Pedalling Poland

Pedalling Poland by Bernard Newman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was motivated to read this book when I learned it has been recently published in Poland.
Firstly I found the idea strange - to publish a sort of cyclist's memories some 90 years after they have been originally published.
The second reservation was - memories from cycling trip.
My own experience says, that it cannot avoid frequent references to condition of the roads and some details of cycling effort.
That's correct - I would say it takes some 20% of the book.
What remains?
Many, many scenes from the world which no longer exists.
Poland between world wars was a strange country.
It has been created at the conference table in Versailles after 123 years of non-existence. Politicians who created it, had to consider interests of many countries and a very volatile political climate. In the effect, Poland had a very irregular shape and included few areas boiling with political conflicts.
Effect on the book - we read quite a number of stories from a very volatile world, which was doomed for disappearance and which disappeared.
Here I give credit to the author for being an honest and compassionate judge.
On the other side - personally I do not find such scenes enriching, after reading them I felt rather empty.
Important point - the author is quite optimistic about the future of Nazism. He acknowledges economic progress it brought to Germany and is absolutely sure that in years to come, this orderly and hard working nation will turn it in a good way.
How wrong!
In the last scenes of the book, the author visits a site of a battle of Tannenberg - a massacre of Russian Army in early stages of WWI. Nazis build there a gigantic memorial glorifying the victors and it looks like the author was strongly and positively impressed by it.
I found it very disappointing.

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Music you can live without

Basically I am quite sceptical about opinion polls.
ABC/Classic's 100 countdown is an exception.
Reason is very simple - it does not promote any consumables nor any actions. Just music.

This year though it stirred some negative emotions - just the title - Music you can't live without .

It brought to my imagination an image of a young, visibly overweight person, pushing forcefully a monstrous sandwich into his/her mouth and gasping - I am starving. 

The point is that we can live without music as this person would not starve without this sandwich.

This title I interpreted as an outcome of self-centered universe ruled by enormously inflated I.

 I expected ABC/Classic to avoid this trap. I was wrong.

The results are:
1. Beethoven - Piano Concerto No 5.
2. Beethoven - Symphony No 9.
3. Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending.
4. Vivaldi -The four Seasons.
5. Elgar - Enigma Variations.

Piano Concerto No 5 - I agree.

In my young years my musical experiences were limited to weekly concerts of Warsaw Philharmonic and the program of Polish Radio.
Somehow I got a number of chances to listen, on radio and live, to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4, but Number 5 - never.
I was already in my mid-twenties when it came on me,  unexpectedly, just part 1 - Allegro.
The impact was paralyzing, probably one of most memorable in my life...
But the piece ended, over 50 years ago, and I am still alive.

So to stay alive on a lighter note I recommend a quiz available on ABC/Classic website

Can you recognize a classical piece after hearing just the first note?

A link to Beethoven - HERE

To J.S. Bach - HERE.

I got some reasons for satisfaction...

At the end  - my choice - Opening chorus from J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion.
I specifically selected performers dressed suitably for our current weather.

Dance, dance, dance

Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

No story about a non-person.
Emptiness interrupted by some memories from swimming club in ancient Egypt and blind wandering in darkness., maybe something more, but it is really irrelevant.
I had a break after some 20 pages, when I realized that a main character is a non-person.
Due to lockdown I could not return book to the library nor borrow another one, so I gave it another chance, but it was too hard.
Looking at gray skies is more exciting.
After all this effort, one question still remains - what Jack's London book was the main character reading?

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