READ
A rebellious
teenaged prodigy studying piano at an authoritarian school for the musically-gifted
in communist Bulgaria – what could possibly go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out,
and fifteen-year-old Konstantin learns some hard life lessons in Nikolai Grozni’s
semiautobiographical novel Wunderkind.
Konstantin’s
passion for playing the works of Frédéric Chopin is matched only by
his enthusiasm for having sex with the girls in his school, especially the
brilliant violinist Irina. He and Irina challenge each other to increasingly precarious
dares, like when Irina bets that her performance of Sergei Rachmaninov’s “Vocalise”
will make Konstantin cry. If she fails, she will have to walk naked through the
entire school, but if she is successful, he will have to take off his pants and
enter his classroom through the window, which entails walking along a narrow
ledge on the outside of the building, five stories up.
It seems
that Konstantin is always running afoul of someone or another in the
autocratic administration or on the faculty of the Sofia Music School for the Gifted. He
also has a bad relationship with his parents, of whom he says, “They seemed
unable to understand that I couldn’t be both a genius and an average kid who
went to school and brought home straight A’s; that my tendency to sabotage my
own achievements was perhaps a direct consequence of being born with a gift.” The
only adults who appear to be always on his side are his piano teacher, whom the
students refer to as “Ladybug,” and his mysterious Uncle Iliya, who appears
from time to time to tell Konstantin about the decades he spent in
concentration camps.
Konstantin’s
closest friends at the school tend to be rebels and troublemakers, just as he
is, and one by one, they are expelled from the school. When that happens, these
young people, who were always considered to be special, find that their musical
talents have no value for them without the school’s backing, and they are just
average Bulgarians with no high school diploma and limited options for their future .
One thing I
loved about this book is that each chapter is titled with the name of a musical
composition, usually, but not always, by Chopin. Someday, I want to reread this
book while listening to the masterpieces that illuminate each chapter.
COOK
Food didn’t play a big role in this book, although I thought briefly about making borscht, a beet soup that Konstantin’s piano teacher’s sister was preparing for dinner one night during Konstantin's piano lesson. Standing over the stove making soup during this hot Sacramento summer just didn’t sound appealing, however, so I decided to make a cold dish instead.
Tarator is a
cold cucumber soup, which is popular in Bulgaria during the summer. I used a
recipe from a website called Gourmed featuring recipes from the Mediterranean
region. The only substitution I had to make to veganize the recipe was to use
vegan yogurt. The soup turned out really well and was very refreshing.
GIVE
The
GlobalGiving website lists numerous projects needing donations in Bulgaria.
The one I chose is a project of the Trotoara Foundation, which seeks to open a
youth center in Sofia to provide at-risk youth with a creative space where they
can participate in activities that involve music, arts, and crafts.
The project
coordinators hope that by “[f]ocusing on
creativity and personal empowerment, our pedagogical approach can help raise a
new generation with the ambition to set challenging goals in life. By helping
children obtain new abilities and knowledge, complementary to what is taught at
school, we can foster self-esteem and a belief in one's own abilities.”
That soup looks so good today. Thanks for the post!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anne! It was pretty good, although I think the yogurt was a little too sweet, which I wasn't expecting. Guess I'll have to check the sugar content on the label the next time I need vegan yogurt for a recipe.
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