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A review by lauren_endnotes
Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi
Teffi, pen name of the noted Russian humorist and satirist, brings her signature charm to a heavy subject - migration and exile on the heels of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1918. In Memories, Teffi traces her exodus from her home in St. Petersburg - at the time she believed it to be short term absence - through the Ukraine and Crimea, finally to Constantinople, eventually to a life of exile in France and Germany.
Teffi's absolute skill lie in her astute observations and situational humor, and the way she juxtaposes these with the serious nature of the same situations. She is a gifted storyteller and the translators did such a masterful work or bringing this humor to us here - and it truly transcends the 100+ years since Teffi's time.
The first laughs here started when she describes the levels that the bourgeoisie will go to hide their wealth from confiscation by the Red Army - putting diamonds into hard-boiled eggs, which are then chomped by soldiers...
Right alongside these funny stories are ones of sadness and fear of the unknown. Her "escape" from Odessa is the most action-packed sequence in the book, and had me completely riveted.
“There are moments when threads snap – all the threads that tie what is earthly in the soul to the earth itself. Your nearest and dearest become infinitely distant, barely even a memory. Even the events in your past that once mattered most to you grow dim. All of the huge and important thing we call life fades away and you become that primordial nothing out of which the universe was created.”
Teffi's absolute skill lie in her astute observations and situational humor, and the way she juxtaposes these with the serious nature of the same situations. She is a gifted storyteller and the translators did such a masterful work or bringing this humor to us here - and it truly transcends the 100+ years since Teffi's time.
The first laughs here started when she describes the levels that the bourgeoisie will go to hide their wealth from confiscation by the Red Army - putting diamonds into hard-boiled eggs, which are then chomped by soldiers...
Right alongside these funny stories are ones of sadness and fear of the unknown. Her "escape" from Odessa is the most action-packed sequence in the book, and had me completely riveted.
“There are moments when threads snap – all the threads that tie what is earthly in the soul to the earth itself. Your nearest and dearest become infinitely distant, barely even a memory. Even the events in your past that once mattered most to you grow dim. All of the huge and important thing we call life fades away and you become that primordial nothing out of which the universe was created.”