From Leo Tolstoy to Yonehara Mari

This late afternoon at the Coffee Bean outlet of T.B. Plaza, I finished reading The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. I can’t say I was able to understand the works on soldiers’ life well enough as probably happens with many Japanese people of the post-war generation and started 「オリガ・モリソヴナの反語法」 by Yonehara Mari  right there.  I should thank an engineer with whom I have worked with for six weeks for rekindling my interest in things Russian though he himself is not Russian but from Belarus.

Though for so long my Russian has been stuck on the level of “спасибо,” “пожалуйста,” and “хорошо,” it was “очень хорошо” to work with him, who also enjoyed his initiation to Japanese chicken “шашлык.” He even tried and liked raw chicken liver!