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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Although it felt somewhat contrived and overdramatized, I think this chapter was inevitable.  Somehow, we had to witness the shift from the frozen and uptight Sophie that said “Oh really?” to a woman composed of courage and passion.  Even on the newspaper, she was unable to stand up for what she believed in or express any anger, she just sort of rolled over.  The only roles that she had found before were the roles of seeker and victim.

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Work

Yarostan’s Fifth letter is a strong argument against the institution of work. It is a criticism of the role of the knowledge worker in particular, and predates a body of work around these topics while maintaining a human touch around the topic. Bob Black (in)famously wrote an essay (which was also a presentation as provocation) called “The Abolition of Work.” While the author (and other people with a certain kind of fixation) might take the article as a literal argument against work, its real power is in asking orthogonal questions about the nature of labor and the project of Marxists who valorize labor itself, beyond any recognition of the (cough) use-value of the product of labor. The pro-work ideology is to assume work first of all – before the product of the work, before the worker, and before the impact (environmental, social, psychological, etc.) of that work. And the reactions to “The Abolition of Work” gave this thesis more energy than it probably should have had.

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She says “potato”.  He spells “p-o-t-a-t-o”.

Adrian lives to be Vera’s left-hand man. He is best friend, puppy dog and creepy stalker guy all rolled up in one package.

When he is on good terms with Vera, he is good at taking her theories and crunching the numbers to prove them.

When he is not on good terms with Vera, he really has nothing at all to say or do. He is worthless and is merely waiting to serve her again.

Ted is the strong and silent type. He is especially quiet while stealing cars.

Ron met Ted in lock-up. Ron considered him a great philosopher, although he is generally more thoughtful than wordy.  He and Ron went into business together and Ted became a pro, literally, at stealing cars.

He has an unusual and complicated relationship with many of the females at the garage, but everyone who knows him has a deep level of trust in him.

This chapter was my first introduction to the book, brought in as an excerpt to an anarchist reading group. I read this letter that time without any real context to the rest of the story. I remember not really understanding why the people in the garage – Sophia especially – were having such dramatic responses. I might make a similar critique even upon this read, and I’ll expand later on that.

Although some of this letter recounts present-day events, most of it is a recollection of a time eleven years prior, in the garage where Sabina and Tina were living. There are two points I want to make in regard to Sophia’s present-day description before delving into the meaty substance of the garage days.

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We are past the intensely critical part of the novel and are now moving onto the great descriptive portion. Letter Four is about a carton factory, a university occupation and all of the characters in Yarostan & Sophia’s lives. It is about the specific nature of peoples’ behavior and how the consequences ripple out over time and into lives.

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Lately, I have been reading books about happiness and money. I suppose that I would classify them as self-help books, but they are less pop psychology and more of a cross-section of case studies and personal experience. In many cases, the topic of these books is a person’s “rebirth” when they wake up from chasing a material oriented life.

These are generally pretty wealthy people, but one thing stands true, money really never does make anyone happier. In many of the cases, it takes some moment of awakening in which they realize that they must reprioritize.

It is sort of funny to see this theme pop up in Letters. Of course, Yarostan and Mirna do not take their pursuit of material possessions very far and they are not wealthy. A pair of curtains, a bedspread and a baby carriage with a couple of swanky outfits do not exactly make them big spenders.

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He has money and titles, and Vera likes it.

Professor Kren shows up in a limousine and a sleek black suit to teach about the transformation of society. Vera used to laugh that he was the only revolutionary with servants. Then, she started to like it. She became his most devoted student and his lover.

He became the head of the state run bank and eventually, she started to use his power. She became rector of the university and got him to pull strings with  prison officials for her benefit.

-Image from flequi on Flickr, shared via creative commons, non commercial, no derivative works -

In Sophia’s 4th letter we see that the letters between the two are beginning to concretely alter Sophia’s perspectives. In Yarostan’s 5th letter we see the change in him as well. His tone softens somewhat and he mentions “critical appreciation,” telling Sophia that he sees these letters as an expression of friendship and not an attack.
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