Bologoye – Mikhail Iossel

                                            Mikhail Iossel c/o the author

I was very surprised to find the very active twitter account of Mikhail Iossel. 

I’m not surprised that he has one; I’m surprised that I actually made it to his story in the BASS while he is still alive! This, of course, is a critique of my lack of reading and writing.

It was nice to read Bologoye – to reach this story at about the half-way point in the anthology. It pulled me in and I think it’s going to propel me through to the end of the book.

Reading this story was like visiting an old friend.

My interest/casual study of Russia/The Soviet Union began back in the early 1980s. I can say that my interest came about with the addition to my family of a step-father who was very interested in American foreign policy towards the Soviets. He was a rabid news consumer – we always had cable news on in the house and we even received the morning and afternoon newspapers. During breakfast, before school, he would provide commentary on the latest news out of DC and Moscow. I was well aware of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the death of Brezhnev and the weirdness that encompassed the Andropov and Chernenko years. Gorbachev came along in ’85 and by ’86 I was in high school and my obsession with US/USSR relations was pretty well developed and growing. I sought out books, music and photos…the local university library even subscribed to Pravda (I can neither confirm nor deny several missing Pravda issues from 1989).

In 1990-early ’91 I focused on surviving my freshman year at Norwich. I did work in the library where their Russian collection was quite large given the summer Russian School program they hosted.

In the fall of ’91, I began my formal study of the language/culture and politics – changing my major and selecting courses that focused on my interest.

This was a great time to really focus in on the country because, by the end of 1991, the Soviet Union was no more.

I continued my studies and in the summer of ’93, as you may have read here before, I made a trip over to Russia. The early ‘90s in Russia was quite interesting.

In the years after my formal schooling, I still studied the country, (the first AOL news story I clicked on after we got a dial-up modem and the software disc at my father's was one of Yeltsin).

Of course, in the late 90’s I made it back over to that part of the world – Romania, and during my time there, I felt the ghosts of old influences that the Kremlin had on the country.

Now, today, as I read this story, I am taken back to those days. I can taste the shared warm beer, the shared bottles of wine drunk between the moving train cars (we drank ours on a train from Moscow to Volgograd). The endless shots of vodka - I can recall the smells of the Soviet apartment blocs – with their massive stairwells and the eyes of neighbors always watching. I can recall the feeling knowing that I was followed, that someone “inspected” my room from time-to-time.

I appreciate stories like this to transport me back to those days – stories by a writer that weaves the words to create scenes that transport you, the reader, having been there years before – right back there again.

This has happened so many times with the short stories in this anthology – their inclusion is justified by their power.  

Houdini - Siri Hustvedt

This is our second encounter with the writer Siri Hustvedt, first coming across her in BASS 1990, with the short story Mr. Morning.

This story comes along in my life during a period of time when I find myself fascinated by the human mind.

I suppose the intense interest recently (within the last couple of years) came about after the death of my father from early onset Alzheimer’s. To zero-in on a specific interest in the human mind, I would have to say that it would be the decline of a once healthy mind.

Through my college years I was interested in developing thought through various philosophies (mostly eastern) and then the transformative power that an individual has over their mind if they make conscious efforts to change behaviors  - I am still fascinated by this as I wrestle with various aspects of self- discipline. 

We take our brain health for granted.  

I don’t think we respect what our mind does for us on a daily basis, what it is capable of, and how we can take advantage of its power. We don’t seem to pay attention to it until something goes wrong – and that’s unfortunate- because sometimes it’s too late.

Is there a way to stack the genetic deck of cards you’ve been dealt (in terms of brain health)?

The main character of this story finds herself hospitalized due to severe migraines.

-Here’s where I start to draw lines again from the work of fiction to events in my life. It’s where I start to feel that the story is more than a story, it’s a long teachable moment, a forced retreat, a meditation.

It was 28 years ago this month, (March 1991) that my father visited me for a weekend up at Norwich. He was in Montreal for a conference, rented a car and drove down to see me. He rented a hotel for us in Burlington and we spent a cold, cloudy weekend together. This was a very special time for me as being a freshman up at Norwich, meant that I was basically confined to campus and to be sprung for the weekend was something very special.

  

I remember Saturday afternoon, we headed out to lunch, we were going to grab a couple of slices of pizza. We were in the pizza shop and he quickly turns to me with his palm pressed against his eye saying that he needed to get back to the hotel room as he was suffering from a pretty intense headache. He darted out of the restaurant, I got the pizza slices and headed back to the room shortly after. I get back to the room and he is on the floor with the lights out. He said that he just finished throwing up and his head was pounding – asked me to leave the lights off.

I don’t remember anything after that.

What I do know now, is that he was 45 years old when this happened. I am now 46. From what I recall, he also mentioned that the migraines that he had started to suffer were something new and were starting to come more frequently. 

There has been studies recently, linking those that have a history of suffering from migraines to the development of cognitive impairment – and I have to wonder, in my father’s case, were these migraines an early signal?

I do know that he didn’t change his lifestyle in response to them. He continued to work insane hours without sleep, he didn’t exercise and his diet had plenty of room for improvement…and his massive consumption of caffeinated diet soft-drinks was maintained.

So what did this story give me? It transported me back in time…I feel that once again, the universe is sending me a not-so-subtle hint.