Shadow of a Novel

     Poets I keep returning to lately:

Pablo Neruda

Boris Pasternak

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     The film Jackie came out in late 2016 -- I've seen it several times.  It was directed by Pablo Larraín, 

a Chilean director.  This was his first movie in English.

     The movie he made right before Jackie was Neruda, about the poet-diplomat and politician.  I want to see Neruda, got to check two things -- is there more freakish violence than I want to put up with in a viewing experience, and -- if it's in Spanish, are there subtitles in English?

     I'm looking into studying certain art-works to try to understand current events better, and also I'm fascinated by certain concepts, such as the "mid-day racist séances" being held in the imaginings of some young Commenter on the Internet.  

(Seance on a Wet Afternoon, 1964)

(I cannot get that whimsical and at the same time punchy phrase, and idea, out of my mind.  What kind of an imagination does it take to come up with that, probably on the spur of the moment, while he's typing on You Tube...?  Mid-day racist séances.  [If it's a séance, why don't they have it at night?]  

The Commenter wrote, "Thank you, now if this lady could point towards where all the rest of the racist individuals are conducting their -- [all together, now] -- mid-day racist séances, we could oust them out as well....")


"this lady"

"point towards where"

"mid day racist séances"...

"oust them"

"oust them -- out"...


     I wish I had artistic skill, I would draw a cartoon of this.

     Aside from those, trying to understand what Putin's interest is in manipulating American elections, and in Donald Trump, I thought I want to focus on Russia, so I wanted to re-watch The Russians Are Coming, the Russians are Coming (1966) 

and also research how Dr. Zhivago, the novel by Boris Pasternak, had to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union in the 1950s, in order to get published.

     Why did they have to smuggle literature?  Because the Soviet Union was not "a free country" -- they couldn't publish anything they wanted to, and read anything they wanted to.  That book was a big deal when it managed to get "escaped" to the "Free World."


     I have not read the novel nor seen the movie, but when I went on You Tube and found the Theme from Dr. Zhivago ("Lara's Theme") and clicked Play, I recognized the tune immediately.


     The title "Dr. Zhivago" and the name of the author, Boris Pasternak, loomed large over the 1960s.  Pasternak -- a Russian name that's pronounceable.  Sounded like "snack."

     The necessity of "sneaking" the manuscript out of the Soviet Union to publish it sort of embodies the difference between free society and unfree society.

     And I thrill to the cloak-and-dagger aspect of Sneaking A Manuscript Out Of The Country And Across Europe - !

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