Reviews for Love Letters Of Famous Men And Women

The average rating for Love Letters Of Famous Men And Women based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-01-02 00:00:00 Douglas Arbuckle Isaac Babel was one of those great talents, who, although dedicated Communist authors and patriotic Russians, could not find a way to write or even live under the Soviets. This volume is a companion to his great stories of the Odessa underworld and of the Cossacks--realistic enough to earn the great enmity of the general with whose troops he served. There are three sections in this volume, edited by his daughter Natalie. The first is composed of some unpublished stories, the second of a large sequence of letters over 15 years, the third of some speeches and writings by Babel and some others, including Gorky. The stories were not impressive to me, although I much admire Babel, with the exception of the about the venerable Odessa gangster, Froim Grach. The letters are extensive, mostly to Babel's wife and mother (and growing daughter) in exile in France and Belgium. There are some interesting notes on travel, including a sojourn in Italy with Gorky. But despite the frequent playful tone, occasional tart comment, and consistent invention, the concerns are mostly domestic. They give no hint of turmoil, either political or personal. Certainly, it is understandable that Babel, who clearly knew his letters were being read (there are moments when his daughter notes his code for money sent abroad), would not make political commentary to family members who clearly were refusing to return home. Nor, given that he was writing to and about his wife and daughter, would he write of his affairs at home. (Interestingly, his daughter denies the existence of an affair with the sister of one murderous chief of the secret service, Genrikh Yagoda'perhaps because it was mentioned by an American scholar who she found generally inaccurate'while leaving unmentioned the oft-quoted theory that Babel's arrest and execution resulted from his liaison with the wife of another, Nikolai Yezhov). There is, however, much about the weather, about traveling to Moscow and back to the Ukraine, relatives, deadlines, and so on. In addition to Gorky, Sergei Eisenstein and a number of lesser known writers have cameos. As the letters move through the thirties, there is no hint of the state terror intensifying under Yagoda and Yezhov. Toward the end of the decade, they grow infrequent, and sound a bit darker, although that sensation may be due to my presentiment of the looming end. An appendix includes some reference materials'General Budyonny's attack on Babel's Cossack war stories and Gorky's response, as well as some other material. Some of that shows Babel's wit, but Gorky's defense of him is the real payoff, as the old tiger showed he still had fangs: "Our writers live in a moment of transition under the complex conditions of a country in which there are at least 20,000,000 individual owners and only 2,000,000 Marxists, of whom almost half mouth Marxist precepts about as intelligently as parrots repeat human sounds." But the last word belongs to Babel's story of the aged Odessan gangster, Froim Grach, murdered by Chekists. The story ends with this: "Then Borovoi livened up and began to tell the Chekists from Moscow about the life of Froim Grach, about his cunning and elusiveness, and about his contempt for his fellow men'all those extraordinary stories that are now a thing of the past."

Review # 2 was written on 2009-10-07 00:00:00 Brian Chud Gives a glimpse into the Russian mindset. Extremely collectivist way of thinking. And the poor fella is Babel. What did he think would happen when he was imprisoned there