Experimental Blog # 208

Comments and notes on "Love, or the Bond of Generations" - Stories about the Most Important by 15 authors.

This collection of 17 stories by 15 authors, 13 women and 2 men, ranges in length from about 3 pages to 38 pages. All the stories seem to be very recent; perhaps written in 2015.

In her story "One-eyed Zinka" Masha Traub writes about Zinaida Afanasyeva who, she says, "Simply had lived a very long time in this world and very well knew human nature - weak, cowardly, sinful and vain. Time passed, but people did not change."

The story by Dina Rubina, "Adam and Miriam", is told by a woman in Jerusalem. It is a story that begins with her survival as a young girl in western Russia during World War II. Because of its subject, it is the most difficult story to read in this book.

Larisa Wright's story is about an "Iron Character"; a female doctor who says that one of her patients died on the operating table because of her own fault. The author says to her, "They say that every doctor has their own graveyard." She is referring to such accidents.

Altogether these 17 stories give a very strong impression of Russia today, or at least Moscow, and how they have lived through so much since Stalinist times.