OBOC - Czech Republic

How can you have a reading project and not include Kafka? Although I was 100% positive that I wouldn’t be able to get any Czech specific insight by reading “Metamorphosis”, I wanted to use OBOC to finally force myself to pick up Kafka.  He is one of the writers of whom I’ve read a bit more than I’ve read anything by him, and I knew I couldn’t stay like that forever.

So with trepidation I picked up Metamorphosis as I was not sure if I wanted to enter the Kafkaseque world, but here I am completely transformed on reading this novella which I would recommend to anyone who has been postponing reading Kafka.

Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, hardworker, the dutiful son and loving brother, wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a vermin (or a cockroach or an insect, depending on how you want to interpret it). Instead of evoking sympathy from his family, he only evokes horror and disgust except from his loving sister Grete who takes care of him. Relegated to one room, he lives like a prisoner to keep himself away from visitors, eating filth by choice, crawling on his fours and occasionaly looking out of the window. Without his income to provide for them, the rest of the family starts to pick up the slack and they even take on lodgers to make up for the shortfall. Drawn to his sister’s music on the violin, he crawls out of his room causing panic among the lodgers who promptly vacate his house. Pelted with apples by his father, and hated by his own sister for not being sensitive to their feelings, he goes back to his room collapses and eventually dies due to starvation and from the infection from the apple stuck to his back. While Gregor is relieved of his painful existence, the rest of the family are relieved from the burden of having to deal with him. The family quickly moves from this painful state, into a new home, with new hopes for Grete.

This short novella has spawned countless interpretations and inspirations that it is one of the favorite books of anyone who is someone in literature today from Marquez to Rushdie. Personally, I was amazed by how a completely absurd scenario held me in total captivity and I was entwined in the long sentences which are supposed to be signatures of the Kafkan style. Despite the gloom and doom there was an undercurrent of dark humor which heightened the intensity of the story.  

“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous insect” – an opening sentence that seems to have transformed students of literature into entomologists. The amount of passionate discussion around the word insect (was it a beetle, a dung beetle, a cockroach, does it have wings, how big was it, was it a vermin) puts E.O.Wilson and his love for ants to shame!

Milan Kundera was going to be my pick for Czech, but I had cheated as I already saw the movie “The unbearable lightness of being”, so I decided to go straight to the master himself and now having undergone the metamorphosis personally, I can’t wait to read more.

OBOC - Croatia

If you haven’t noticed Anti-Aging is big business worth >$20B. From people trying to sell you de-wrinkling creams, spa treatments, hair coloring, botox injections – they’ve found a way to make you feel so terrible about your age, that I wonder if any woman over 30 even celebrates her birthday anymore. “Aging gracefully” is a phrase that I no longer understand if the only representative for that category is Sigourney Weaver who at 60+ still looks like she can take on a few aliens single handed, or Betty White who is ageless anyway. Even in books we have wizards like Gandolf who is the epitome of coolness, and there is no such equivalent for witches! Name one cool witch and I realize that Christine O’Donnell doesn’t help my argument one bit.

Why all these morbid thoughts on aging? It hasn’t got anything to do with my 5yr old constantly reminding me my age and no it is not because i am going through some mid life crisis thanks to the first sliver of silver which has sneaked its way into an otherwise dark cloud - ironic isn’t it - this is one silver lining no one seems to want.

But every time I visit family back home I am confronted with these images of my grandmom who at 92, seems to be shrinking right in front of my eyes that I wonder if one day she will simply vanish into thin air. She has always been grey haired, steel teethed in my memory but of late gravity seems to have a profound effect on her as her back is almost bent to a U, and I can’t really call the movement of her putting one leg in front of the other “walking”. With a fig leaf of a skin covering her otherwise all-bone body I was just astounded to see that she still prefers to wrap herself in the whole 9 yards, but that’s what she is made of. Despite everything else failing, her steely resolve, empathy and the sharpness of her brain have not abandoned her. A tough old bird, that’s what she is!

Now what has all this to do with Croatia - everything as you will see. I read Dubravka Ugresic’s beautiful book on aging in the modern day titled “Baba Yaga Laid an Egg” In case you have no clue who Baba Yaga is – she is the legendary witch famous in all Slavic cultures, who lives in a chicken leg house, kidnaps children, is completely disproportionate, feared by everyone, grey haired, steel teethed, moustached, shaggy legged old woman who lives alone and flies around on a mortar. Actually Baba Yaga has become a metaphor for any old woman as it seems like the only qualification to join the coven is age But a goddess or a demon, grotesque or grandeur depends on who is telling the story.

Ugresic’s warns you at the beginning, “all at once you begin to spot them.. and you feel a pang of sympathy for them...But now is the time to dig in your heels and resist or you will slide into a world that you had no intention of entering, at least not yet.. because your time has not yet come!” These words resonated so much with me. I remember my ever-curious little one, hiding behind me, sneaking a peak at her great grandmoms whispering in my ears “When will you turn into one of them?”. Don’t worry, my time has not yet come.

The story is told in 3 parts and is the story of 4 old women in today’s Eastern Europe. The first part deals with Ugresic’s  difficult relationship with her aging mother who has remained stationary while the world is speeding past her. The relationship is further complicated by the appearance of folklorist Aba who hits it off with her mother. Anyone who has a long distance relationship with their mom will find this part speaking to them personally.  The second part is about 3 women Beba, Kukla and Pupa who visit a health resort in Czech to rejuvenate themselves and find that their lives are changed forever as death and their past follows them. The third part is a treatise on the folkore surrounding Baba Yaga written by none other than the anagrammatic Aba Bagay, the folklorist introduced in Part 1. The third part is especially good for people like me who need a Baba Yaga 101. Once you read that, you see the references to the folklore hidden in the first two parts.

Now if all this appears scary to you and makes you want to turn to the first treatment that promises eternal youth, remember there are certain powers that come with being a Baba Yaga - the power to transform, to metamorphosize, and the power to fly! At the heart of it, the book is about the journey undertaken by women, who often times outlive their spouses and therefore are condemned to a life of loneliness especially as they approach the end of their destinations. A society that views them through a patriarchal lens demonizes them, but losing teeth doesn’t make them toothless, being frail doesn’t make them weak and despite the concerted effort to ostracize them and take away all their powers (except the one to scare little children), they are always ready to wield the sword that they have under their heads and take on anything that comes their way. That is how they’ve survived through their lifetime and through lifetimes to come.

As I read the book I paid a silent tribute to all the Baba Yagas in my life, some thankfully still around and some who have flown away on their mortars. Each of them in their own way is/was ready to wield her sword any time to guard the precious even without any of the mythical powers. And when my time finally comes, I hope to be ready and resourceful to brandish my sword and swashbuckle my way through whatever life throws at me.