I cut down the peonies this afternoon. However another job was needed: the re-writing of their labels. This task reminded me of an episode in Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - in a Soviet prison camp.'Shukhov remembered he wanted to have the numbers on his jacket touched up. ... They spelled nothing but trouble, those numbers: if they were distinct the guards could identify you from a distance, but if you neglected to have them repainted in time you'd be sure to land in the lock-up for not taking care of your number. [One of the camp artists] touched up the S 854 on Shukhov's jacket.'
Well, the names on the plant labels wear off too, from sunshine and rain so they need touching up every few years.
3 comments:
I tend to read One Day in the Life when it's either too hot or too cold. Works evey time. Puts me off fish soup, too…
Happy Birthday, by the way…
Thanks for that Adrian.
I'm really impressed that you re-read novels, as I very rarely do that.
I'm currently reading Vasily Grossman's 'Life and Fate', following the wonderful BBC Radio 4 week of "episodes" from this 800 page Russian masterpiece (leads Branagh, Tennant and Sussman helped, obviously).
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