History Lessons and Literature

History Lessons and Literature

By: Erreh Svaia

“History repeats ... first as tragedy, then as farce."

Karl Marx

One of my lifetime ambitions is to write a book, I still don't know when, some would say that you will never know when, it is just going to happen when least expected, I have plenty of excuses these days, little free time, my regular job, family time and the little time I got left I decidedly dedicate it to reading and writing; As some of you may know, history and geopolitics are two of my obsessions, all that happened before us and all that is happening around us, obsess me, and perhaps that combination of past and present is accurately what I think at certain point will help me put something together in a literary way, What kind of book I would like to write? Well I'm still not totally decided, but I can tell you that lately I have been finding certain common themes on the books that interest me as a reader; History and how it connects with the present and a possible future, surely the futuristic part comes from my love of dystopian novels, like 1984 by the great genius George Orwell, and Brave New World by another great, Aldous Huxley.

But to be true, if I ever get close to full filing my dream, and reach that goal, I bet you the result would not come too far removed from these following books I'm going to tell you about, if I ever decide to write

World War Z, yes, it was a kind of fantasy book, belonging to the Zombie brand, yes, forget about the movi, as it was a deplorable Hollywood artifact, but I felt excited by the way Max Brooks, yes the son of the great Mel Brooks, managed to join history, geopolitic and fantasy in a superb way, in WWZ you get your typical dose of Zombie mythology, but you also get the chance to review, thanks to Brooks talent, in a twisted way about the world of  geopolitics, about China's control over information, about North Korea hermit kingdom's brutality working as a fast lethal weapon, about Israel walls working in favor of humanity, the once atheist Russia becoming the Holy Russian Empire, democracy static working against us, and finally, in a brilliant twisted way, how Apartheid in South Africa could hold the key to the zombie crisis, maniac geopolitical fun gor everyone!

Another inspiring book for me would be The Day of the Oprichnik, by another great writer, Vladimir Sorokin, a man literally putting his life at risk while writing about Russia's actual totalitarian system in construction by Putin; Day of the Oprichnik tells the tale of one day, like in Solzhenitzyn's A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, in the life of an Oprichnik, a state agent, part of Russia's ruthless state services, performing brutal acts against those who oppose the supreme leader of this dystopian state, while being part in bizarre rituals within Russia's circle of power.

The third inspiring book I just recently read is Look Who's Back, by German satiric writer Timur Vermes, a book that depicts the return of the real Hitler in today's world, I see it as an apology of what is going on this day with nationalist leaders who use populism to seize power and instigate hate between people, they might be full of cool "punch lines" and have an instant appeal to a angry people, and is an scary reflection on how something that might habe started as a joke can end up becoming a big tragedy, Vermes gets an important idea rolling out here, uses history, transports it to our present day and creates a mirror for humans to see and reflect

So, I have many ideas similar to those ones in my mind, use history and play with the present, yes, that's what I want to do one day.