another family. Everywhere the weak despise the strong at whose feet they grovel, and the strong treat them like sheep whose wool and flesh can be sold. A million regimented assassins,Continue reading “RKS Literature: The Regimented Assassins of Europe (Voltaire)”
RKS Literature: What is Optimism? (Voltaire)
“What is optimism?” Cacambo asked. “Alas!” Candide replied. “It is the mania of affirming that everything is good when things are bad.” “Candide or Optimism”, Voltaire, 1759.
RKS Literature: The Timeless Excellence of Wine from Samos, Greece (Voltaire)
“He immediately approached them, greeted them, and invited them to come eat at his inn to eat some macaroni, Lombardy partridges, and caviar, and to drink some wine from Montepulciano, from Cyprus and Samos and some Lacrimae Christi.” Voltaire, “Candide or Optimism”, 1759.
RKS Literature: Opera as a Revolting Monster (Voltaire)
“I would perhaps prefer opera, had they not discovered the secret of turning it into a monster that revolts me. I do not mind if people want to see bad tragedies set to music, the scenes serving only to introduce (and quite badly) one or two ridiculous songs intended to exhibit the actresses’ gullet. GoodContinue reading “RKS Literature: Opera as a Revolting Monster (Voltaire)”
The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 51: Revolt at the Mugless Mental Hospital in Montreal
Squid whisked me away from Dorval International Airport in Montreal to downtown Montreal in his silver Studebaker. I took my usual suite at the Ritz-Carlton on Sherbrooke Street. After unpacking we went to Thursdays on Crescent Street for a quick Martini and then to an old favourite Greek restaurant of mine on Park Avenue calledContinue reading “The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 51: Revolt at the Mugless Mental Hospital in Montreal”
