"Czarnobyl. To wojna nad wojnami. Człowiek nigdzie się nie ukryje. Ani na ziemi, ani w wodzie, ani w niebie". Gdyby nie katastrofa, która się wydarzyła w tamtejszej elektrowni atomowej, byłoby to jedno z wielu anonimowych miast na Ukrainie. Jednak wydarzenia z 26 kwietnia 1986 roku przyniosły mu niechlubny rozgłos. Przyznaje, że sama nazwa wywołuje we mnie nieprzyjemne uczucia. To, co się wówczas wydarzyło znam z relacji moich rodziców, z programów telewizyjnych i artykułów internetowych. Z tym większym zainteresowaniem sięgnęłam po książkę. Autorka zawarła w niej kilkadziesiąt wypowiedzi osób dotkniętych skutkami tragedii. To zresztą celowy i zrozumiały zabieg. Aby dotrzeć do ludzkich serc i je poruszyć, warto przedstawić dramatyczne wydarzenia oddając głos ich świadkom. Przedstawia historię, która się dokonała i pochłonęła określoną liczbę ofiar. To też zapis ludzkich dramatów oraz krzyk ich niemocy. Dzięki "Czarnobylskiej modlitwie" zostanie po nich trwały ślad, co okaże się istotne zwłaszcza w momencie, kiedy już ich zabraknie. Jest to także swego rodzaju przestroga dla potomnych. Przeżyłam spore zaskoczenie, kiedy zorientowałam się, że z książki wyłania się obraz społeczeństwa poddawanego wieloletniej indotrynacji. Według oficjalnych przekazów radzieckie elektrownie atomowe były na tyle bezpieczne, że mogły nawet stać na Placu Czerwonym! Zresztą pierwsze medialne doniesienia o wybuchu reaktora były równie irracjonalne. Informowano, że sytuacja jest niegroźna, a pożar ugaszono. Komunistyczny aparat władzy wszystko utajniał i głuchy był na apele rozsądnych i inteligentnych ludzi. To niezwykła książka, o życiowej mądrości prostych ludzi, którzy byli mocno związani ze swoją ziemią, że nie chcieli jej opuścić. O bohaterskich strażakach, żołnierzach i górnikach, którzy często przeczuwali, że idą na pewną śmierć, ale wiedzieli, że tak trzeba. Że ich ofiara pozwoli ocalić tysiące istnień. O dzieciach, które nie rozumieją dlaczego są inne od swoich rówieśników. I o systemie totalitarnym, systemie absurdu, pogardy i nieporadności, w którym decyzje podejmuje garstka tępych półgłówków. Książka Aleksijewicz to zapiski pełne emocji, które głęboko zapadają w pamięć. Świetny reportaż! Warty każdej minuty nad nim spędzonej.

La maison aux mille étages

 

D'accord. Je serai ce Pierre Brok, détective, jusqu'au moment où je me souviendrai... Je rechercherai la princesse. Étant sans passé, je trouverai peut-être l'avenir.

- Eh bien, Monsieur Muller, œil pour œil, piège pour piège ! Tu n'es pas venu au rendez-vous au n°99? Il a bien fallu que je vienne jusqu'à toi pour pouvoir enfin te parler.

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10 years later, it won’t be exciting at all to brag about the hours you spent at the office! But it would absolutely be thrilling to talk about the sharks you saw while sailing through the oceans and the heights you first got scared off while you glanced the world from those sky-scraping mountains!

The world is soaring high with magnificent hues for you to get tinted in and unmask the magic of breathtaking rivers, cliffs, valleys, and forests. So give it a break, calm yourself down and sneak out from your bustling life making it standstill for a few days! Let me tell you about some spell-binding destinations that’d be perfect for you this year to set off to! Pick your favorites from the ones jotted below, find peace and reboot!

Istanbul, Turkey

This beautiful mélange of the East and the West will take you past some stupefying mosques, minarets, and palaces along with ferry rides over the Sea of Marmara.

Prague, Czech Republic

One of the most popular destinations it is with a bunch of old towns and castles taking you to the era of kingdoms and thrones!

San Francisco, California

Head towards this fog loaded city to witness the great Golden Gate Bridge, ride in the cable cars and take over some wine tours and tastings.

St. Lucia

This island country lets you relax on the warm sand along the beaches, glare into the clear skies beside waterfalls and dive into the depths of the oceans.

Costa Rica

Take a walk in the forests, see the smoke emitting volcanic mountains and get crazy selfies with the wildlife creatures in the finest parks here.

Santorini, Greece

It’s a stunning blend of the whites and the blues. You’ll be enthralled to wander in the streets amid the spectacularly built houses here.

Rome, Italy

The capital city of Italy has some fascinating masterpieces of architecture, art, and culture together with some captivating ancients and ruins.

Bilbao, Spain

The food lovers should definitely hit it as this city has some of the best restaurants in the entire world besides a rich culture and architecture.

Phuket, Thailand

It has all at one place! Oceans, mountains, rainforests and an amazing culture of Asia will unwind you for sure!

Lisbon, Portugal

Climb up this hilly city to visit its historical museums and pastel color coverings on the houses and buildings.

Budapest, Hungary

Get relaxed at this city of spas and baths and look on how the splendid Buda and Pest meets through the chain bridge here.

Vienna, Austria

Vacay on this largest city of Austria and see the astonishing work done by great artists on historic buildings here.

Chicago, Illinois

Ape up on the monstrous buildings and skyscrapers in Chicago and get to know how it all looks from above.

Bratislava, Slovakia

You get here some real peaceful moments around the old hamlets and fine vineyards with no crowds hovering over.

Petra, Jordan

Petra will make you take a ride on camels, show you forts and the mesmerizing stones of the Middle East.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Visit this bewitching city made of huge stone walls and limestone paved streets to hush your inner chaos. Top Vouchers Code, an online discount provider, has a massive collection of travel portals to feed your needs for an exotic holiday booking.

Valletta, Malta

This sunniest city will make your heart sing along the restored churches, enticing palazzos, and ancient constructions.

Cuba

At this lively spot, you’ll be all yourself while stepping forward in streets surrounded by beautifully painted walls and vintage cars.

 

 

There are two kinds of memoirs. The first is literary memoirs, which you read because the story they tell is interesting or because they’re renowned as good books. You usually don’t know anything about the author beforehand, and don’t need to. The other kind is celebrity memoirs, which you read because you are already interested in the author. Because these books have a built-in audience rather than having to contend for readership with all other books on a literary footing, and because their appeal has more to do with learning facts about a celebrity than getting a great story, their quality often suffers.

This book reads like a celebrity memoir, with the added disadvantage that I’d never heard of Ivan Klima before picking it up. Klima is a Czech writer who has had some interesting life experiences: he and his family were in an internment camp during World War II due to their Jewish heritage, and he went on to become first a Communist party member and later a banned writer under the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, a country he refused to abandon despite petty harassment from the government. But the concentration camp portion only takes up 15 pages of this 534-page book, which turned out to be a dryly-written tome. Klima spends a lot of pages talking about his career: name-dropping writers he edited or was friends with, providing long plot summaries of stories and plays he wrote, and describing trips he took abroad and conferences he attended and who said what in their speeches. This is the part that felt most like a celebrity memoir, because it would be interesting mostly to dedicated fans of Klima who have a Who’s Who of 20th century Czech writers in their heads. If you don't, there's nothing in Klima's descriptions of them to distinguish his friends from one another.

Klima’s other major topic is the political climate at the time, but in a narrow sense: he was intensely interested in those regulations affecting writers and art, as well as the speeches and articles exchanged between the regime and its critics. He quotes portions of proclamations, opinion pieces, and speeches at length, including his own. But it would be hard to put together a picture of the times from this book, and given that he originally wrote it for a Czech audience, I’m not sure that was his intent. When the Velvet Revolution overthrowing Communism happens within the last few pages, he doesn’t name it and it was unclear to me exactly what was happening and why. Try Street Without a Name for a far more vivid picture of life under Communism in Eastern Europe.

Meanwhile, while some of the details of life at the time are interesting, the book contains little in the way of feelings, insight into those around him, and reflections on the author’s personal life beyond the bare facts. He mentions cheating on his wife, without any reflection on what other than the other woman’s attractiveness caused him to do so, and informs the reader that he and his wife then confessed affairs to each other, at which point, “We put aside our infidelities, at least from our conversations” – and that’s all he has to say about the subject. Later there’s another affair, equally opaque to the reader, after which he again confesses and concludes with “But I do not intend to compose a chronicle of my love life and my infidelities. My wish is not to draw my loved ones into my tale; it’s enough that I drew them into real life.” It’s a bare memoir that doesn’t draw in the writer’s loved ones, like it or not. But beyond that, if he doesn’t want to write about the subject, why bring it up at all? So I’m back to the celebrity memoir explanation: he appears to feel a need to include the facts of situations in his life, even without corresponding examination of feelings or relationships. But, not being an Ivan Klima fan, I don’t care about the bare facts. I was looking for a story, and didn’t find it.

Then there are the essays. The book ends with 118 pages comprising 18 pieces on various geopolitical topics. These read like the opinion papers of an undergraduate political science student, speaking in broad generalities and without fresh insight. For instance, he writes an entire essay on the fact that youth are more susceptible to extremism because they are less invested in the existing system and more naïve, idealistic and excitable than older adults. (Genius!) He leans heavily on broad generalities about extremism, attempting to apply his experience with Nazism and Communism to modern-day terrorism at every opportunity. This creates the impression that he believes he needs to offer insight into terrorism to keep his book “relevant” for modern readers. But he’s never encountered terrorism and has no insights that any other commentator couldn’t offer.

Overall, I found this work dry, impersonal, unnecessarily long, and a slog to read, despite its promising subject matter. Somehow, although it’s roughly twice the length of the average American memoir, it is abridged from the two-volume Czech version; I can only assume that Klima’s fans are dedicated, at least in his home country, and be thankful that the English-language publisher chose to abridge it.