Архивы Literature

23.01.2019

19 books that still matter

From the very first day, when I read my first word, and then the sentence, I passionately loved books. I fell in love with beautiful covers, page designs and especially their scent. However, I was hooked by the feelings that the reader feels at the end of the finished book. Thanks to my huge reading experience (for 17 years of reading in general), I realized that only a few books leave a mark on our lives, which is felt even years later. The plot and the content of the book can be forgotten through long years, but the mystical tremor from the title remains.

I just wish that this list consisted not mainly of representatives from foreign countries but mostly of Russian.Read More

20.12.2018

In the Labyrinth

A soldier, stiffened in the winter cold and tired, is waiting for someone near the lantern under the incessant snowfall. In his hands he holds a box wrapped in paper with something inside; he must pass it on to someone. He does not remember any details of the meeting: where, when and with whom it should take place; he does not remember anything about himself: from which military unit he is, whose overcoat is on him. He goes from street to street, but again and again he feels that he is on the exact same street that he was on before. Again and again he encounters a little boy, as if knowing some secret important to a soldier, but avoiding him.
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01.12.2018

When I Was a Work of Art

Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is a contemporary French writer, known as the author of a number of easy-to-read books, but, nevertheless, filled with deep philosophical meaning. One can even say that each of his works is a philosophical parable that raises at least one global problem of being: what is life, death, God and religion.

His novel “How I Was a Work of Art” was written in 2002 and is no exception.Read More

09.08.2018

What you did not know about “The Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov

Rereading the legendary Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” after seven years of the first reading, I caught myself thinking that I’m looking at the thoughts embedded in it quite differently. Of course, the backpack of life and literary experience affects, but also (and to a greater extent) the linguistic and philological education that I managed to get during these years. Thanks to the freshly received philological view and the ability to analyze literature as a true philologist (the golden rule of a philologist: be sure to read literary criticism), I noted for myself a few moments in the novel, which I might not have previously suspected.
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16.07.2018

Wassiliy Kandinsky | 20 selected quotes

Wasily Kandinsky in his treatise “On the spiritual in art”, 1910, expresses his thoughts on the interconnection of the arts, on what the artist and the viewer should look like, on the importance of composition and color in painting. The quotes I have chosen from the treatise make you think about the topics above, that are still relevant today.

Stupeur et tremblements

Amélie Nothomb is a Belgian writer writing in French. Her father was a diplomat, therefore in her childhood Notomb lived in different countries: Japan, the USA, Laos, Burma, China and Bangladesh which strongly influenced her work. In all, she wrote 23 novels and the most famous “Fear and Trembling” (Stupeur et tremblements) was nominated for Prix Goncourt.
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