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The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

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Re: The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

#11

Post by theraido »

paganel wrote: post #7
secstate wrote: post #3

Best part of the whole story was Piotr Grabowski's comment at the bottom. Seems the most illuminating aspect of this story is how disconnected American's are from European history. I don't mean this in a dismissive way. I mysefl, being American, am hoplessly unaware of large parts of European history. But the origin of the author's last name along is actually really easy to understand if one is actually familiar with…

Still kind of biased and he says that everything beyond Stanislaw was a "wasteland" and Far-East presumably because it didn't have Baroque and later Habsburg architecture. I live in a country bordering Ukraine to the South, in a part of if where we didn't have Baroque nor Habsburg architecture (we were under Ottoman influence, even though not under direct control), and I have to say that reading about this territory'…

Everyone is biased, and it's not just American being out of touch with European History. I'm Dutch, I do like history especially parts where changes of borders/nations have impact now.

I was born in 1986, so I don't have memories of the Cold War and such. In school we learn a lot about WWII, that 6 million jews died and such.

But halfway trough Germany started the wasteland. Our Reformed churches sends/sended/smuggled Bible translation to Moldavia, Ukraine, Russia. We donated money to help Hungarian Baptists, Ukrainian Jews and so on.. But that's it.

I've visited quite some 'Eastern European' countries, and when I do I always have to dive into the history. When visiting Krakow for a week I learned about Galicia (I thought it was weird to have a Jewish museum named after a Spanish region ;)).

So, in 2010 I decided to first visit all European countries, before flying somewhere else. I have rules, I have to have visited a bordering country before I'm allowed to visit a country. (E.g. can't go to Portugal I have to visit Spain first). And I have to stay in a country , so a train stop our toilet visit doesn't count for visiting Slovenia..

To know history to some extend, you have to be there. But, it's also around us. When being overwhelmed by the empty mspaces

Re: The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

#12

Post by theraido »

paganel wrote: post #7
secstate wrote: post #3

Best part of the whole story was Piotr Grabowski's comment at the bottom. Seems the most illuminating aspect of this story is how disconnected American's are from European history. I don't mean this in a dismissive way. I mysefl, being American, am hoplessly unaware of large parts of European history. But the origin of the author's last name along is actually really easy to understand if one is actually familiar with…

Still kind of biased and he says that everything beyond Stanislaw was a "wasteland" and Far-East presumably because it didn't have Baroque and later Habsburg architecture. I live in a country bordering Ukraine to the South, in a part of if where we didn't have Baroque nor Habsburg architecture (we were under Ottoman influence, even though not under direct control), and I have to say that reading about this territory'…

Everyone is biased, and it's not just American being out of touch with European History. I'm Dutch, I do like history especially parts where changes of borders/nations have impact now.

I was born in 1986, so I don't have memories of the Cold War and such. In school we learn a lot about WWII, that 6 million jews died and such.

But halfway trough Germany started the wasteland. Our Reformed churches sends/sended/smuggled Bible translation to Moldavia, Ukraine, Russia. We donated money to help Hungarian Baptists, Ukrainian Jews and so on.. But that's it.

I've visited quite some 'Eastern European' countries, and when I do I always have to dive into the history. When visiting Krakow for a week I learned about Galicia (I thought it was weird to have a Jewish museum named after a Spanish region ;)).

So, in 2010 I decided to first visit all European countries, before flying somewhere else. I have rules, I have to have visited a bordering country before I'm allowed to visit a country. (E.g. can't go to Portugal I have to visit Spain first). And I have to stay in a country , so a train stop our toilet visit doesn't count for visiting Slovenia..

To know history to some extend, you have to be there. But, it's also around us. When being overwhelmed by the empty mezuzah spaces, I realized that my hometown only had a 'Synagoguestreet' without a synagogue. That we have Jewish cemeteries, but no burials, and that there almost no Jewish community in the Netherlands, while my late grandmother talked about Jewish shop owners ..

Re: The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

#13

Post by pjc50 »

secstate wrote: post #3

Best part of the whole story was Piotr Grabowski's comment at the bottom. Seems the most illuminating aspect of this story is how disconnected American's are from European history. I don't mean this in a dismissive way. I mysefl, being American, am hoplessly unaware of large parts of European history. But the origin of the author's last name along is actually really easy to understand if one is actually familiar with…

It also points out what most of the comments have missed: this is on lithub, so it's not meant to be consumed on a purely literal level. The presence or absence of the wolves and the way we know about them clearly relates to the deeper, more horrifying questions about the past massacres of humans by humans.

Re: The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

#15

Post by bushin »

secstate wrote: post #3

Best part of the whole story was Piotr Grabowski's comment at the bottom. Seems the most illuminating aspect of this story is how disconnected American's are from European history. I don't mean this in a dismissive way. I mysefl, being American, am hoplessly unaware of large parts of European history. But the origin of the author's last name along is actually really easy to understand if one is actually familiar with…

That's some autistic screeching of Polish nationalist.

Re: The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

#16

Post by pm3003 »

rdiddly wrote: post #10

Why would this be so surprising though, or need corroboration? I would just assume the presence of wild animals in any place where humans aren't. Also y'know wolves aren't really some dark harbingers of doom, heavy with portent; they're just a kind of dog, doing their dog thing, looking for food and whatnot. Yeah they're ferocious... so is a panda when it's pissed off. But the panda gets to be the beloved symbol of c…

Agree.

But to nuance, a wolf pack is generally small, but there are a lot of stories, some of them recent, most of them from Europe (I've read at least one from Northern America), about very large gatherings of wolves in the countryside, posing a real threat to villagers and travellers. Maybe it's the case here.

These wolves could also have been feral dogs, which nowadays are omnipresent in Eastern Europe.

Re: The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

#17

Post by pm3003 »

Animats wrote: post #9
a0-prw wrote: post #6

For goodness sake, get to the point. You lost me on the road where the driver was a lunatic but the traffic was sparse. For f sake.

It's way over-written. Compare John McPhee's articles on bears in New Jersey.[1] New Jersey has about 2500 wild bears, and they're not rare. Neither are wolves in Germany and Eastern Europe. In Russia large wolf packs remain a problem today. Empty out a town and some wolves will move in. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/in-search-of-n...

Wolfs are rare in Germany. They went extinct in almost the whole country and are very slowly coming back.

Re: The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

#18

Post by johnr2 »

rdiddly wrote: post #10

Why would this be so surprising though, or need corroboration? I would just assume the presence of wild animals in any place where humans aren't. Also y'know wolves aren't really some dark harbingers of doom, heavy with portent; they're just a kind of dog, doing their dog thing, looking for food and whatnot. Yeah they're ferocious... so is a panda when it's pissed off. But the panda gets to be the beloved symbol of c…

> But the panda gets to be the beloved symbol of cute cuddliness while the wolf is reviled as the symbol of all that is evil.

This may be because a hungry panda is unlikely to eat you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_attack

Re: The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

#19

Post by throwanem »

pasquinelli wrote: post #8
a0-prw wrote: post #6

For goodness sake, get to the point. You lost me on the road where the driver was a lunatic but the traffic was sparse. For f sake.

Maybe lithub isn't for you.

"Literary" writing, the modern sort at least, has a bad reputation in no small part due to precious affectation in prose style. You can get the sense that few in the field have ever quite gotten over reading Infinite Jest and thinking its author the coolest dude in the world.

Me, I feel for the guy. He and Hemingway can drink together and commiserate about what it's like to have one's legacy overshadowed by a legion of half-clever, half-competent would-be imitators whose interest in the work extends only as far as it burnishes the grift that these days we call a "brand". Granted, that legacy is in itself no world-smasher, but both men at least had the skill of writing well, and a knack for rewarding a reader's trust besides. Of their imitators, no such favorable portrait may accurately be drawn.

I don't think that's entirely a fair critique of Auster, though. Given his age, he's much more likely to be a wannabe Norman Mailer. Everything else stands, and is it any wonder so many hold the genre in contempt when Auster so ably stands in microcosm of modern "literary" writing and thought?

Re: The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age

#20

Post by Animats »

pm3003 wrote: post #17
Animats wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's way over-written. Compare John McPhee's articles on bears in New Jersey.[1] New Jersey has about 2500 wild bears, and they're not rare. Neither are wolves in Germany and Eastern Europe. In Russia large wolf packs remain a problem today. Empty out a town and some wolves will move in. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/in-search-of-n...

Wolfs are rare in Germany. They went extinct in almost the whole country and are very slowly coming back.

Yes, coming back slowly.[1]

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/8855821/Wolv...

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