The Soul’s Secret

For a moment this sense of [Sofya Levinton’s]  past blotted out everything present, blotted out the abyss. It was the very strangest of feelings, something you could never share with any other person—not even your…

Tolstoy/Grossman

[Russian] writers have  decried Russia’s slavery and violent past.—Alexandra Popoff, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century Reading [Leo] Tolstoy strengthened [Vasily] Grossman’s ambition to become a writer. Tolstoy’s interest in the human soul, his quest…

Senseless Kindness

Yes, as well as this terrible Good with a capital ‘G’, there is every day human kindness. The kindness of an old woman carrying a piece of bread to a prisoner, the kindness of a…