Yermolai and The Miller’s Wife by Ivan Turgenev – This is part of The Sportsman’s Sketches, which is 873rd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – a few hundred of the books there are reviewed on my blog, where this is my best take https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html - 9 out of 10

 

Yermolai and The Miller’s Wife by Ivan Turgenev – This is part of The Sportsman’s Sketches, which is 873^rd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – a few hundred of the books there are reviewed on my blog, where this is my best take https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html

 

9 out of 10

 

 

This was entertaining, especially given that to some extent, I identified with Yermolai – Russian, and thus a sort of enemy as he would be, now that Putin is the most serious danger in our area…we have Orange Jesus too, but the fool is busy with The Gaza Strip Aka The Future Riviera of The Middle East, without…

 

-          The Palestinians

 

‘Picture to yourself a tall gaunt man of forty-five, with a long thin nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, a bristling head of hair, and thick sarcastic lips’ – I like the age here, the head of hair, maybe not the class, he is a peasant, who has a very interesting dog – ‘He was a source of special delight to the cooks, who would all leave their work at once and give him chase with shouts and abuse… He was exceedingly ugly’

My favorite writer, along with Marcel Proust, is Kingsley Amis https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/lucky-jim-by-kingsley-amis-author-of.html and he wrote about a traveler, who went to Russia in the middle ages, and an experience that may be repeated today, I think

 

-          People of all ages, classes and sexes would get very drunk, and fall under the table

 

It seemed this was their sole purpose, or words to that effect, why I put here with sarcasm is because I say they must be doing that today, to accept this tyrant, and furthermore, enjoy his doings, at least if we are to believe in the polls, and talks with the odd Russian who came here, one said to me that Putin is harasho

Yermolai ‘had a wife too. He went to see her once a week. She lived in a wretched, tumble-down little hut, and led a hand-to-mouth existence, never knowing overnight whether she would have food to eat on the morrow; and in every way her lot was a pitiful one’ - he ‘treated his wife with cruel harshness’ and

-          This is why I see myself in him

 

The spouse insists that I am like Yermolai, not that she is familiar with this story, but I mean the type, cruel, selfish, it is part of what Eric Berne https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/games-people-play-by-eric-berne.html explains in his psychology classic Games People Play, especially the IIWFY, the most played one

 

-          If It Weren’t For You

 

Partners accuse each other, sometimes it is just one of the two, of being the reason why they have not become rich, famous, both and whatever failure, unachieved goal, except it was discovered that we pick someone who would keep us from doing what we do not want, feel able to do anyway, some sort of a scape goat

To be clear, I am not really that vicious – come to think of it, this Orange Buffoon who leads the free world, as in he changed the Gulf of Mexico, wants to invade Panama, Greenland, Canda to become a state, and more recently, he wants to do some ethnic cleansing and turn Gaza into The Riviera of The Middle East, may serve some purpose, compared with him –‘grabbing women by their pussy’ – I am an angel

 

Now a little about The Miller’s Wife – the narrator and Yermolai arrive at this miller, and they want to spend the night, only the miller does not want them there, he is afraid they may start a fire, not on purpose, accidentally, eventually, they agree on some outhouse, where the host agrees to have them for the night

Arina Timofyevna is the name of the wife, and she has her own little story, told by this rich man, who wanted a good maid for his wife, and found Arina – however, the spouse of this fellow had a few rules, one of which is that her servants are not allowed to get married, because they would be distracted and their service would suffer

 

It was so heartless, and yet, this chap is talking as if the spouse is a saint – she ‘spoilt her too much; she dressed her well, fed her from our own table, gave her tea to drink, and so on, as you can imagine! So, she waited on my wife like this for ten years’ and do you think they are grateful, see the dedication for what it is?

 

-          No

 

The poor girl falls in love, she will get pregnant, and she is thrown out, even worse, this boyar says ‘he could not blame his footman’, the father of the child, it was a time of absolute sexism, the man was tempted, what could the poor fellow do?

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/first-love-by-ivan-turgenev-10-out-of-10.html

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’