A Letter is the third short story in the collection named Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel which you find in the 522nd place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, incidentally, you find more than five thousand reviews of books from this site, together with films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies list and others at this address https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

  A Letter is the third short story in the collection named Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel which you find in the 522nd  place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, incidentally, you find more than five thousand reviews of books from this site, together with films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies list and others at this address https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

9 out of 10

 

I have just learned that Isaac Babel was ‘loyal to, but not uncritical of, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’ and that just makes me reject him…no, wait, he was also a victim of the regime, he had an affair with the wife of the head of the NKVD apparently, ergo he ended up arrested and then shot, a great loss for literature, we read

 

The Case of Comrade Tulayev https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-case-of-comrade-tulayev-by-victor.html comes to mind, and for that matter, plenty of other books and situations, wherein the communists abused, killed their victims, by firing squad and other direct means, only there was also famine

One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/one-day-in-life-of-ivan-denisovich-by.html describes the gruesome life in the Soviet Union, nevertheless, this is an exceptional case

 

In here we have somebody who had an epiphany, there are a few examples: Rosa Luxembourg, Robinson Crusoe, the former writes from jail about spring, how wonderful life is, words to that effect, or at least the effect I seem to remember – or just make up now, I am not sure – in spite of the most adverse circumstances

Another such extraordinary situation is revealed in Somerset Maugham’s – for decades my favorite author, along with Marcel Proust – An Official Position https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/an-official-position-by-somerset.html Louis Ramire is the main personage, one who is almost ecstatic against all odds

 

The first short – indeed, with just three pages or so, it seems a flash – story has this tale of horror, Red Cavalry is about battles between the Russians and the Poles, with other ethnicities caught in the middle, or attached to one side or the other – there is terror, cruelty, death, destitution, human beings humiliated

In this house, we have a few Jewish people, and the narrator talks about human excrement and an incredible misery, we may feel that the women there – it was their responsibility back then, in more primitive times, more than one hundred years ago, though MAGA is there in my view – are absent, but they are not

 

Death is in the room – this man had been killed, his face cut through, or spilt in half – again, my memory just gives me the feedback that it was horrendous, not the exact words – and one woman tells the narrator what had happened:

Her father had asked the Poles (so we get that both sides commit atrocities in wars, or back then, I feel that now Putin and his hordes are the Evil, whenever I hear something else, I feel furious and just leave, even when ‘Jesus’ is talking, maybe I will get back to this in the next lines) to kill him outside, not in the house

 

That was to protect his daughter, not to have her see these monstrosities, but the Poles did what they wanted, and she concludes that ‘her father is unique in the world, who thought about that in the last moment’ again, this is worse than an approximation, but still, the incredible feeling was there…just a few words about The Letter

This one is about a Letter written by this Russian fighting the (‘damn’ he writes) Poles, asking his mother to send food, he sleeps without any, in cold, and he writes about other terrible acts, killings, his father murdering his own son…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.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 benefits 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…’

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