Celebrating Name Days

                                                        

Most countries celebrate birthdays but there are some that celebrate name days. Looking up at the Wikipedia one could say that there are many that celebrate name days. But my experience does not confirm that. So, for those who have not heard about name days here it goes:

A name day is a tradition in some countries in Europe, Latin America, and Catholic and Eastern Orthodox countries in general. It consists of celebrating a day of the year that is associated with one's given name. The celebration is similar to a birthday.

The custom originated with the Christian calendar of saints: believers named after a saint would celebrate that saint's feast day, or in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the day of a saint's death. Name days have greater resonance in the Catholic and Orthodox parts of Europe; Protestant churches practice less veneration of saints. In many countries, however, name-day celebrations no longer have connection to explicitly Christian traditions.

My name is Anna and my name day falls in 26^th of July. At least that is how it is in Poland where my roots are. It has been only some days ago that it was my name day. Of course, nobody here in Sydney made any fuss of me on the account of this day, except for some Polish friends. Thank you all of you who still remember the Polish ways and me. However, I received unexpected greetings coming from the Polish friends and one very special Skype call from Poland. The call was from my best girlfriend, I have written in my previous post about, and her grandchildren. The cute four-and-a-half-year-old dressed in a party dress sang the birthday song with the help of the whole family. Her one-year old brother seemed also very happy looking with admiration at his older sister making funny noises. This was indeed special to me. Thank you, little ones and the grownups!

The next day I received a parcel from the same friends with my name day present. It should not surprise anyone that it was a book. This time the book in Polish and by Polish authors Jacek Dehnel and Piotr Tarczynski who publish their crime stories under the name of Maryla Szymiczkowa. I know, this is a very Polish unpronounceable name. The finesse and humor of the story is difficult to explain in English, so I will not try, at least not this time. It is a great present, and the parcel fillers were also gratefully received, especially some soup ingredients to improve my cooking.

The authors of my new book

                                                              

The authors of my present are a couple and I believe that their crime stories, which are very funny, give the authors as much joy and laughs as those of us who read the books. I have known writing of Jacek Dehnel since the beginningof his career as a writer. He published his first book Lala when he was only 26. It was at the time when I went to live in Poland. I visited book shops frequently and Lala caught my attention by its cover, picture of the author and the write up about Jacek Dehnel. Stories about him and interviews were very much up in your face. He is gay and he seemed to be provocatively teasing the Catholic Poland treating his preferences as natural. Naturally they are natural, but he was rather outspoken about it. I love his dress sense and this was also provocative as well as most likely pleasing his aesthetic tastes. I could not find his photos of the time but he went for walks in a black cape with red satin lining, walking stick with silver head and a top hat.  His taste has mellowed with years but he is still an elegant dresser not following any current trends but his own pleasure. Actually, I concentrated on things that are not important but fun nevertheless. It was easy to lose my way as there is so much about this Renaissance man. He is a writer, poet, photographer and there is more to him than that. But he was not to be the subject of my story.

       

It was supposed to be about name days so I finish with a nice image of such days in a Swedish style and maybe write some more about Jacek Dehnel works some other time.

                                    

Girlfriends

My last two posts were the least popular of all my posts. I wonder if the reasons are the subjects or my dilettante Shakespearean reviews. In fact, this is not that important even if, as most of the bloggers, I write with hope for a feedback. I also write for myself especially in those days. I have a number of things to sort out and as my life situation has changed. I am reviewing my values so they are relevant to the current times. I always wanted to live well and I always wanted my life to be meaningful. Even more so now. Hence heavier subjects of my posts and at times confusion in writing that comes with the search for meaning and the lost time.

I also need some escape from obsessive thinking of things that I have to face. The books that re-tell Shakespeare are a good source of material helping me with it. Recently I came across a new great escape tool so I will give Shakespeare a short rest. The new tool is even more fun, less demanding intellectually and gives me food for thought. Perfect!  It does not have to be Shakespeare to make me think of life and its values. The old Polish serial Girlfriends can be also very valuable! It is not that old really, but old enough for the system to let me view it even if I am in a geographical zone that does not have privileges to watch all that one can watch in Poland. The story is set in this century and the girls are 35 when the serial starts. They are older than I was when I left Poland and my Polish girlfriends. Still a lot of the serial story reminds me of the old times, old problems and old friendships.

                                          

There is a saying that I come across.

Friends can cross our path

v  For a reason

v  For a season or

v  Stay for life.

The girlfriends from the serial are friends for life. Such friends are most difficult to find. And keep.

I was lucky and unlucky with respect to my friends for life. At school there were four of us. We walked together home from school, leaving the company one by one to go home as we went along. My home was the second last and it gave me an opportunity to be the part of all sharing between us. The friendships lasted beyond the school times. We all went to big towns to study. I went to Warsaw and two others as well but we did not see each other much except for school holidays when we went back home. But we kept in touch for some time. The girl who I felt the closest to, Ala, became a dentist, married and had two girls, twins. She died suddenly when she was 27. The other one disappeared from the scene in a strange way. I tried to contact her several times but never managed. There were gossips that she had some mental problems. Maybe some kind of an asylum was the place she landed up at and the family did not want anyone to know? The fourth one of us, I hope, is well and happy, but we did not have much in common to start with so the friendship fizzled out naturally. So, I do not have any friends from the school times.

Then there was my Uni and Warsaw time. I met Basia the first day at Uni.  I did not know anyone there and was rather shy those days. I had no idea how to behave and what to do with myself. Then I saw a girl in a neat gray suit. She was pretty and looked friendly. We looked at each other, smiled at each other and became fast friends from the first sight. Then the next girl, Wanda, game along and we were three. It really was the kernel of my friendship group and it looked that it will be one of this friendships for life. In a way it has been, even if perhaps it could not have last in the form my idealistic, perhaps silly soul needed. The matter of memories is something I still struggle with but I like to think that sometimes memories may represent the current reality as well as the past. Isosteric concept, I know, but I like it. Maybe I need it? So many people have left my life one way or another and I miss them. Memories are the best I can have. Wow, this is getting much too heavy, but the matter of friendship, its demands and needs has been a lot on my mind lately. The serial has something do with it. But not only.

The three of us, even if we all got our masters of mathematics diplomas, organized our lives very differently. I was searching for love and meaning and that meant frequent changes, disappointments, exciting career and many moments of happiness followed by the opposite.   I am now settled to life of an independent, single woman after three happy (at least for some time) marriages. My girlfriends are still happy, or not, with the husbands they chose in the young years. In a way I envy them or rather I am happy that they have supporting companions of many years in their lives. We made different choices. But this is a subject for another reminiscing writing.

I am very grateful for experiencing those long friendships that were based on trust, mutual affection and loads of good memories. One of those old friends is still my life line and I feel very privileged and lucky that she is in my life. Watching the serial, I have realized that at times old girlfriends play a role of mothers in their unselfish way to assists in challenges that come across. I still have one such friend and that makes me feel lucky.

It is all about questions

                                    

Reading the books from the Hogarth Project of re-telling Shakespeare I was wondering what makes the books successful as the new versions of Shakespearian plays and stories that they tell us. I had some ideas, maybe not that bad but suddenly it hit me what it actually is that is most important to me. In many forms of art and in-depth conversations with likeminded people I consider the biggest value for myself to discover questions to which I feel compelled to find new answers, my answers. Writing seems to be the most obvious and natural form of art to ask questions in the process of telling a story. Not necessarily give readers answers but pose questions that readers consider relevant to their own lives. Maybe they can get some ideas while reading what the answer for their own lives could be, maybe not. Maybe in pondering on our personal answers we do searching that is important to us as individuals. Maybe we experience epiphanies, maybe not but this type of thinking usually makes us understand ourselves or others a little better. Sometimes I joke that thinking hurts and at times it is not that funny. Discovering some truths may be painful.

Looking from the perspective of questions the recently read books made me think about, I came to a conclusion that Macbeth did not ignite in me any interesting questions I needed to find answers to. This may not be the fault of the book, it may be just that I have not found anything particularly interesting or applicable to myself at this point of time.

Shylock Is My Name prompted me to think about intolerance leading to unjustifiable hatred. The two major questions, I still do not have answers to, are: Why do I respond so emotionally to injustice done to Jews over the ages? Why Jews cause hatred the way other nations/people do not? Is it their “fault” so to speak? They are the questions I will be coming back to for a while.

                                              

I just finished the fourth Shakespearean book – The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson and the question of the book (at least for me) is about the past. Faulkner said: The past isn’t dead. It's not even past. My question is how is it about past? Why do I dwell at times on things that are past and I am concern with people who are not in my life for quite some time or are not even with us? Maybe just because of that they are not past to me?

New Boy - Otello

I have been reading the Shakespeare re-telling books one after one, without any other books in between. They are all interesting and written in a different style and set in  different times. As I start a new book I am curious how this particular author will treat his famous master and follow with the own story. This is like musical variations, the stories come up from time to time to a point to remind the reader of the original and then follow its own rhythm changing the melodies depending on imagination of the new person that now tells the story.

                                                         

I realized that if I am to write about what I have read I should do it before the next book takes over my thinking. When I was writing about Macbeth I was already reading New Boy, retelling of Otello, and I was too involved in the new book so Macbeth was already a pale past to me. Now, I am in a similar situation. New Boy impressions have faded a bit as I am half way through The Gap of Time – The Winter’s Tale. So, I will need to make an effort to recall my earlier impressions.

I liked New Boy and think that the subjects related to being different and because of that ostracized are very much of interests today. The new Otello story is set, again in the 70ties, similarly to Macbeth. It takes place in a school in one of the affluent Washington D.C. suburbs where a black boy, a son of a diplomate from Ghana joins the school. He is the first black student in the school causing consternation among children and even more so amongst teachers. He is different and this is why he needs to be suspected of unexpected and treated as worth less and knowing less than other children. He is our 11-year-old Otello. A clever boy who already has experience in being a new boy as his father’s post change quite often. He is coping quite well especially that Dee, our young Desdemona, likes him for being different and by that interesting to her. She represents another possible reaction to those who are different. And then the school bully, Ian-Iago, comes into action and his intrigue that takes over the mind of Oise.

The story of the original Otello takes only few days and the story in New Boy follows the pattern taking a very short span of time, one school day only. When the mind of Oise is poisoned with jealousy and unreasonable ideas and pictures come to his mind one starts to wonder how it is possible that he in spite of earlier evidence of Dee being a “nice girl” can turn against her in such a crude and rude manner. Is this realistic? Exaggerated? Untrue psychologically? It seems so and yet I was able to observe another unreasonable Otello who maintained that a child was not his in spite of all evidence and looks to the contrary. There was no killing in this story but there was violence, a lot of pain and the relationship was ruined for the rest of its formal duration. Since I saw such a story happening in a “normal” life, I accept the New Boy story as totally plausible and by that its re-telling of value in helping to understand human nature, imperfect and bizarre as it sometimes is.

The drama of the new Otello is gripping even if the reader most likely knows it and there are no surprises even if I caught myself on hoping for a sort of a happy end.

This is my second book by Tracey Chevalier. I have read Girl with a Pearl Earring and it made an impression on me when I read it. Vermeer is one of my favourite painters, it has been since the first time I saw The Milkmaid in the Rijksmuseum.  Seeing another of my favourite paintings on a cover of a book, I bought the book and liked it a lot. I still remember the scene of piercing the Vermeer’s model’s ear and the pain she took without flinching. The scenes in the fish market of Delft also made a lasting impression on me. I almost could smell the fishy smells and feel dampness of the fish market air on my face. Gee, I am getting poetic here, but they were my authentic and lasting impressions for which I salute the author.  

I would rate New Boy highly, 8 out of 10, for its relevance to the current times, well told story, interesting setting and possibly opening the subject of prejudice and its consequences to young generations.

Commissioner Macbeth

Birnam Wood takes a  form  of Bertha Locomotive in this version of Macbeth

Re-telling Shakespeare has to be controversial. My impression after reading the new version of the Merchant of Venice was very positive.  Maybe because the book only loosely followed the original story that served as canvas on which Jacobson explored the subjects related to being Jewish. It is a highly intellectual book and by that seems appropriate in its seriousness to be linked with Shakespeare. The story of Macbeth re-told by Jo Nesbo is different. This was my first book by this particular author that I have read and most likely will be the last. Not my type of a book even if I read it with interest and give the author credit for the style and the way he tells the story keeping the reader’s attention.

One point of retelling Shakespeare is to prove its value and application in the current times and in varied genres of novels. I would say that Shakespeare lands itself beautifully to be told in the form of a modern crime story. There are enough of murders in so many of them to satisfy a Scandinavian crime writer.

Macbeth in the Nesbo’s story is a police commissioner who gets corrupted under influence of his Lady and his own thirst for power. Quite like in the original. The circles of power are set appropriately to the current times. Politicians, police and the drug world cooperate, fight, scheme and generally form the town power center that rules the life of the town and its people. Populism of the current politicians so prevalent in real life is clearly visible in the book. Most of the crimes are committed to create a happy environment for the citizens of the not-named town. Everything is done for the higher good. In this sense the book is written, as so many Scandinavian crime stories, with social conscience and preaching a little. Not very convincingly this time.

Macbeth is a likable figure almost through the whole book. He commands the murders but tries to keep away from making his own hands dirty as far as he can. Duff – Macduff tells us that Macbeth cannot kill a defenseless man. Even if there were some exceptions to this rule this was only to protect others, like Duff himself. His weakness for and dependence on Lady makes his character somehow soft and maybe because of that likable. Top dog with underdog characteristics. Strange, but this is how it worked for me. Lady is the owner of the most exclusive casino in the town, clever, scheming, manipulating and beautiful. Like in the original. The whole book is sequentially faithful re-telling of the Shakespeare Macbeth. One could ask what is the reason for the exercise of re-telling? One possibility is that this is a way to familiarize people with the story and dynamics behind it, so they get the idea of the classic without reading it. In my case I have found out the opposite. After reading the book I know how Nesbo writes and I know that I do not have a desire to continue reading his books. I have no better perspective of the classic masterpiece. I wonder how I will react to the remaining Shakespearean books, but I somehow lost the initial enthusiasm and do not expect fireworks.

Back to Macbeth – My view is that it is a well written crime story respecting the sequence of events and I generally liked it.  I have reservations concerning psychological viability of many character changes. This is mostly sloppily done, but maybe this kind of a book does not need to be psychologically pedantic? I would disagree, though. The changes of Lady who at some point loses her way and leaves Macbeth on his own do not ring psychological truth to me. After Lady is mentally out of the game Macbeth’s political acumen and insight are not enough to lead the intrigue into a successful completion. Her mental abilities are temporarily revived to push the action a bit further until such a time when a splendid catastrophe can complete the story.

My next book is re-telling Otello - New Boy by Tracey Chevalier. I like the begging already.

Sydney Film Festival - Polish films

There have been two Polish films shown in this year's film festival - Cold War and Mug. Both awarded. Cold War in Cannes and Mug in Berlin.

                                                                     

I have read and heard a lot about the film Cold War. So much and so positive that I expected a film that is really spellbinding and very moving. Has it been for me like that or am I a little disappointed? Strangely enough I experience both of the reactions. If one expects perfection in anything, disappointment is a consequence of such high expectations. I knew that the film is going to be black and white but I did not expect a small screen, so my first reaction was a surprise that the screen felt so restricting. I was looking at the first scenes from a perspective of a foreigner. Will an Australian understand the meaning of the film. After all, Polish specifics are difficult to comprehend especially by an Australian. I would say that an average Australian will shrug their shoulders and move to more familiar and practical subjects than neurotic feelings of some foreigners. I do not think that the film can gain popularity outside Europe. Too dark in a tender way, too sensitive, the story insufficiently explained and really told by omissions. You have to be tuned in to dark moods of a foreign kind.

I do not think I have enticed anyone to see the film if and when it hits Australian movie theaters, but this is a film one should see at her/his own risk of emotional damage.

One of the scenes I like.

The film is told in an elliptical way starting from 1949 to finish about ten years later. My times of understanding events around me came much later than that, or maybe I was too naïve to understand it at all when I lived in Poland. Still, I understood some on the scenes in the way a non-Pole would have great problems to understand. Some nuances of the film are not accessible to foreigners, in my opinion. Maybe this is just as well as it is so depressing. Thinking about it I feel sorry for the nation. We turned out not that bad considering the times of the war and the years after. I wonder what was more damaging to the soul of the nation, the Nazis’ killing of Poles with a special focus on Polish inteligencia or the Soviet friends reversing the social structure and lifting the uneducated to the top?

The film is a romance without a happy end, there is no happiness as a part of love at all. Maybe glimpses, fleeting moments of elation. It kept my attention completely and the movie theatre was unusually quiet during the film. There is no melodrama in the film, the people meet their destiny and events of their lives resigning to the bleak realities and need to survive politically, economically and emotionally. Until they cannot continue…

It is a good film and from me 10 out of 10.

                                                                   

During the Film Festival of Sydney, I have seen another Polish film – Mug. It has been awarded in the Berlin Film Festival. We, Poles, look for confirmation of our self-worth in signs of international acceptance. Such a small weakness. The film got an international recognition so I should be proud, but watching it I cringed and protested internally against Poland and Poles shown in the film. Bigotry, narrowmindedness, cruelty, drunkenness and acceptance of drunks, rudeness, bad language (I heard bad language in life, but Polish offenses and swearing are of particular quality and power)…It all made me feel ashamed. It was an unpleasant film to watch. It is a comedy and when the audience laughed. I made me think Gogol’s thought “What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself.” Only that this mainly applied to my compatriots and myself. Why wallow in such self-depreciation? To notice and change? Only that those who notice the problems are not typically the ones who need so much to change.

An unpleasant film to watch, at least for a Pole.  4 out of 10.