The Death of Dolgushov by Isaac Babel, you also find him as Isaak Babel, he was called "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry"- The Death of Dolgushov is included in the collection of short stories called Red Cavalry, listed at number 522 on The Greatest Books of All Time site…you find more than five thousand reviews of chefs d’oeuvre from there and other lists, along with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list and others on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

The Death of Dolgushov by Isaac Babel, you also find him as Isaak Babel, he was called "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry"- The Death of Dolgushov is included in the collection of short stories called Red Cavalry, listed at number 522 on The Greatest Books of All Time site…you find more than five thousand reviews of chefs d’oeuvre from there and other lists, along with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list and others on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

9 out of 10

 

On the one hand, Red Cavalry https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/gedali-by-isaac-babel-whoa-was-called.html is exactly what we should read right now, to learn about Russians fighting, in the stories it is the Poles, now it would be all of NATO, except perhaps Orange Woland, Orban, and to see what war looks like

 

But you could also argue that since we have the shadow of war again upon us, why read about this horrifying subject, God forbid, we may be about to witness the catastrophe in real life, so we need comedy, light themes, or serious ones, stoic ideas on how to be ‘wishing for what we have and build resilience

Perhaps I should read again a masterpiece by Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis, such as his favorite Take A Girl Like You https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/take-girl-like-you-by-kingsley-amis-one.html because then I will combine erudite, mesmerizing story telling with exquisite, fantastic humor, needed under the circumstances

 

The Death of Dolgushov is as grim as you get, in that this man who gives the name of the short story says “I’m finished… know what I mean?” and then “You’ll have to waste a bullet on me…He was sitting propped up against a tree. He lay with his legs splayed far apart, his boots pointing in opposite directions. Without lowering his eyes from me, he carefully lifted his shirt. His stomach was torn open, his intestines spilling to his knees, and we could see his heart beating.” As if it were possible things could get worse:

“When the Poles turn up, they’ll have fun kicking me around. Here’s my papers. Write my mother where, what, why.”

 

The narrator does not ‘respect’ the last wish of this dying man, in my mind, most likely because he could not kill somebody he knew, a comrade, maybe a friend, but there is a possibility that he was just bad

Transitioning to the other side, there would be some elements that we need when we face this violence in fiction, and maybe in real life and we find them in Positivity https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/positivity-by-barbara-fredrickson-life.html a psychology classic

 

The phenomenal author, Barbara Fredrickson, has identified ten elements of positivity: awe, interest, amusement, inspiration, serenity, hope, pride, joy, gratitude and especially love, difficult to put them all together…

Besides, there is the ratio that has been discovered, you need three positive experiences to every negative one ‘In simpler terms, for every one negative emotion we experience, we ideally need to experience at least 2.9013 positive emotions (or simply 3) in order to avoid feeling negative, unhappy, and languishing’ see to that

 

Positive psychology https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/positive-psychology-by-kate-hefferson.html can help, and I am grateful that I have found some magnum opera on the subject, or else, what with this Russia situation, sending drones, war planes to Poland, my country, Romania, Estonia, and the other day Denmark, it would be tough

 

To add insult to injury, my business partner, who has 69% to my 14%, while three others have the remaining 17%, told me that the firm has had a loss for this year, which will end soon, so what are we going to do?

 

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…’