Pan Apolek by Isaac Babel is ‘One of Isaac Babel's greatest short stories’, included in the Red Cavalry collection, which is 522nd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – you have more than five thousand reviews of books from there, and films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blogs https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

Pan Apolek by Isaac Babel is ‘One of Isaac Babel's greatest short stories’, included in the Red Cavalry collection, which is 522nd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – you have more than five thousand reviews of books from there, and films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blogs https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

9 out of 10

 

Pan Apolek has reminded me of Andrei Rublev https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/andrei-rublev-written-with-andrey.html the chef d’oeuvre of Andrei Tarkovsky, celebrated once as one of the greatest film makers, but since he is a Russian, I am now officially dismissing him, he is banned from my notes…

 

I am just being facetious – like in that scene from Two and a Half Men, by the way, Charlie Sheen is back from the rehab, with some crazy stories, now on Netflix, in a documentary that I will skip, probably – evidently, there would be no such exaggeration, the Russians, just like everyone else, have their ghouls, one is in charge there now, and indeed, they have had too many of those tyrants, but there is a multitude of the great

Another film is in my mind now, The Agony and The Ecstasy https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-agony-and-ecstasy-by-irving-stone-9.html wherein Michelangelo faces the pope, and we have the theme of religious painting elsewhere, with artists inspired by life

 

In Pan Apolek, and indeed, on plenty of other occasions, there is outrage when the painter uses models from real life, a Jewish girl among them, what a horror for those heathens, to paint saints, and holy figures

Otherwise, I am consumed by the fact that Red Cavalry is mostly about the conflict between the then Soviet Union and Poland, the latter would be divided by the soviets and the Nazis, just as they took so much territory, engulfed whole countries, and we see the consequences even today, our own land was diminished

 

What is tragic is the war in Ukraine – and the others, in Sudan, Gaza, Congo, etc. – and the possibility that this will be extended, by…a war between Poland and Russia, just like in Red Cavalry, and this would mean NATO engaging, my own country, and maybe, maybe the USA, led by an absolute moron, the quintessential fool

Let me hope for a paradigm shift, just like the one described in the Booker Prize Winner Vernon God Little https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/vernon-god-little-by-dbc-pierre.html by DBC Pierre, where the hero, Vernon, is told about this situation: ‘you find a stranger with a finger up your grannie’s behind, what do you think?’

 

‘The bastard, I will kick him…but then you see that the man was trying to save your relative, what now? Oh, you are a hero…this is what paradigm shift is in other words, let us hope that the Orange Woland will change – he does that all the time – and abandon his veneration for Putin and dictators in general and support allies

Russian has sent nineteen drones into Poland, and the reaction of this idiot was ‘here we go, what’s up with that’, bemused, as The Economist put it, instead of expressing solidarity, appropriate indignation…yesterday, he went on with let Europe reject the Russian oil, and then I will impose sanctions…

 

On the face of it, we could say ‘yes, let us do that’, except this catastrophe of a man has been saying he will do things to Putin for so long, it is not a plausible scenario anymore, but I will mention something positive- I have been unable to see any good in this pithecanthropus, until the other day: he makes incredible fiction plausible

A Letter https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/a-letter-is-third-short-story-in.html is another story from Red Cavalry which has a formidable impact: an old man is murdered, and he asks his tormentors (Polish) to kill him outside, so that his daughter would not see this horror, and the monsters refuse even this plea

 

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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