Kathleen’s Comments (group member since Jan 22, 2020)

Kathleen’s comments from the The Obscure Reading Group group.

I didn't get that either, but what a great story. Thanks, Ken!

I just finished the introduction. Wow. Brilliant. I was blown away by much of it, but particularly what Sontag pulled out of Serge's memoirs, about how individuality "contains many possible destinies, and … mingles … with the other human existences and the earth, the creatures, everything. Writing then becomes a quest of poly-personality, a way of living diverse destinies, of penetrating into others, of communicating with them … of escaping from the ordinary limits of the self …”

And sorry, one more, that I find particularly comforting at the moment:
“… the saving indifference, the saving larger view, that is the novelist’s or poet’s--which does not obviate the truth of political understanding, but tells us there is more than politics, more even than history. Bravery … and indifference … and sensuality … and the living creatural world … and pity, pity for all, remain unextinguished.”

Oh, I agree, Craig. Learning the overwhelming and complex ways Stalin carried out the purge was shocking to me. Mirroring that reality made the book feel overwhelming and complex at times too, but definitely powerful.

I'm in the last chapter, and then I hope to read over that Sontag intro.

I just finished this chapter, and noted some of the same things, Ken. Xenia was certainly a breath of fresh air!

The "revolutions devour their children" line rings true, sadly.

And later, when Madame Delaporte says, "To whom would you protest? To this hostile world around us?” ... I have to say this gave me pause, and made me wonder what I would do in a similar situation. It seems so easy to give up, especially when, like Popov, you're distracted by the constant pain of your rheumatism ... (feeling my arthritic joints this morning, so that one hit home!)

Well, I have some thoughts on this first half.

I loved the first chapter, with Kostia and his neighbor Romachkin. 22 people crammed into that building. I kept thinking of the scene in the Dr. Zhivago film where when he returns to his former mansion home which they now share with dozens of other families and his family lives in a tiny corner.

I also loved Rublev, from Chapter 3, the librarian. Being a scholar or thinker of writer must have been distinctly difficult--he tells how at the former writer’s house, now they just scribble what they’re told to write.

And when Rublev meets his friends in the woods, one of them says: “I am afraid, afraid, not so much afraid of dying as of nothing and everything--afraid to see you, afraid to talk to people, afraid to think, afraid to understand …”

I love that you brought up the spontaneous nature of the killing, Jannifer. That spontaneity is such an interesting contrast to the calculations and the endless dossiers.

So maybe, as you say Ken, the going at this in terms of a plot is because that's how they operate. It almost seems like they're just casting a wide net to get rid of as many people as possible. Is it just a game to make them feel important? Or are they all just trying to find a way to be alive when the game is over, and if it means going along with killing a bunch of others, then so be it?

I agree about the names. I always have trouble when there are a bunch of characters, so am in the habit of noting down a line about each when they appear. After a few chapters of this novel, I thought it might be a waste of time, since each chapter introduced a new set. But starting Chapter 6 a few of them have come back, so am glad I did!

I love what you say about the sorrowful tone, Craig, and I felt that too. And definitely a ghastly game.

There's such a sense of paranoia too, right? And the ordinary "citizens" we meet in the first chapter aren't the paranoid ones. It's like the higher up the chain you go, the more paranoid they are. I guess that's to be expected, but still surprised me a little.

Ha! Everything is potentially subversive. Somewhere there is a dossier on the Obscure Reading Group ...

You may want to go back and look at the end of Chapter 5 again with this new knowledge. A fascinating look at the Chief in his office and letting down his guard a bit with an old friend. "I do what must be done. Like a machine."

Well I feel better now. Somewhere along the way, I dug around to verify who the Chief was!

Interesting about Darkness at Noon. I haven't read it, but have another comparison. Gogol's The Overcoat starts with a character in a situation similar to Kostia's in the first chapter. Getting a clear understanding of the sacrifices needed to obtain something (the boots for Kostia, an overcoat for Gogol's character) is a great way to immerse the reader into the time and place.

It looks like you've finished! I stopped at the midpoint, so won't be done by next week. I think we have a couple of fellow-readers, and I hope they come along soon and share their thoughts.

True. But then I think sometimes, because I drive a lot, of how much I have to put my full faith and trust in the other drivers on the road, when I just want to go from A to B, and how much I actually don't and shouldn't really trust them, and still I have to, Have to pretend to anyway. Or maybe I should say I have to suspend my disbelief.

I suppose that's a common reaction when times or situations are in some way dangerous. On some level, we have to go on as if they weren't, or we'd make ourselves crazy. Perhaps that's what Tulayev was doing. Kennedy too, maybe.

Ken wrote: "Were you as surprised as I was at how "minor" this "major" event was treated in the early going? I mean, that's quite the dramatic irony he pulls off here, treating his reading audience to a key secret that the vast majority of other characters will be denied."

I was truly surprised. But a great way to show the absurdity of it all. And I was also surprised that the perpetrator went undetected. He did, didn't he? But as I read I realized that truth really wasn't useful was it? I mean it couldn't have been used, so to speak, so would have been a waste of a crime, in a sense.

Your take that Serge is riffing off this case is the perfect way to put it. We're half way, and it feels like he could have endless scenarios.

And I love how Stalin is just a shadow, a picture on the wall, until that last chapter of course.

Argh--how frustrating. Most of us would prefer, and be in a better position to appreciate the art after reading the story.

Glad I skipped it! It may be easier than usual to forget, because of the number of characters. Here's hoping.

Okay, I just want to say--this is SOOOO good!!

I'm reading the same NYRB edition, but on Internet Archive. It's slower going for me because of reading online, but I'm about 100 pages in. I did skip the Susan Sontag intro--will be curious to hear your thoughts on it, Ken.

The narrative is very dense--full of many characters and happenings. But the writing is so vivid and each individual so compelling. Great stuff.

Fergus, I prefer paper books to reading online, but if you're interested, I found The Case of Comrade Tulayev available on the Internet Archive here:
https://archive.org/details/caseofcom...

You may need to set up an account to "borrow" the book (view it), but it's simple and free. That's where I hope to be reading it.

This is great, because I'd like to read both! Looks like we have enough commitments, so I'll call myself a hopefully for both.

Sounds like those robots should be required toys for all siblings! Didn't have those, but did have all the others you mentioned, and my favorites were the Etch-a-Sketch and Yahtzee. Amazing how much time a kid could spend drawing lines with knobs. And I loved Yahtzee. I was the youngest and rarely won games against my family, except when we played Yahtzee, which didn't require skill--the "game of chance!" :-)

And as I type, I see we have little activity in the polls!

I love the poll picture, Ken. These two books sure seem to be duking it out at the moment--a great match!

Fergus, Quondam Happy Face wrote: "BTW, Kathleen, after Master Humphrey I rather like the sombre tone of Barnaby Rudge. Wow, D. was moodily max flex!"

Good to know, Fergus. And I'm currently reading A Tale of Two Cities, which is also very different from Master H. That Dickens did have quite a range!

Good to see you here, Sandra, but I'm sorry to hear what you're dealing with. Glad you're still reading--it can help so much when going through stressful times. Hope things are better soon!

Ken wrote: "OK, as the nominations are slight, I'll add an author I've been wanting to get to and a book that's rated highly but read infrequently (well, less than 1,500 ratings):

[book:The Case of Comrade Tu..."

This sounds fascinating and timely. And it's available on Internet Archive. :-) I'll withdraw my nomination and second this one.

Cherisa wrote: "Haha I was waiting for a poll and didn't realize we were supposed to post our nomination here.

Okay, I nominate Jose Saramago's Stone Raft. Of course as a modern Nobel Laureate he's not obscure, b..."

I love this idea! I haven't read Saramago, and am in the mood for this sort of thing due to working through Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature with the Short Story group.