Learning Opportunities
May 25, 2008
I think one of the best things I get out of reading good nonfiction is the opportunity to learn about times, places, events, encounters and experiences about which I may know little or nothing. Take my current book, All the Clean Ones Are Married: And Other Everyday Calamities in Moscow by Lori Cidylo. It’s a rollicking, humorous, often ghastly account of the six years she, an American journalist who took a job with TASS, the Soviet news agency, lived as a typical Muscovite during the days of second Russian Revolution in the 1990s.
What is different about her book as compared to journalistic accounts, social histories or even other memoirs is her down-in-the-muck chronicle of the daily challenges and indignities that living as a Muscovite entails. Her parents had emigrated from the Ukraine, and so when she applied and was accepted at TASS, her parents were shocked that she would leave to live in what was a rapidly disintegrating country. But it’s not the politics that dominate this book; it’s the small things that add up to living.
I wanted a washing machine. But it was 1992, and all my coworkers at TASS said that buying a washing machine—even a used one—was a chimera. “Who put such a foolish notion into your head?” one of them asked me. “Even if you do find one, what will you use to wash the clothes? There’s no detergent to buy.”
Several frustrated attempts later, Cidylo spots an ad in the Moscow Guardian, an English-language newspaper for a “native Muscovite willing to be your guide, assistance of all kinds.” The next day, he arranged for her (and two husky male friends she took for protection) to meet someone in a yellow car. They followed him, worriedly, out deep into a forest until he stopped in front of a garage from which he took a box and set it in front of her. Then he demanded his money—$100.
“Is it new?” I asked, opening the lid and peering inside.
He didn’t answer.
“Does it work?”
“Of course.”
“Can you plug it in so I can see for myself?”
“No.”
“How can I be sure it works?”
“You can’t.”
It does work, but unfortunately not, as she discovered, in the way an American-made washer works. Describing how the machine badly overflowed on its second load, a Russian co-worker admonished her:
“How many loads did you do?”
“Two.”
“After you did the first load, how long did you wait before you put the next one in?”
“I put the second load in as soon as the first one was done. Why would I wait?”
She shook her head. “Vog gde sabaka ryta! That’s where the dog is buried!” she said, repeating a popular Russian expression. “You have to give the machine time to rest.”
“Time to rest?”
“You’re supposed to wait fifteen minutes in between loads,” she explained patiently. “Our washing machines are like Soviet workers. When they perform a task, they need to take a break. You can’t expect too much from things that were simply not designed to work well.”
Shortly after she moves into a new but dingy apartment with, among other depressing things, a “couch, which was neon orange with shaggy black stripes that resembled those on a tiger’s coat.” It seemed destined to remain that way until she met Nina on the street one day. Admiring a stunning shawl Nina was offering for sale, she approached her about remodeling the couch. Nina refused at first, citing no experience, but as they talked Nina came to appreciate Lori’s interest in making her apartment into a real home. She took up the challenge, and over the course of the project that encompassed sofa cushions, curtains, a tablecloth and more, Nina talked about her family, her life (“I have known very little joy . . .”). They grew close. And one day, Lori was able to give to Nina the “something special” she wanted for her when she persuaded Nina to let her place an advertisement in the Moscow Times:
Want to turn your grim apartment into a home? Call Babushka, Inc. I custom-make curtains, pillows, tablecloths, doilies, bedspreads, chair covers, slipcovers, and whatever else you need to make your apartment look bright and cheerful. All prices negotiable. Call Nina Milhailovna Trudolyubova: 531-9640. Speak Russian.
A few weeks later, Nina was receiving regular calls.
Cidylo’s experiences also encompass the larger issues—the coup of 1993 and the attempt to bring birth control to a nation mired in the use of abortion—but her perspective is always personal and up close. This is a book that has given me a wider yet more intimate feeling for the years I remember so well for the break-up of the former Soviet Union is one of the last things I ever saw on television prior to jettisoning it from my life. As I closed the book earlier today, I sighed with that sense of satisfaction all true readers know. It was a wonderful read.
This week . . .
One of the things I like most about Powell’s Books, the famous independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, is their foresight. They saw the Internet coming, and instead of viewing it as a threat they met it head on. They saw they had to be more than a seller of the same books as everyone else. They had to embrace the new medium, and they had to do it in a way that helped them sell more books.
They’ve been extraordinarily successful. What Powell’s offers is an experience that anyone who loves books and reading will enjoy. Besides Recommended Reading (from customers, staff, Book Sense and others), they also offer original essays, Q&As and exclusive author interviews. There’s a calendar of events for those fortunate enough to live near by. For those not in the area, you can even sell them your unwanted books online. They also have eight free e-newsletters and a blog. If you are not familiar with this store, you should be; it’s fantastic. In addition to all the new books, they also have a vast selection of quality used ones. And with $50 in purchases, you get free shipping so there is no reason to not shop at this indie.
Until next week, read well, read often and read on!
Lauren
________________________________________________________________________
|
