I read Letters of Insurgents as a great work on how to do criticism: a humane story about two sharp people cutting each other to size in appropriate, if harsh and perhaps mean-at-times, ways. This criticism ranges far beyond the tome of Letters of Insurgents or the dynamics between two writers on either side of the Berlin Wall. Each of us is confronted with a great isolation in modern society that we are unable to speak to or from due to lack of tools, models, or closeness to others. The critical model provided by Letters of Insurgents has been personally influential in its demonstration of each of these elements. In the first few weeks the focus was on criticism (by which I also mean closeness). Now we are discussing the tools and models by which we could break down the colossus of the existing order.

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Most people that I have been hearing from are annoyed at Mirna. They say she appears wildly insane. She makes no sense at all. Her arguments rely on intuition, mysticism and fate. And probably most importantly, she attributes great significance to unintended consequences.

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The letters exchanged this time coincide with massive social activity in both countries. Zdenek’s factory is on strike as well as Yara’s school, and even Mirna’s conservative factory is starting to experience the murmurings of a possible uprising. In Sophia’s world, the local university has been occupied by students and workers and is serving as a hub for organizing strikes in neighboring factories. There is an air of excitement with most of the main contemporary characters, with Mirna and Luisa perhaps the only sour grapes of the bunch.

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