In better times he had also offered sessions on a 'bee-bed', atop the hives, the gentle vibrations of the bees abuzz underneath calming and providing some health benefits. Her translation of Yoko Tawada’s novel Paul Celan and the Transtibetan Angel is forthcoming in 2023 from New Directions. And even bees, he learns, can be made into weapons of war, such as ‘ the Colorado potato beetle, which the Americans had sent to undermine the Soviet Union’ (which is a fascinating story of the Cold War worth reading about).

Sergeyich’s ‘peacetime silence’ soon converts to his ‘wartime silence’ as he becomes accustomed to the distant shelling (its sudden disappearance turning the atmosphere heavy instead of light).Silence, of course, is an arbitrary thing, a personal aural phenomenon that people adjust for themselves. Eigentlich ist es nicht nur ein Roman, sondern auch ganz viel Sachbuch über einen bewaffneten Konflikt nicht weit vor unserer Haustür, über die Mentalität der Ukrainer, Russen und Tataren und über die Frage, wie wichtig Heimatverbundenheit ist in einer Zeit, die die Menschen immer wieder entwurzelt. Grey Bees is a gentle, sometimes ambivalent book about a conflict that had its share of moral complexity. Eine geradenach kineastisches Szene, in der sich Sergej von dem Schmutz reinigt, der vom Kontakt mit Staatsmacht hängenbleibt.

But now looking at the news, I’m not even sure whether the grey zone is still there or the Russian troops have moved in.

Sergeyich's experiences over the course of the novel are mostly of the fairly simple sort, and Kurkov wisely stays mostly away from the overtly political . Gerade für eine Person wie mich, die sich nie zuvor mit der Ukraine beschäftigt hat und diesen Krieg, der nun in der gesamten Ukraine herrscht, überhaupt nicht versteht, war dieser Roman genau die richtige Lektüre. Megzörgeti a kerítést, hogy jó napot, szépöcsém, itt vagyok, nyomatékul pedig küld egy tüzérségi aknát a templomtoronyba. Kurkov’s translator, Boris Dralyuk, renders the warmth of Sergey’s inner voice from the original Russian without letting the earnestness creep into the saccharine . Sergej Sergejitsch lebt im Donbass, in einem kleinen Dorf in der sogenannten Grauen Zone, im Kampfgebiet zwischen der ukrainischen Armee und prorussischen Separatisten.

As the weather begins to change, Sergeyich decides to take his bees away from the sounds of the war (even though these have for himself by now become part of the norm, ‘fused into [his] silence’) and travels first to Ukrainian territory and later to Russia occupied Crimea where he looks up a Tatar whom he had met at a beekeeper’s conference years ago. It is not a book about the war as per se; it is a book about those souls affected the madness of the war and misinterpretation of the history as a foundation for human rights violations. Take, for example, the beeswax candles he sells to a church and later reclaims from its bombed-out ruins. No one shot at the enemy from his yard, his windows, his fence, which meant his home had no enemies. He is one of the greatest introvert characters, a beautiful, solitary, and sensitive soul, living in accordance with the surrounding natural world and its changing seasons.Only in his dreams does he catch glimpses of peace, as in one in which his frenemy shows up to let him know the war is over. When Sergeyich tells a woman in Crimea that the Tatars have long been in the region she spouts propaganda yelling ‘ This land's been Russian Orthodox since time immemorial…When Putin was here, he told the whole story -- this is sacred Russian land,’ as if forgetting that mere months ago it was Ukrainian territory.

Just skimming your review of this for now as I have a copy of the book to read and would rather not know too much about it beforehand. Dubious female characters in this one, but apart from that: a wonderful book, I recommend you read it. Grey Bees, although grounded deeply in the disturbing reality of war, sometimes has the feeling of a fable. miközben egyik ellenőrzőponttól megy a másikig, megjárván az ukrán országrészt éppúgy, mint a Krímet, egyre inkább megérti, mit is jelent az "orosz rend".Sergeyich, on the other hands, befriends the Ukrainian soldier who helps him out by charging his phone and throughout the novel they both check on each other with simple text: Alive? In spare prose, Ukraine's most famous novelist unsparingly examines the inhuman confusions of our modern times and the longing of the warm-hearted everyman that is Sergeyich for the rationality of the natural world.