Ilse’s Reviews > Onrustige jeugd: prelude op de Russische revolutie > Status Update
Ilse
is on page 205 of 303
Once when I had nothing else to do I began to look at a crumpled old newspaper in which cheese had been wrapped. In the list of those who had fallen at the front there was printed: “Killed on the Galician front, Lieutenant of Engineers Boris Georgievich Paustovsky” and a little lower: “Killed in fighting near Riga, Ensign Vadim Georgievich Paustovsky.”
These were my two brothers. They had fallen on the same day.
— Jun 07, 2024 07:24AM
These were my two brothers. They had fallen on the same day.
16 likes · Like flag
Ilse’s Previous Updates
Ilse
is on page 200 of 303
I read a lot in the hospital. Everyone was interested then in Scandinavian writers — Ibsen, Strindberg, Hamsun, Bang. I read a lot of Ibsen, that great manual laborer of the human soul. Then I ran across Muratov’s Images of Italy and I grew giddy with the bitter air of Italian museums and cathedrals. I started to read Andreyev’s The Life of a Man , but I put this book aside for the simple, clean Steppe of Chekhov.
— Jun 04, 2024 05:40AM
Ilse
is on page 127 of 303
Gronsky took a small volume out of the pocket of his field jacket, tossed it in the air, and said with genuine pathos in his voice :“Eugene Onegin ! I cannot part with this. Never! Let the world fall to pieces, but these words will go on living in their own immortal glory.”
— Jun 03, 2024 01:53AM
Ilse
is on page 60 of 303
We argued most of all about Germany, and about the incredible stupidity and insolence of the Prussian army. The twirled-up ends of Wilhelm II’s mustache — the dream of all drill masters and pimps — were the symbol of Germany at that time. It had no relation with the fact that Schiller and Heine, Richard Wagner and the wonderful young writer Heinrich Mann, lived in the same country.
— May 31, 2024 05:39AM
Ilse
is on page 35 of 303
How could I have explained to them that my awareness of nature was something larger than just surprise at its perfection, that my feeling was not just a vague love for nature but a recognition of it as something indispensable to any man wanting to work in the full measure of his strength? People usually go to nature as to a vacation. But I felt that a life in nature should be the constant vocation of every man.
— May 29, 2024 06:41AM
Ilse
is on page 16 of 303
I read Verhaeren, Maeterlinck, and Rodenbach, trying to find in these Belgian books an explanation of the bravery of their country. But I could not find it in the complicated poems of Verhaeren, describing the old world as a great evil, nor in the lifeless novels of Rodenbach, as brittle as flowers under the ice, nor in Maeterlinck’s plays, which seemed to me as if they had been written in his sleep.
— May 28, 2024 05:37AM
Ilse
is on page 15 of 303
This was the summer when everyone was admiring Belgium — the little country which had taken the first blow of the German army. People sang songs everywhere about the defenders of besieged Liege. Belgium was smashed to smithereens in two or three days. The halo of martyrdom hung over the country.
— May 28, 2024 12:37AM
Ilse
is on page 10 of 303
I did nothing but read until I was exhausted. At first Grandmother was cross at me but then she grew used to it and left me in peace. She only commented that I was spending my time senselessly and that it would all end in galloping consumption. But what could Grandmother do with my new friends? What could she object to in Pushkin or Heine, Fet or Leconte de Lisle, Dickens or Lermontov?
— May 27, 2024 03:31AM
Ilse
is starting
The gardens of Kiev would be burning in gold outside the windows of the auditorium. Autumn in Kiev was always a protracted season. The southern summer stored up in the city parks and gardens so much sunshine, so much green, so much of the smell of flowers, that it was always sorry to abandon such wealth and make way for autumn. So almost every year, summer threw the calendar into confusion and delayed its departure.
— May 26, 2024 11:47PM
Comments Showing 1-2 of 2 (2 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
WillemC
(new)
-
rated it 5 stars
Jun 07, 2024 09:21AM
Die memoires zijn goed hé! Ik zit halverwege, eerste drie delen gelezen.
reply
|
flag
Willemclaeys wrote: "Die memoires zijn goed hé! Ik zit halverwege, eerste drie delen gelezen."Absoluut, Willem! Dit is zo schitterend geschreven, het maakt helemaal de hoge verwachtingen die ik van deze memoires had waar :). Het derde deel ligt al klaar! Hoe hij zijn ontmoetingen met de meest uiteenlopende mensen verhaalt, vaak zo zachtmoedig ondanks de oorlog en ontberingen. Zijn natuurbeschrijvingen zijn ook prachtig en doen me soms aan Turgenev denken (ook al wordt hij tot nu toe, anders dan veel andere schrijvers die hij las, niet genoemd).
