Biographies

 For a person like me who reads a lot, it’s not that easy to find a book that impresses me so much I want to write about it. There might not be so many titles, but there is a genre (if we could call it that) of books that I love to read, and that rarely disappoints me. I am talking about biographies. On average, yearly I read about 4 or 5 biographies. Some of them are biographies of famous people like Nelson Mandela, Queen Victoria, or Johnny Cash, and some are just incredible stories of “common people.” There are many reasons why I love to read biographies.

Life is writing the most interesting stories. Just like many other book lovers, I love a book with a good plot, interesting turns, and many ups and downs. And, people’s lives can sometimes be more interesting and more suspenseful than any novel. Stories of some ordinary people like Holocaust survivors, defectors from North Korea, or missionaries in a faraway country are sometimes full of incredible events, and experiences. Some of them are sad and hard, but there are also beautiful ones. It is incredible to read what people can do to others, but it is equally incredible to see what people can survive, overcome, and forgive. Stories about the lives of famous people, especially those from the distant past, are also full of unbelievable details that we know little about.

Furthermore, biographies are not just books about one person. They tell a story about a certain time and society in which they lived. Through them, we can learn so much about the history of a certain place in a specific time of history. For example, the story of a girl who fled North Korea has taught me so much about that closed country, its history, and society about which we don’t know much. The biography of a young woman from Nepal opened my eyes to the horrors of sexual slavery. In the biography of Queen Victoria, I learned so much about the era that was named after her.

Finally, the history we learn through biographies does not consist only of facts, numbers, and years. We gain a far better picture of a society, circumstances, human reasoning, mentality, and relationships between people.

Biographies also give us a remarkable insight into someone’s life. It is especially fascinating in the case of famous people we mostly see in their public roles or at least in the light that media or history want to portray them. Sometimes the famous people themselves are the ones that created the public image that differs from who they really are. Of course, some biographies are well written, and some are not. The good ones are the ones that have more than just facts. They also give us testimonies and insights from a person’s friends, colleagues, and family members. In that way, they portray a much more vivid, colorful, and in-depth picture of that person. I love to see who are these people that ruled the world, won many hearts, who are admired by many, or feared by the masses.

These are just some of the reasons why I love biographies. I recently had a conversation with my husband, and he shared that e person can only read so many books on a certain topic. After a while, things start to become repetitive. However, biographies are always new. Regardless of the similarities, there are no two equal lives lived at the same time in history under the same circumstances and with the same experiences.

 

Les Miserables

 I mentioned in the introduction to this blog that I wanted to write about the books I read, so here it is. I want to remind everybody I am not a literary critic and this is just my personal reflection. The book I want to write is Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. At the very beginning, I can say that this is one of the best books I have ever read.

It is interesting how Hugo chose the name of this novel - Les Misérables - which means the pitiful ones. One of the questions that pose upon us at the very beginning is: who are these Misérables? This is a story of one man, former convict Jean Valjean, who returns to society after 19 years of prison. He is then changed because of the grace he received. Still, for the rest of his life, he struggles with his past that constantly haunts him. Should we consider him, He is a kind of outcast hiding under false names for most of his life, trying to redeem for his past and fighting his feelings to make righteous decisions regardless of the price. Should we consider him as the one to be pitied? Or, is the pitiful one inspector Javert who did not understand mercy and grace, couldn’t tell the difference between human and God’s righteousness and whose whole life lost its footing when a man whom he considered dangerous and cruel criminal saves his life? Javerts lets him go free despite everything he used to believe. Maybe we should pity the poor abandoned children of Paris who had nobody to care for them.  Those were boys and girls left to tend for themselves at an early age, living, or better said hiding, in the black holes of a big city. Maybe it is the daughter of thief Threnadier who was used by her own father for his schemes. She fell in love with the only young man who ever showed her mercy and for whom she sacrifices her life. All these are characters whose life stories are intermingled in this novel. Maybe, in a way, they all are Les Misérables.

Besides that, there are several specific things in this book that had made a profound impression on me. First, it’s Hugo’s style of writing. It seems like every few chapters he interrupts the plot and moves into some completely different world, to some other place, people, and circumstances. You follow the plot and, all of a sudden, you find yourself reading the description of the Battle of Waterloo, or about political and social unrest in France in the early 1900s, the history of different monastic orders and their meaning in modern society. You read about the life of street children of Paris or the history and development of the Paris sewage system. At first glance, all these narrating seems completely unrelated. But, as Hugo develops the story and adds new characters, each of these digressions helps us to get a clearer picture and to better understand interactions between characters or social circumstances of the time. I have to admit, on several occasions I wanted to skip these descriptions (especially The Battle of Waterloo because I understood nothing about the movement of English and French armies). But, I  was also reminded of important history lessons and googled the history of the French Revolution, Napoleon, and the first half of 19. century so I could better understand who was he talking about. Each time, Hugo would bring us back to the story and give it a new dimension.

Second, throughout the book, there are spread social elements. From the beginning to the end, the author is dissecting the society he lives in with a special critical review of its social insensibility. This is especially pronounced in the way society relates to the poor and the description of the lives of street children. Not only that, we come across criticism of the society that has become numb to the suffering of others and which puts its self-righteousness above mercy. We see Jean Valjean sentenced to prison for stealing bread to feed his sister’s family. Street children found by police would be arrested and nobody cared if they were hungry, thirsty or if they had someplace to spend the night. The only thing that mattered was that they did not disturb the public. And, convicts in chains, on their way to prison, had to walk two times longer route through Paris so they would not walk the same streets as the king on his daily outing from the palace. God forbid the king should see such an obnoxious scene.

And finally, I am convinced Hugo had true, deep faith in God. We can see that from the very beginning of the book in the description of the bishop who showed mercy and grace to Jean Valjean. We see it in a personal metamorphosis of the main protagonist. We see it in the description of historic events such as the French Revolution and the rise and fall of Napoleon as those in which God had his sovereign rule as well as in many other small details that point to deep Christian believes. The man was a believer. Or, if he was not, he definitely understood Christianity way better than many people who consider themselves believers.

Maybe it is this last two points that made me love this book so much. Not the plot itself as much as Hugo’s way of thinking we can find on the pages of this book. Although we have to consider many things in this novel in the socio-economic and historic context of his time, many of his thesis and points made me think about our modern society. We may have developed as a society, but we still deal with the same issues in different forms. Regardless of the revolutions and wars, development of industry, medicine, science, a society itself, we still encounter greed, revenge, lack of compassion, and superficial religion trying to disguise as true faith, but also truly changed and transformed lives like the life of Jean Valjean.

 

 

 

Anna Karenina

 Anna Karenina, a novel by Leo Tolstoy, is a masterpiece of world literature. Anna Karenina, a movie with Keira Knightly as Anna has not even been nominated for the Oscar for the best motion picture. That should speak volumes about the quality ratio. I knew that no movie could compare to Tolstoy’s storytelling genius, exquisite characterization, and interweaved spiritual elements. Still, I hoped the film would reach a higher level, and I will not exit the movie theater completely disappointed.

The first sentence in Anna Karenina declares: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its way.” This is the theme of this voluminous novel. The book is not only a story about the infidelity of one woman from Russian high society and her love affair with an officer of Tzar’s Russia. It is a story about three families, two of them being fundamentally unhappy because of similar and yet different reasons, and the third being a happy one. We are talking about Anna’s own family, her brother Stiva’s family, and the family of Stiva’s fried Levin.

Part of Tolstoy’s literary genius lies in the fact that he has mastered the art of intermingling of three separate plots (in this case, the lives of these three families) that could easily create its own independent story and become a novel of its own. The movie is completely lacking this important element. The focus is on Anna and her lover. Stiva and Levin appear, but their lives are not mentioned in any significant way. In the case of Stiva that may make sense, but contrary to the opinion of many, Tolstoy’s novel does not end with Anna’s death. Almost one-third of the book is dedicated to Levin, his country life, his relationship with his wife and brother, and his search for the meaning of life. Two scenes from his life are entirely inadequate and insufficient to describe everything Tolstoy had to say that through this character.

The story goes like this. Levin is a landowner who, after an initial failure, in the end, wins the love of a young, sweet, innocent, and lovely Kitty (who was portrayed well in the movie). Before their wedding, desiring to be completely honest, Levin decides to confess two things to her. First, that she will not be the first woman with whom he will share his bed, and second that he does not believe in God. Kitty has a hard time accepting both those facts but manages to overcome them because she sees him as an honest, truthful, and righteous man. And he was all those things, but he could not comprehend the meaning of life nor why people believe in God. Only after he starts his own family, spends a lot of time reflecting and working the land, at one moment of deep reflection God reveals Himself to him as somebody real who exist, and who has given him everything he has. I remember reading this before I experienced that kind of revelation and wondering how can a person change so suddenly and start believing in something that he used to reject. In fact, he wasn’t really rejecting God; he was trying to understand Him in a society that has distorted His image with its hypocrisy.

And the hypocrisy of Russian high society is another major theme of this book. I must admit the movie portrays it rather well.  Anna, who commits adultery, certainly was not the only one within that society that has done so. Marriage infidelities were a common thing, but a public one. Everybody cheats on their husbands and wives, but it is all hidden behind the mask of hypocrisy, politeness, and honor. Anna’s adultery is public because she leaves her husband so she could live with her lover. Suddenly she finds herself rejected by everybody, even by women who, at the very beginning, encouraged their flirtations. Two people are the epitome of that hypocrisy. One of them is Countess Vronsky, the mother of her lover. She tells him that it is perfectly normal, even educational for a young officer to have an affair with a married woman. However, insisting on embarrassing himself because of her and losing his honor is a total idiotism. The other is Vronsky’s sister in law whom he asked to at least visit Anna, who felt rejected and started to lose her mind. Her reply to that request was: “I would visit her if she had only broken the law, but she had broken the rules.” The rules of high society were more important than the law, God’s commandments, and the fate of the human soul.

Finally, the thing that bothered me most in this movie is the characterization of protagonists. Although toward the end we can see some development; at the beginning of the movie, Anna and Vronsky give us the impression of two high school kids who have no idea what life is and are being led by hormones.  Tolstoy’s Anna is torn between her marriage and family and the man she loves. She does not commit adultery easily or on a whim. Her struggles and torments are present before and after her adultery. She is tortured because she is unable to see her son whom she loves dearly. She also feels guilty for what she has done to her husband, although he was a cold man who cared more about his honor than his wife. At one moment, I had a desire to come and slap him in the face because he is not fighting for her; because he is not the kind of husband who would go and punch Vronsky in the face and forbid him from coming near her, let alone touching her. Ana is torn because she knows she is doing something wrong, but she cannot fight it. And in the end, unable to live with constant guilt, judgment, and rejection of society, far away from everybody, closed in her world with nobody but Vronsky by her side, she finds no more reason to live and throws herself under the train. That is the character in Tolstoy’s novel. The character in the movie is more like a spoiled girl. Vronsky is, on the other hand, lacking any charm, firmness, or anything else that would make a married beauty want to sacrifice her marriage. In the book, he did not seem so empty and pathetic – at least not to me.

In conclusion, if you have read the book, do not watch the movie. If not, you can watch it, but I highly recommend reading the book – all  800 pages of it.  

What Is It All About

 I have been a blogger for almost a decade writing in my native Croatian language. My blog’s name is Anin svijet (Ana’s World). I may not be one of those bloggers (and vloggers) who need to post something new every other day so they could maintain their online presence. I started my blog because writing is something I enjoy and something through which I can express myself best. At that time, I was still living in Croatia and most of my “audience” was Croatian-speaking people. But, I have been living in America for several years now, and more and more of my friend do not read Croatian. Hence I decided to create a new blog in English naming in Ana’s New World.

So here it is - the introduction. What is it all about? I read a lot. By that I mean there is seldom a time when I am not reading a book. There were some interruptions when my son was born, but other than that, there is always a book on my nightstand. So, some of my blogs are about the books I read. Not many because there are only a few books that can impress me so much to write about them. Other posts are often my thoughts about the world we live in, events and circumstances that puzzle us, some interesting (but not too controversial topics). And there are just some funny posts about the sunny side of life.

In the beginning, you can read some of my old Croatian posts translated into English. Those are mostly timeless topics such as book reviews, although I sometimes write about current events or the topics of my posts have something to do with current events. But, although I have plenty to say about politics (since I studied journalism and political science), this is not that kind of blog. Besides, I have noticed that politics have been something that deeply divides people and there is enough division in cyberspace without me contributing to that. That does not mean that things I write about are always light topics. They are not. Sometimes I write about different kinds of injustice, hypocrisy, and other illnesses of modern times.

Having said all that, my dear English-speaking friends, I hope you will enjoy reading about Ana’s New World. Have in mind that English is not my first language and disregard any mistakes you may find. As I once said to my husband, Croatian is the language of my heart and sometimes it is not that easy to translate my thoughts. Feel free to comment, or like the link I put on Facebook. I would love to hear some feedback.