Books, Books, Books
I'm happy to report that the ten sets of Risograph prints are sold out. I'm deeply thankful for all those people who decided to get a set (some even asked for a book as well). This allowed me to donate $860 to CARE's Ukraine Crisis Fund (the extra amount comes from the books). In the larger scheme of things, that's not much. But I've been feeling helpless watching things from afar, seemingly without being able to do anything in person somewhere. Maybe this helps a little.
At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, I had started reading a book about Putin. But it became harder and harder to read. There's only so much insight I can gain into what in effect is a disgusting human creature embedded in a Mafia like system that has a complete disregard for human life. At the same time, I didn't think I could just pick up some novel and get my mind off things (actually, see below). So I started (and then finished) Wendy Lower's The Ravine, which had already been published a little bit more than a year ago. At the time, I had read an excerpt (part of the first chapter), and I had put it on my to-read list.
The book really is centered on the role photographs can play in the context of the Holocaust. Starting out with a single picture that Lower came across (it's too gruesome to reproduce it here, if you want to find it you easily can), the book dives into the author's investigation into its history. The photograph in question was taken at one of the many, many mass shootings of Jewish people in Ukraine during World War 2. Over the course of her investigation, Lower manages to locate
other photographs taken by the same photographer on the same day,
the identity and biography of the photographer,
the names and biographies of the Germans in the picture,
the names and biographies of the Ukrainians in the picture,
and the names and biographies of the victims.
An enormous amount of research brought all of that together. I wouldn't have thought that it would be possible to infer that much from a photograph; parts of reading the book felt like watching an episode of Columbo (without the "just one more question" bit).
It's not an easy read, but I can only recommend the book. It also helps that while despite being an academic Lower manages to write very well (the repetitions and jargon that are so common in books by other academic researchers are absent here).
I do read a lot of books in "e" form. It's not that I like my plastic reader so much. But I don't need to keep most of the books I read. I have very limited space. And I know that I will not re-read the books, at least not on a time scale that would require me to keep the physical book around. So it's just more convenient not to get a physical copy (it also saves on shipping, not to mention the trees). But every once in a while, I do need to hold a physical book.
A little earlier this year, I somehow came across an except from Robert Menasse's Die Hauptstadt. It seemed really intriguing, so I decided to buy a book. As it turned out, the book had been released a little while ago. It wasn't straightforward to find a German language copy, but I managed to do so (the book is available in English translation as The Capital).
I did enjoy reading the book quite a bit. It's a novel about the European Union in Brussels. I started reading it before the Ukraine war, and I became engrossed in the set of main characters that all have some connection to the EU (a number of them work for the EU commission). I haven't been able to pick up the book since the start of the war. But I'm certain I will get back to it very soon.
In many ways, I love these chance discoveries. The book won some German award in 2017 (or so). Since I don't live in Germany, I mostly don't notice such announcements. Here I was, five years later, discovering what actually wasn't a real discovery for someone who'd be able to pay attention to the world of German (language) literature (Menasse is Austrian -- it's easy to forget that German language literature comes from places other than Germany).
With that I'm going to conclude for today. I hope that you can find the time to take care of yourself. The war in Ukraine felt like some unwanted next level on top of what had already been a very stressful time. Obviously, that's nothing compared with what Ukrainians are going through. But worrying yourself sick or spending too much time doom scrolling also isn't going to help anyone. So stay safe and well and...
As always thank you for reading!
-- Jörg 💙💛