#literally that's what half the epic poem tradition is ABOUT and people just go up in arms when black people dare to do it. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

soracities · 28 days

Note

People are wild lol rap does actually take a certain level of skill to both perform and understand, it takes five seconds of research to see that theres decent lyricism going on there. Lots of rappers are actually great at english, they dont all know the official terms for the things they practice but rapping is like a form of poetry really.

ofc there are subgenres that i personally do not like such as mumble rap (a conversation for another time i digress) but if you take for example kendrick's latest diss tracks to drake, its something that has to literally be studied and broken down by a bunch of people lol and once you break it down and understand the refrences you see that its not just a bunch of words and a beat. of course white people will think something they dont understand is ghetto trash what else is new lol they're the kings of ostricizing and devaluing what they dont understand. They did it to jazz they did it to metal and alternative music and they do it to rap.

At the end of the day, culture is a thing that will be understood by those who are meant to understand it. You dont have to like rap to acknowledge that its an art, but calling it trash and refusing to see it from any point of view but your own speaks for itself.

And for the record, im not a rap fan lol its a genre i hardly listen to in fact, but what i am is an artist, and i can acknowledge art when i see it.

i'll be honest, i don't think lack of understanding is solely what comes into it, if at all. the genres that get the most aggressive pushback are also ones that threaten a cultural hegdemony in their respective societies (white, male, christian etc) and that's not a coincidence. rap gets the worst of this and ultimately i don't think it has ever boiled down to not knowing what GOAT means and a lot more to do with overt and tacit hostility towards black people making outspoken art on their own terms in a deeply racist society.

but otherwise i completely agree with you! the lyrical complexity, rhyming schemes and dexterity at play in a good rap song is second to none and you could absolutely teach a literature class on it. it is as much a poetic medium as anything else while also encompassing its own deeply layered, complex and distinct sensibilities--just like, literally, every other art form on earth! to pretend otherwise is just ludicrous at this point.

#ask #Anonymous #literally the most common complaint i've heard since i was like 14 is 'its always bragging about money and cars and bitches' and its like.#ignoring the pertinent question of what bragging about power and material wealth implies in an #art form borne from deeply disenfranchised marginalised and unjustly criminalised communities...rap didn't invent bragging lol #and it certainly didn't invent bragging in verse bc humans have been doing that for THOUSANDS of years #literally that's what half the epic poem tradition is ABOUT and people just go up in arms when black people dare to do it.#but yes anon acknowledge art when you see it is IT i feel that way about dubstep i dont like it but im also not about to launch a moral #tirade about why my preference is CORRECT and an entire intricate music scene is WRONG

76 notes · View notes

motifsinthecity · 5 years

Text

Favorite Albums: 2018

I've been thinking a lot recently about the meaning distance can afford us.

In many ways, distance creates the attachments that ground us in this lifetime. Distance defines our relationships to a multitude of persons, places, and things--perhaps even with ourselves, the persons we were, and the persons we might be. While we often measure our lives in relation to the material possessions and the status others hold, it is often the distance we must travel, both figuratively and literally, that dictate our ability to connect with others during our lives.

I found this theme of distance and meaning continually emerge as I listened to Deafheaven's latest offering in 2018, aptly titled, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. At 7 tracks, the San Francisco five-piece continue to evolve their black-metal-by-way-of-shoegaze sound, which serves not only as an artifact to their place among their musical peers, but as a testament to how far they've traveled since their inception. Deafheaven's journey is indebted, in part, to the buzz Ordinary… has garnered regarding its aesthetic composition. That's because few bands in recent memory have been tied so closely to the duality of their sound, from the oppressive nature of metal to the sway and drift of shoegaze. Even Pitchfork joked it was the best Smashing Pumpkins album this year. However, such a narrow read brings a swath of opinions. Many a think piece have covered whether Deafheaven's brand of extreme music is "metal" enough, "pretty" enough, or simply authentic enough. Indeed, the chasm is wide in the hyper critical expanse of 2018's internet, but Deafheaven have never been interested in formula--they relish residence in the in-between--and the road to Ordinary… is littered with the pitfalls of expectations, ones they've judiciously set aside.

This is because the seeds for Ordinary's… lush mix of driving metallurgy and art rock can be found all throughout the bands prior releases; yet it's assembled here with a new sense of impressionistic romanticism. Four of the songs off Ordinary… orient listeners with the group's more traditional arrangements, where chiming melodies give way to frenzied guitar, thunderous drums, and rapturous solos. Ordinary… offers two strong contributions to these types of mainstay compositions, from the stutter-stop ascension and gossamer suspension of "Honeycomb" to the slashing and spiraling glory of "Glint." On both these songs, Deafheaven provide vibrant and electrifying arrangements that capture the extremity of the human condition. Guitarist Kerry McCoy offers invigorating and euphoric guitar melodies that seem to embody everything from pleasure, to pain, to sorrow, to joy, all married by George Clarke's impassioned and throaty howl. Again, the duality of Deafheaven's sound is only interesting as a surface observation. The real richness comes from the confluence of their influences, which render these songs with force and vitality.

While "Honeycomb" and "Glint" provide us with the familiar Deafheaven blueprint, the band's growth is certainly on display elsewhere on Ordinary… "Near" effectively breaks up the record with its shimmering glow and reverb-heavy drift as Clarke sings "Thought I saw you there/Wishing you were near…" There's a warmness to "Near" that's tender and firm, an evocative oasis in an otherwise dizzying record. Another strong standout is "Night People," a somber, gothic chamber piece, where Clarke duets with the resident queen of doom folk, Chelsea Wolfe. Both Clarke and Wolfe's mournful harmonies come together over dusky piano and cavernous drums, contemplating eventual decay with mournful couplets, such as "And the black sand of your body slipped through…" and "I found myself at your side…" in what might be someone's penultimate moment in this lifetime. In some ways, the tenderness of "Near" and "Night People" represent complimentary meditations on dealing with distance. "Near" focusing on the longing we attach to the future, while "Night People" explores the agony of loss as our loved ones leave this life without us.

Indeed, the idea of distance is inescapable on Ordinary… If Deafheaven's breakout work Sunbather (2013) was about the disintegration of the self, and New Bermuda (2015) centered around the savagery and oppression of locality, then Ordinary… revels in the elegance of decay, a function of time and the inescapable truths we face as we are transformed by life's kiln. The band touches on this cycle of birth and death--how the world can throw our trajectory into far out places--on the album's closing track "Worthless Animal." Here, Clarke's rasp juxtaposes the innocence of a new born fawn:

When a fawn Stumbles into the road Honeydew high And deep in afterglow Mind swarming Mind small Honeydew high Transforming the soul

With the slaughter of a feral dog:

Then search to pin the legs Of the stalking dog That lends its teeth To sticky, sad bedlam War cries quake through lurching light

I bury a blade between its ribs Bear hug the soft canine frame Then smear ash Then smear the ash on its brow

Set against a "November Rain" by way of kraut rock guitar phrasing, "Worthless Animal" glistens like an unending ocean, holding close the beauty and tragedy that often shade life's mysteries. Deafheaven carefully hold the intimacy of innocence alongside the horror of our choices to show us the points between them aren't so far away--that a lifetime is simply a blink in an instant, a star in the sky, the distance between us. Ultimately, maybe distance serves as a function not just our relationships to persons, places and things, but to time and attachment as well. By this, I mean that we are all spending the time needed to find away to let go of that which no longer suits us, to ultimately transform our relationships to things, and become who we were always meant to be.

In the steps of many artists before them, Deafheaven settle on the notion that the only way to bridge the distance between ourselves, who we are, and other people, is through the imperfect ways we love one another. The band displays this on the immaculate "You Without End," which features airy guitar slides, angelic piano, and half-step drums, set against a whisper silk spoken word poem delivered by Nadia Kury. Indeed, "You Without End" is as vivid as the daydream it describes:

He pained, shifting his attention toward the mirror across the road Back into his daydream The spliff burned his fingers the second he drank, and he tossed it toward the gutter The smoke burned into his eyes, blinding him As he blinked through the tears, the pain began to recede Back down the promenade and homeward bound, as he approached the intersection of Brooklyn and Lakeshore, a flock of geese burst from the darkness and flew, shrieking into what was left of the evening.

Kury's evocative words give way to McCoy's dizzying and soaring guitar work, which erupts in dissonant ecstasy as Clarke exclaims:

Let it go as it grows on forever And let it go Let it go as it grows Breathe it in Let it go as it grows on forever And we breathe it in And we breathe it in And then the world will grow And then the world will grow And then the world will know Of all true love, true

"You Without End" is a reminder that time doesn't have to dull our spirit where love exists as a possibility for more. The way we bridge the gap between ourselves, the way we traverse the distances we face in this lifetime, they lend us purpose and meaning for ourselves and those we meet for as long as we know them. A connection like love is rooted firmly in the transformations we make in life, with and for others, and the extraordinary experiences we often face through ordinary means. What Deafheaven have done is provide an incredible statement on the power of love, that against all odds and in the face of all kinds of distances between us, we can endure with each other, without end. All we need is our ordinary, corrupt, human love.

2 notes · View notes

thepillareddark · 7 years

Text

The Death of the Poetical? and why overreaching statements like that are sometimes of use

OK so I’m deliberately going too far with this one in the first half, but in the second I’m going to aim to defend the critical practice of articulating overly large and ‘cool’ ideas which, although they sound good, aren’t very useful in practice.

So poetry isn’t dead, obviously, but there is a lingering sense of obviousness that hangs over a lot of modern poetry. There are loads of good modern poets- but also a lot of crap which seems bad because it’s obvious and predictable. There’s a lot of fuckery to do with line spacing and word spacing, and a lot of annoying use of swearing and proper nouns. There aren’t many very long poems going on at the moment, and there isn’t much exciting use of language anymore. No one has written a national epic in ages.

Of course, no one would blame any modern poets for any of these failings anyway. There are no rules anymore, so how are you ever going to do something interesting? You can’t mess with form if form isn’t even in the game anymore, you can’t mess with words when no one cares if you mess with words anymore, and, particularly if you don’t sit in a more interesting category relative to culture (non-western and non-white), then there’s not much to even write about anymore. Everyone is all about how poetry can be anything now, which is cool, but I don’t think we’ve fully reacted to that yet in general, as a lot of older poetry was interesting to us when it seemed to be most outside of restrictions or typicalities. So Donne’s misogyny would never fly now, but it was commonplace back in the day, so when he had an instance when he seemed to regret his misogyny or respect women more that was very interesting and brilliant. Same thing for when people started to mess with form and informal word choices.

This is hugely oversimplified, but it is of course true that the fewer restrictions there are (and I now believe there are none at all on poetry) the fewer new and exciting things there are that can be readily done. So what about subjects? I guess by the poetical I mean the sort of anti-space that you often have to write out of. Usually you want to hear something a little new, or which does something slightly different or better to something else. This is always difficult amongst the vast amount of poetry that has been written. Poetry goes over the same grounds- e.g. love, death, mountains- a whole lot, and there’s a huge amount of anxiety over finding new space whenever you put out work. This has always been managed, and always will be managed, probably, as there are always new effects to generate and new things to write about, so there’s always something new to share.

But if we go back to the beginning with that idea and say that poetry is the sharing of a personal observation on the world, then one of the other fundamental things we want in that is for it to be new, of course. You wouldn’t want to say something too simple, or too obvious, or write a poem that has been done before. The question of inspiration also depends on writing about something that isn’t fully formed or fully apprehended by the poet yet. The act of writing the poem is very often a way to pin down a big concern, or to attempt to. That is, you have to not have all the facts. You don’t know why the mountain makes you feel like that and you can’t put it into words, you don’t quite know if that girl loves you or why or why not, or you have this very strong feeling about how your Christianity and your body are interlinked and you’re trying to share this very unique and beautiful thing. You can call the empty category which you have to write half out of, or write your way out of, even, the poetical.

Here’s the weird idea: if you need to not have all the facts to be in the poetical, is the poetical not dead in a modern age where we have a huge amount of facts coming at us all the time? Is it really possible to be so late in tradition that everything has basically been done?

I mean, imagine I want to write a poem. Nothing is stopping me at all, I can write whatever I want and keep it to myself. But if I want to write a poem that I want other people to value, and if I want that poem to be ‘good’, and I also have the internet and am literate (99% of modern poets are in this category) then the inevitable weight of the entire canon, and all facts, and all recorded emotion, is immediately available to me. How do I write about the stars when I have no excuse to not know everything about the stars, and what a star is, and that it is to do with hydrogen and elements and energy? How do I write about the stars where I have literally instant access to every good star poem ever written? If I want to record any personal emotion then that’s fine too- but, whether or not I choose to look at it, I have endless poems at my fingertips which are probably there first for any given feeling. This is probably a dumb view of the past, but I guess in the past that you’d have to go to a library or buy hugely expensive books if you wanted to know any shit about anything, and that would be the same for all recorded poetry, and there were maybe 50 or so great poets that could potentially weigh on you. Nowadays a whole lot more people are smart, and a lot of them write things like think pieces, and short pieces of prose, and all other sorts of things that record thoughts and feelings. There’s an embarrassment of riches, even a glut, of shared personal experiences, many of which are seeking to innovate in all sorts of formal ways, in methods of delivery and in linguistics.

Information is the enemy of the poetical, and we live in the tellingly dubbed ‘information age’, and maybe that’s why modern poetry can get so weird, why proper nouns feel so strange, why directness of emotion in modern poetry is so strange to us, as all the poetry before was more obscure and difficult because it was more poetical, sometimes deliberately difficult so as to force its own category of “poetry”, but this has now fallen out of fashion, so for all sorts of reasons modern poetry gets weird, especially to the student who has read lots of old poetry.

So that’s the first part, and it ends with that idea I had. At first it sounds like it makes sense, and it sounds like it makes sense because it basically plays a trick on you. I’ve set up a faux-formula between “information weight” and “poetry” and then I increase the amount of “information”, whatever that means, and likened that to a lot of features of modern poetry which I have begun by calling “weird”, so that for a second, in my mind and the readers, it flashes as a full and powerful thought, and seems correct and elegant.

Now of course it isn’t, not least because of the innumerable oversimplifications, and lack of actual reference to information or to modern poetry or theory. It would be so fucking stupid to apply the idea I’ve articulated to a whole modern age, or to apply it too strictly in any critical sense.

But that moment for which it seems true, or when it seems like there might be a nugget of truth in it, isn’t actually false. Of course its true that there’s some things that you now can’t do in poetry, that you don’t have excuses to not know without seeming quaint, and it’s true that as we move forward you can’t do things that you could do in the past, even though you can only ever read the past and never read the future. So tradition, traditionally poetical poetry, is in fact a weight on the modern author. And in that sense, thinking about information handling in modern poetry is valuable.

This is the angle that must be held in mind when you think about overbearing critical sentences. Let’s look at one from Paul Fussel:

“Lord Derby’s “scheme”- a genteel form of conscription- was promulgated, and at the beginning of 1916, with the passing of the Military Service Act, England began to train her first conscript army, an event which could be said to mark the beginning of the modern world.”

So... no, right? That’s stupid. How does that mark the beginning of the modern world? Whose modern world? A Western centric one? An anglo-centric one? Even then it was just one part of a much bigger picture. There are lots of things wrong with that line. But it’s also godlike, because of course, of course of course, it DOES mark the beginning of the modern world. How could it not? It’s the England which we think of as friendly FORCING people to go to war. It’s so unthinkable that it must be momentous, and must mark a point more than any other point where something absolute crazy, life changing and huge has occured. It’s ponderable. It makes you think about what it means to live when we live now, it drives home the idea that we live in an age which is partially a consequence of the various fallouts from an event in which the government of the country we live in had to force people who lived in it to be soldiers.

Let’s do another, because these sorts of things are very exciting to me.

“Most of our understanding of the will are Will’s, as it were, because Shakespeare invented the domain of those metaphors of willing that Freud named the drives of Love and Death.”

Fuck off. That’s just nonsense. The history of human understanding isn’t the consequence of two guys. Freud read Shakespeare but his reading was more various too. Shakespeare wrote popular plays first and foremost, etc. But of course, this is also very useful, and maybe even true- humans think as a consequence of the huge intertexts they sit in, and a lot of the intertext formation can be formed by two very influential writers. It makes us think about its own terms, the idea that the writer thinks that our spaces of thought are justifiably defined entirely by the authors who did that space of thought best. He does it so assertively we can think about why one might be so certain about that, why we might not be able to disagree if we wanted to.

Like the Fussel, this is something which is hard to apply apart from very sparingly, and very thoughtfully and carefully. Large studies tend to end with these sorts of declarations because they’re pieces of poetry, but the book is longer than one sentence, even if that’s the takeaway sentence, because not all of the value is held in that sentence. Still, it’s ponderable.

Ponderable is a golden world. We use it when we mean something which isn’t write, which oversteps its boundaries, but which leads in to other ideas, and which has some sort of truth near it. Ponderable is a big part of a lot of the best criticism that is really criticism and not just literary science or literary history. It might also be the best part.

Love,

Alex

#Poetics #theory #poetry #poetical #freud #fussel #war

2 notes · View notes

accuhunt · 5 years

Text

11 Incredible Experiences That’ll Make You Fall in Love with Uzbekistan.

Landing late evening in Uzbekistan (and Central Asia) for the first time, by myself, I was excited and apprehensive at the same time. When the airport taxi pulled into an old house, I found myself in a courtyard adorned with fig, apricot and persimmon trees. Even before I was shown to my room, my sweet 70-year-old hostess Gulnara, invited me for a cup of green tea and the sweetest melons I’ve ever had. Little by little, in broken English and Russian, she let me into her life, her childhood in Bukhara, the Soviet times and how Tashkent (the capital of Uzbekistan) has changed over the years. By the time I went to my room, I felt like I had arrived in an old friend’s house instead of a country unknown to me.

Guidebooks, travel blogs and most common wisdom suggests that Uzbekistan is all about its exquisite architecture. That to be amidst nature or experience a unique culture, one must travel to its neighbors Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan. To some extent, it’s true.

But over the course of my travels in Uzbekistan, partly solo, partly with fellow bloggers on assignment for USAID, I fell in love not just with Uzbekistan’s grand mosques, minarets and mausoleums, but also with its quaint mountain villages, ancient Sufi connection, old walnut orchards, fading Jewish history, bizarre Soviet influence, unique cuisine (even as a vegan) and most of all – the warm, welcoming, friendly locals.

The courtyard of my guesthouse – easily among the best places to stay in Tashkent <3

PIN this list of things to do in Uzbekistan to plan your trip later.

Some of you have asked me for an Uzbekistan travel guide, with specific ideas on what to do in Uzbekistan and my recommendations of places to visit in Uzbekistan. So behold, all my travel highlights that will make you fall in love with this country too:

1. Explore the old mohallas of Tashkent

Exploring the hidden old mohallas – a must do in Tashkent.

If I didn’t have to fly in to Tashkent, I probably would have skipped it, dismissing it as another soulless city. With its broad avenues, tree-lined walkways and busy streets, it feels like the Soviet influence has rubbed off on the capital. Yet turn into a small street and there are still old mohallas (traditional neighborhoods) with stone and mud houses (Tashkent literally means “stone place”) built around vine-covered courtyards, kids playing a game of marbles and curious faces eager to know what brings you to their country.

Tashkent walking tip: I discovered these mohallas thanks to the recommendations of my hosts in Tashkent. The old Tashkent walking trail on Caravanistan is lovely too.

Also read: Tajikistan: A Country That’s Not on Your Travel Radar But Should Be

2. Hike in search of 2000-year-old petroglyphs in the Nuratau Mountains

Uhum village in the Nuratau Mountains.

Along walnut orchards we hiked, past gushing streams carrying chilled water from the mountain spring, waving out to locals relaxing or toiling in their summer mud homes in the village of Uhum in Uzbekistan’s little visited Nuratau Mountains. Then we scrambled up rocks to see petroglyphs – images carved in rocks by our ancestors, depicting their animals, rituals and life – recently evaluated by archaeologists to be nearly 2000 years old. A rare glimpse into the fascinating history of humankind.

Nuratau Mountains Uzbekistan: I travelled to Uhum village in the Nuratau Mountains with Responsible Travel Uzbekistan, and highly recommend them.

Also read: What I Learnt Volunteering on a Remote Island in Cuba

3. Take in the grandeur of Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis in Samarkand at sunset

The exquisite beauty of Shah-i-zinda in Samarkand.

Although Registan is foremost on the list of “best things to do in Samarkand” and justifiably so, it was at the Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis (literally, the living king) that I felt the soul of Samarkand dwells. Between the 11th and 19th centuries, a series of exquisite, blue-tiled mausoleums with stunning ceilings were built here, including the tomb of a cousin of Prophet Mohammed. All afternoon, we watched worshippers and tourists alike, walk through the domes in awe, but at sunset, we found ourselves alone, with the grandeur all to ourselves, accentuated by the soft light of the setting sun.

Getting to Samarkand: Take the high speed bullet train from Tashkent to Samarkand and Bukhara, and make sure you book it atleast a few days in advance!

Also read: Why You Should Drop Everything and Travel to Iran Now!

4. Indulge in Uzbek food – even as a vegan / vegetarian

Gulkhanum – a twist to khanum, a traditional Uzbek dish that can be made vegan.

I was pretty apprehensive before I set out for Uzbekistan, for the only Uzbek vegan I found on Instagram recommended eating Georgian food in Tashkent! Travelling as a vegan in Uzbekistan was a mixed bag. Even though they grow and use many vegetables, meat – primarily sheep, cow and horse – is pretty much part of every dish. Yet I was lucky enough to try vegan versions of many traditional Uzbek dishes, including khanum (stuffed dumplings), pirashki (like the Indian poori), plov (rice with carrots, chickpeas and raisins), shashlik (coal grilled veggies), laghman (stretched handmade noodles), manti (pumpkin stuffed dumplings), samsa (like a puff stuffed with potato) and dimlama (boiled potato, carrot, beetroot, cabbage). I’ll be writing a detailed guide to vegan / vegetarian travel in Uzbekistan soon!

Vegan in Uzbekistan: Inform your homestay hosts in advance about your dietary preferences. Google translate works accurately for Russian, but not always for Uzbek. The rooftop restaurant at Boutique Hotel Minzifa in Bukhara was my favorite (and one of the few) vegan-friendly restaurants in Uzbekistan.

Also read: How to Travel as a Vegan and Find Delicious Food Anywhere in the World

Like this post? PIN it.

5. Experience Sufi mysticism at Naqshbandh Sufi shrine near Bukhara

The Naqshbandh Sufi Memorial Complex near Bukhara.

It took me a while to unearth the Sufi history of Uzbekistan, for like many of its neighbours, including Iran, there has been a backlash against Sufi mysticism in the country. Turns out though, present day Bukhara is the birthplace of the 14th century Sufi saint Bahauddin Naqshbandh Bukhari, founder of the revered Naqshbandhi Sufi order. A half hour drive from the old city of Bukhara sits the Naqshbandhi Memorial Complex, where believers come from across the country to pay homage to his shrine. In the golden light of sunset, I felt transported to another era as soulful Sufi chants filled the silence of the memorial.

Sufism in Uzbekistan: Shared taxis are easily available from the old city of Bukhara; late afternoons are a beautiful time to visit the Naqshbandhi Sufi Memorial Complex.

Also read: Travelling to Iran: Things to Know Before You Go

6. Ride the Tashkent metro – which doubles up as a nuclear bunker!

The ornate and somewhat bizarre metro stations of Tashkent.

Given the fancy cars that ply the modern streets of Tashkent, I didn’t buy the hype about the Tashkent Metro – until I actually went underground. After an earthquake destroyed Tashkent in 1966, the Soviet sent their best artists to design the Tashkent metro, which also doubles up as a nuclear bunker! Each metro station has its own theme; two of my favorite stations are Alisher Navoiy – named after the Uzbek poet who wrote the epic poem Laila Majnun in the 15th century (there’s some controversy about the author though), with dome-shaped ceilings and poetic illustrations on the walls – and Kosmonavtlar – which translates to cosmonauts, and is designed to represent the galaxy. Its tunnel walls are dedicated to famous Uzbek and Soviet cosmonauts, including the first Russian woman to go space.

Tashkent metro: Don’t just see and marvel at the metro stations, use them to get around the city. It’s easy, cheap, safe and super convenient, plus you’re bound to have some interesting conversations with local commuters. A ticket costs 1200 som (INR 10 / <10 $cents).

Also read: 9 Practical Tips to Save Money to Travel

7. Live with a rural Uzbek family in the Nuratau Mountains

My hostess in Uhum Village making khanum.

I always feel like I haven’t really experienced a culture until I’ve lived somewhere remote with a local family – and so it was in Uzbekistan. Luckily, I ended up discovering an idyllic little Uzbek paradise deep in the stark, barren Nuratau mountains. Like many local families in Uhum village, my hosts had a stone and wood summer house (and a second one in the village for winter), shaded by walnut trees atleast a 100 years old. I joined different members of the family to splash in the icy stream, collect wild mulberries, climb the barren mountains, hear local legends, relax in the tapchan under the stars and try potent homemade vodka. If there’s only one offbeat thing you do in Uzbekistan, pick this.

Uzbekistan homestays: I booked my homestay in Uhum village through community tourism based organisation Responsible Travel Uzbekistan, and absolutely loved the experience.

Also read: What the Village Folk of Kumaon Taught Me About Life

8. Find inner peace inside Hazrati Imom Jume Masjidi in Tashkent

Inner peace at the Friday mosque at Khast Imam, Tashkent.

The magnificent 16th century Khast Imam Ensemble makes it to all the ‘best things to do in Tashkent’ lists, but people seldom talk about the interiors of Hazrati Imom Jume Masjidi (the Friday mosque). Watching people pray amid the whitewashed walls, under the intricate ceilings, as sunlight poured in through the domed windows, filled me with an indescribably intense feeling of peace. I can’t think of a better way to spend sweltering hot Tashkent afternoons.

Khast Imam Tashkent: There are separate praying areas for men and women in the big hall, but you can walk around freely and take photos. Women are not required to cover their heads!

Also read: Land of a Thousand Friends

9. Witness the magic of Bukhara at sunrise

Bukhara at sunrise – devoid of shops, people and heat.

Bukhara and I didn’t get off to a good start. Arriving from the Nuratau mountains, the intense heat (like Delhi in the peak of summer) and swarms of tourists were a shock to the senses. Luckily, I managed to drag myself out of bed at sunrise, to find that the weather was cooler and souvenir shops and selfie snapping tourists hadn’t yet occupied the streets. The bustling 16th century lyab-i hauz – with once functioning madrasahs (schools) and a khanaka (a resting place for wandering Sufi dervishes), the magnificent 12th century Kalon Minaret so impressive that it was spared even by Genghis Khan’s rage and the many centuries-old mosques were just waking up from slumber. Locals cycled past the Silk Route trading domes with their morning bread, women in beautiful traditional dresses came to pray at the mosque. The old city of Bukhara (locally written Buxoro) is a living breathing testimony to our glorious and gruesome past – best witnessed in the solitude of sunrise.

Bukhara sunrise walk: Walk from Lyab-i Hauz to the Kalon Minaret, and further along the trading domes to the Abdullazizkhan Madrassa, a great spot for early morning people-watching!

Also read: Reflections on Life, Travel and Turning 29

10. Experience Tashkent life at a family-run guesthouse

My hostess at Gulnara guesthouse in Tashkent.

Staying with a friendly Uzbek family at Gulnara Guesthouse immediately gave me a sense of belonging in Uzbekistan. I spent delightful mornings having breakfast on a tapchan (traditional lounge seating) under the shade of persimmon trees, chatting with my 70-year-old hostess who told her family that I only eat melon (because that and bread/homemade apricot jam were the only vegan options ). Her sons gave me plenty of suggestions to explore the city beyond the Chorsu bazaar.

Where to stay in Tashkent: If a guesthouse doesn’t sound like your thing, consider staying at Hotel Uzbekistan, with its striking Soviet design and central location opposite Amir Temur Square.

Not on booking.com yet? Sign up with my referral to get 10$ off your first booking.

11. Dine in the summer room of a 19th century Jewish trading merchant in Bukhara

The courtyard at Ayvan restaurant in Bukhara.

I landed up, by pure serendipity, at a 16th century Jewish synagogue in Bukhara – and learnt about the opulent 133-year-old house of a Jewish merchant, now refurbished as Lyabi House Hotel and Ayvan restaurant. During the Soviet era, it was bought over by a Tajik merchant, then passed into the hands of the government, became a kindergaten for kids, a communal home and finally a hotel. The extravagant summer dining room has recently been opened up to the public as a restaurant – strikingly ornate, adorned with artefacts, with a charming outdoor courtyard.

Bukhara where to eat: Ayvan only opens for dinner and seating is limited; make a reservation. Vegan options are limited to soup, stew, salad and vegetable kebabs.

PIN me!

Do you plan to travel to Uzbekistan in the near future? What else would you like to read about Uzbekistan on my blog? Tell me in the comments.

*Note: This trip was made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Competitiveness, Trade, and Jobs Activity in Central Asia. The contents of this post are my sole responsibility and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the US Government.

Join my adventures around the world on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Order a copy of my bestselling book, The Shooting Star.

11 Incredible Experiences That’ll Make You Fall in Love with Uzbekistan.

Tajikistan: A Country That’s Not on Your Travel Radar but Should Be.

Why You Should Drop Everything and Travel to Iran Now!

The Epic Land Journey from Thailand to India via Myanmar.

11 Incredible Experiences That’ll Make You Fall in Love with Uzbekistan. published first on https://airriflelab.tumblr.com

0 notes

angelonground12 · 5 years

Text

Ten Interesting Russian Fiction Novels

"The Time: Night," by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya: This intense and powerful story is presented as a diary or journal found after the death of Anna Andrianovna, detailing her increasingly grim and desperate struggle to hold her family together and support them despite their incompetence, ignorance, and lack of ambition. This is a story of modern Russia that starts off depressing and gets worse from there, but along the way illuminates some fundamental truths about family and self-sacrifice (https://www.thoughtco.com/best-works-russian-literature-4158120).

"The Slynx," by Tatyana Tolstaya : Tolstaya’s epic work of science fiction is set in the future after “The Blast” destroyed nearly everything — and turned a small number of survivors into immortals who are the only ones who remember the world before. It’s a fascinating and powerful work of ideas that illuminates not just how Russians see the future — but how they see the present (https://www.thoughtco.com/best-works-russian-literature-4158120).

The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov: One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/117833.The_Master_and_Margarita).

"Lolita," by Vladimir Nabokov: Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7604.Lolita).

"The Brothers Karamazov," by Fyodor Dostoevsky: The argument over which novel is Dostoevsky’s greatest can stretch out to insane lengths, but "The Brothers Karamazov" is always in the running. Is it complicated? Yes, there are a lot of threads and subtle connections in this sprawling tale of murder and lust, but ... it’s a tale of murder and lust. It’s a lot of fun, which often gets forgotten when people discuss the amazing way Dostoevsky combines philosophical themes with some of the best-drawn characters ever put to the page (https://www.thoughtco.com/best-works-russian-literature-4158120).

"Crime and Punishment," Fyodor Dostoevsky: Dostoevsky set out to explore what he saw as the inherent brutality of Russia, telling the story of a man who commits murder simply because he believes it to be his destiny — then slowly goes mad from guilt. More than a century later, it’s still a powerful reading experience (https://www.thoughtco.com/best-works-russian-literature-4158120).

"The Dream Life of Sukhanov," by Olga Grushin: Grushin’s novel doesn’t get the same attention as, say, "1984," but it’s just as horrifying in the way it outlines what it’s like to live in a dystopian dictatorship. Sukhanov, once a rising artist, gives up his ambitions in order to toe the Communist Party line and survive. In 1985, an old man who has achieved survival via invisibility and strict adherence to the rules, his life is an empty shell devoid of meaning — a ghostly existence where he cannot recall anyone’s name because it simply doesn’t matter. (https://www.thoughtco.com/best-works-russian-literature-4158120).

"Fathers and Sons," by Ivan Turgenev: Like many works of Russian literature, Turgenev’s novel is concerned with the changing times in Russia, and the widening generational divide between, yes, fathers and sons. It’s also the book that brought the concept of nihilism to the forefront, as it traces the younger characters’ journey from a knee jerk rejection of traditional morals and religious concepts to a more mature consideration of their possible value. (https://www.thoughtco.com/best-works-russian-literature-4158120).

"Eugene Onegin," by Aleksandr Pushkin: Really a poem, but a remarkably complex and lengthy poem, "Eugene Onegin" offers a bleak view of how society produces monsters by rewarding cruelty and selfishness. While the complicated rhyme scheme (and the fact that it’s a poem at all) might be initially off-putting, Pushkin masterfully pulls it off. If you give the story half a chance, you quickly forget about the formal oddities and get sucked into the story of a bored aristocrat in the early 19th century whose self-absorption causes him to lose out on the love of his life. (https://www.thoughtco.com/best-works-russian-literature-4158120).

And Quiet Flows the Don, by Mikhail Sholokhov: And Quiet Flows the Don or Quietly Flows the Don is 4-volume epic novel by Russian writer Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov. The 1st three volumes were written from 1925 to '32 & published in the Soviet magazine October in 1928–32. The 4th volume was finished in 1940. The English translation of the 1st three volumes appeared under this title in 1934. The novel is considered one of the most significant works of Russian literature in the 20th century. It depicts the lives & struggles of Don Cossacks during WWI, the Russian Revolution & Russian Civil War. In 1965, Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for this novel. The authorship of the novel is contested by some literary critics & historians, who believe it wasn't entirely written by Sholokhov.(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78024.And_Quiet_Flows_the_Don)

0 notes