This, it turns out, is the second of three Gimblings that recount a trip I made to Moscow, Russia in May of 1989, memories spurred on by the 2014 Sochi Olympics. I was well into the second week of my stay in Moscow, and the bloom was definitely off the […]
If I take one thing from the Winter Olympics currently taking place in Sochi, Russia, it won’t be images of glittering ice skaters, the sound of skittering luge sleds or amazement at snowboard acrobatics. Nor will it be a cautious globally focused optimism despite the snickering over a perceived lack […]
On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.