Rumors of Delirium

In the early 1980s Ritva, newly arrived from Finland where she had trained as a pharmacist, appeared at my pottery studio in New York. She was looking for a place to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a ceramic artist. One of my first students, she was a testament to the Chinese proverb: Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself. As soon as I opened the door, she was off and running…and quickly left me in the dust.

After graduating from student to apprentice to studio manager while I took time out with my newborn daughter, she moved to Houston, Texas. There, she received her MFA in ceramics and made a name for herself as an artist.

Then, I left New York and she returned to Finland, and for a decade we lost track of each other.

Last March, as I was planning a summer vacation in Ireland, she phoned–out of the blue–and invited me to visit her in Lappeenranta, where she has a studio and a lovely though tiny apartment.

Here are some photos I took of our reunion.

A feast…on Ritva’s handmade ware

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In both All Quiet on the Western Front and Dr. Zhivago rowanberries bear symbolic importance. They grow in cool climates in the Northern Hemisphere and figure in myth and folklore as having magical power. Druids made magicians’ staffs from rowan wood. The plant was believed to protect one from enchantment, physical harm, and haunting by ghosts.

Remarque and Pasternak contrast these red berries with snow, juxtaposing the beauty of nature with the horror of war. And yet, the berries resemble drops of blood, evoking a hint of nature’s cruelty.

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The book club met last week to discuss three short stories by Gogol: “The Nose,” “Diary of a Madman,” and “The Overcoat.” Olga helped by explaining the political and historical background of 19th century Russia, which boils down to: serfs, a strong liberal, Enlightenment attitude among intellectuals, heavy censorship, an ossified civil service where rank was everything. She also talked about Gogol as a stylist in the original Russian. His descriptions are vivid and painterly.

I especially liked the mixture of social satire, psychological insight, and sheer madness. The phantasmagorical world issues suddenly out of the most mundane situations.

That said, Gogol did not appeal to all. You have to have a taste for irony and a delight in lunacy to enjoy these stories. I liked them better than I expected. I’d remembered “The Overcoat” as a dismal, sad story of a lower-ranking and meek civil servant. It was that, yet there were great humorous moments and the ending was an amazing flight of fantasy.

Van Gogh’s paintings come to mind when reading Gogol.