Gedali by Isaac Babel whoa was called "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry"- Gedali is part of the Red Cavalry collection of short stories, ranked 522nd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – incidentally, you find more than five thousand reviews on magnum opera from this GOAT site and others, together with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel blogs https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

Gedali by Isaac Babel whoa was called "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry"- Gedali is part of the Red Cavalry collection of short stories, ranked 522nd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – incidentally, you find more than five thousand reviews on magnum opera from this GOAT site and others, together with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel blogs https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

9 out of 10

 

Gedali may be the fifth of the stories from the Red Cavalry collection – this is something we can check, but ‘forget about it’, to use the words of Donnie Brasco https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/04/donnie-brasco-written-by-paul-attanasio.html a wonderful motion picture

 

"The greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry" may not be so well known, indeed, everyone knows about Leo Tolstoy- well, I was going to put in Dostoevsky and others, but then I realized that I have read in The Economist about the best-known books, and while the lousy Da Vinci Code is there, at the top, Jane Eyre and Nineteen Eighty-Four are down

Nineteen Eighty Four https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/12/nineteen-eighty-four-by-george-orwell.html is sixth on The Greatest Books of All Time for now, but in terms of what people know of and read (which they do less and less, and paper concluded that this is why leaders are getting worse, and the rest)

 

“One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.” This is what Schopenhauer said and the result is the Da Vinci Code sells tens of millions

Red Cavalry https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/stories-by-isaac-babel-his-red-cavalry.html the stories in it depict the horror of war, I still remember this scene in which an old man pleads that he is killed outside, because the monsters -Poles in this case – are ready to murder him in front of his daughter…

 

-          And they still dispatch him where they wanted

 

Gedali says, “The revolution — we shall say yes to her but are we to say no to Sabbath? Yes, I shout to her, but she hides from Gedali and sends forth only fusillades. “The sun does not enter eyes that are shut,” I answer the old man. “We shall rip open the eyes that are shut,” the narrator responds. “The Pole has shut my eyes,” the old man whispers. “The Pole, the malicious dog. He takes the Jew and tears his beard out. And behold, they [the revolution] beat him, the malicious dog. But then the one who beats the Pole takes my gramophone… Then the revolution says, ‘I am going to shoot at you. I cannot help shooting, because I am the revolution.’”

This is a passage from this short story, and I have been reminded of our own revolution, that is the change of regime that took place in 1989, when Ceausescu tried to escape in a helicopter, he was caught, then he had a short kangaroo trial and shot dead on Christmas of that momentous year for us and Europe

 

I took part in this convulsion, and the link is in my standard ending down here, I am proud of this, but also remorseful, because I was a bit stupid, too proud to accept the benefits associated with being a participant in the ‘revolution’ (many say it was a coup d’etat, conspiracy, which is such a calamity now, you have these conspiracy theories about anything) because all the ghouls and the hooligans took them – including some real heroes

Now that the company has had a loss for this year, which is ending soon, what will I do in the future, now that I write this, there is an idea, if the worst comes to happen, then I will have to try and get my paper and official indulgences, 36 years later

There are human beings in a much worse position, those in Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, North Korea and alas, so many other places – even here, as I write this, I live in a gated community of fat cats, but across the fence, there are some folks that live 5 to a room or thereabouts, albeit, they should not have so many children, as in what, six, seven per couple?

 

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…’