Crisis 22

Crisis 22 is a literary look at the crisis surrounding the Ukraine War. For content overviews, see 🚂 From Moscow to Jakarta, 🍏 Rivers & Apples, and 🌘 Gogol & Co.

Part 1. A Literary Premise

~ approaches & arguments ~

☮️ Glaciers & Novels ~ on the approach and content of Crisis 22 - Introduction - Slaughterhouse-Five - What Most People Would Choose

🦅🕊️ War & Peace ~ on the opening scene in Tolstoy’s War and Peace - War, Peace, & Literature - An Artful History - Anna’s Drawing Room - Rights & Balances

🇫🇷 Napoléon Avait Cinq Cent Soldats ~ War & Peace cont’d (in progress)

🚂 From Moscow to Jakarta ~ on the scope of this project - Pushkin’s Brethren - The Global South - The Colonial Map - “I Hate War”

🍏 Rivers & Apples ~ on the arguments in Crisis 22 - All Over the Map - Five Parts

🌘 Gogol & Co. ~ on the two main novels I look at - Plans & Puppets - Cunning Plans

🍎 The Road to Damascus ~ on ▸ my personal view of the crisis and ▸ the dangerous game played by both Russia & the U.S. - Who’s to Blame? - Apples of Discord - Changing Course

☕️ Politics and the Language of Literature ~ on my view of political literature & my brief travels in Russia - The Bitten Apple - Coffee in St. Pete’s

🗝 The Time is Out of Joint ~ on vicarious experience in Gogol & Shakespeare - Overview - At the Tea Table - The Play’s the Thing

📺 Vicarious Experience ~ on literature & empathy - Overview - In a Dream of Passion - Pianoman - Cameraman

🪞 Mirrors ~ on depth of perception in poetry and drama - Overview - The Mirror Up to Nature - Poetry & Unified Sensibility - Tragedy & Comedy - Achilles & Arjuna

📚 4 Types of Narrative ~ on depth & complexity in novels - Overview - Four Types

💥 Exceptional Violence ~ on the present mess - Overview - A Difficult Question - Chiaroscuro - Chiaro - Scuro - The Present Score: August 19, 2024

🟢 Fog & Shadow ~ on the difficulty of knowing what’s really going on - August 20, 2024

Part 2. Waking Up

~ the shock of war ~

🌒 With Open Eyes ~ an overview of Part 2

⏳ The Ghost of Crises Past ~ on the old fears of super-power conflict - Two Sonnets - The 1980s - Lines - Chaos

✈️ Dream Vacation 2005 ~ on a Russia that might have been - St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vladímir, & Suzdal

⛱ Rip Van Winkle ~ on the long sleep before the storm - Mojitos & a Cigar - El Profesor - Blissful Ignorance - Reveille

🍒 Macaron, Not Macron ~ on luxury amid the carnage (a fictional narrative set in New York)

🥕 The Carrot ~ on political inactivism - La Carotte - To MSF and All the Others - Court & Commons - Black Florentine - La Vie en Rose - Nightmares of the Iraq War Variety

❤️ Caritas ~ on dipping the toe in political water - Caritas - Avenida de los Presidentes, 2014 - The Hotel Nacional - Makoko - Guilt on an Oversized Sofa - Currents

🌉 Jovanka on the Bridge ~ on the blessing of bombs - Jovanka (July 22, 2023) - Q & A (October 8, 2023)

🎸 The Algorithmics ~ on the dangers of following your bliss & anger - Dec. 10, 2023 - Marilyn - Bubbles - Algo Something

☯️ Both In and Out of the Game ~ on getting critical distance - Options - Ostrichism - Ukraine 101 - Realism - Whitman

❄️ Political Modes of Being ~ on opting in & out - Connections - Keats - Eliot - Snowflakes

🦋 The Tao of Putin (April, 2022) ~ on poetry, mysticism, & violence - Preface - Poem - Notes

🏛️ Stoicism & Religion ~ on two old ways of mixing reality and idealism - Aurelius - Pseudaurelius - Eyes - Religion - Violence

Part 3. Cunning Plans

~ Gogol, Dostoevsky, & Bulgakov ~

🧥 Two Novels and an Overcoat ~ on Russian literature and its potential to oppose authoritarianism - Dead Souls & Year - Gogol’s Overcoat

😵‍💫 Russian Souls ~ on Gogol’s novel and the bizarre notion of a Russian soul - A Cunning Plan - The Russian Soul - Belinsky

✒️ Literature & Subversion ~ on the difference between Gogol and Bulgakov - The Integrated Threat - Exceptionalism - Gogol & Bulgakov

💰 Selling the Scheme — not yet online

🧛🏻‍♂️ The Immoralities of Marmeladov and Raskolnikov

🚓 Crimes and Punishments

Part 4. Puppet Masters

~ postcolonialism: a multipolarity that already was ~

🌏 Down South

🎭 Behind the Scenes ~ on the difficulty of seeing behind the political scene - Five Points - The Wayang Kulit

☯️ Unified Sensibilities ~ on coping with uncertainty - The Political Uses of Literature - The Fractured Mirror - T.S. Eliot - Koch’s Year

⚔️ The Dangerous Years ~ on spying, subterfuge, and other Cold War elements in Koch’s novel - Years - Puppetry - James Bond - Daughter of Darkness - Spoiler Alert

🌪 The Eye of the Storm ~ on coping with political despair - The State of Things - What Then Must We Do?

✨ The Dark Which Has No End ~ on a philosophical way out of despair - Strata Casting: Akasha & Accumulation - From Lamp to Lamp

🎙️ Words of Folly and Wisdom — not yet online

⚔️ Battle of the Puppets

🇮🇳 India & the Many-Headed Monsters

🇵🇰 Pakistan & the Fall of the Poet

Part 5. Fearless Leaders

~ war, the super-powers, & rhetoric ~

🌏 The Global South ~ on rethinking the world - Introduction - Section Overview

✊ Fearless Leader of the Global South ~ on the Kremlin’s claim to be saving the global South - Overview - The New Bung Karno - Les Humiliés - Global Sing-Along

🇺🇦 Golden Bridges (July, 2022) ~ on the difficulty of finding a compromise solution to this war - Past & Present - Blame - The Past - Solution - Sanctions - Action - Coda - Anthem

🇺🇸 / 🇷🇺 Exceptionalism (Dec. 2, 2022) ~ on the dangers of political and military exceptionalism - The Mad Cartographer (Aug. 2024) - Dec. 2022 - The Unmentioned History

🗽 Our Lady of the Harbour ~ on the resumption of the arms race - Arms Race to the Grave (2023) - Questions - Setting Sail - Our Boys (2003)

⏳ AD / BC (July, 2022) ~ on the worst possible outcome (a fictional narrative set in Sumer, Iraq, and Penticton, B.C.)

⚔️

Next: 🍏 Preface: Nine Novels