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Los Angeles Times
03-06-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Fake brides have their own agenda in Ukraine native's heart-stopping ‘Endling'
Maria Reva creates beautiful, purposeful chaos. Informed by deep personal loss, her startling metafictional debut novel, 'Endling,' is a forceful mashup of storytelling modes that call attention to its interplay of reality and fiction — a Ukrainian tragicomedy of errors colliding with social commentary about the Russian invasion. A poorly planned crime serves as the anchor. 'Endling' throws three strangers involved with Ukraine's for-profit international matchmaking market together for a quixotic kidnapping caper in a nation on the brink of war. There's a twisted, postmodern 'Canterbury Tales'-like quality to these proceedings: Like medieval pilgrims, its central characters are each on a journey they hope will change their lives. And everyone is suffering some level of delusion. If 'Endling' has a main character, it's the woman whose mission is to save the nation's endangered snails; another key player is a lone wolf terrorist who hopes her political orchestrations will spark a family reunion. Then there's the lonely, disaffected expatriate bachelor on the hunt for a quiet, traditional wife. Through their perspectives, black humor flows freely, as the motivations and experiences that brought this motley crew together rise to the surface. Context is crucial in 'Endling.' These characters cross paths early in 2022, when mass violence threatens to overwhelm every other concern. But despite the amassing of Russian troops on the border, the military invasion of Ukraine seems so surreal that no one knows what to believe or how much to fear. So these quests march on even as the crack of explosions grows louder. The stories that emerge about our three key players are evocative, provocative and absurd — a contrast to looming darkness. Between those narratives, there are commentaries about the history and politics of Ukraine and on publishing and writing about Ukraine, plus the author's family and its plight at the time of the book's writing. As Reva, a native of Ukraine, writes in an early, epistolary section, in response to a magazine editor's critique of the irreverence of her solicited essay about the war: 'You'd asked for the type of reporting/response that would differ from that of a non-Ukrainian. In Ukraine, dark humor dates back to the Soviet days, giving people who live in uncontrollable circumstances a sense of power. If you can laugh about a dark reality, you rise above it, etc.' No story better exemplifies that ethos than that of the teenage fake bride turned kidnapper who aches for her mother. Young, beautiful Nastia (a.k.a. Anastasia) — just 18 years old and six months past high school graduation — brings the group together. Ostensibly to stop the exploitation of women, this daughter of a fierce feminist activist who has long protested the tourist marriage market resolves to make an unforgettable public statement by kidnapping 100 male clients of the matchmaking service 'Romeo and Yulia' at the start of one of its romance tours. Though the stunt is nominally aimed at exposing and ending degrading matchmaking practices, what Nastia really yearns for is her missing parent's attention. When Nastia decides that a mobile trailer van in the guise of an escape room would be the perfect means of the men's abduction, she begs Yeva, a fellow bride in possession of an RV, to rent it to her. Like Nastia, Yeva is a 'bride' with an agenda. A scientist who's lost her grant funding, Yeva uses the marriage mart grift to sustain her life's work. Her story exemplifies the mercenary nature of the international marriage market. While Romeo and Yulia's 'brides,' as the women are called, aren't paid a salary, they regularly receive gifts from suitors. In exchange for allowing the agency to use her as 'shimmering bait' on the website, women like Yeva 'could also return tour after tour and, without bending any rules, make decent money. In fact, the agency endorsed the practice: any gifts ordered by bachelors through the agency — gym membership, cooking class, customizable charm bracelet — could be redeemed by the brides for cash from the agency office.' Yeva's story gives the novel a melancholy moral center. And it's from Yeva's quest that the book derives its title: An 'endling' is the last individual in a dying species, the kind she is dedicated to protecting. After losing access to institutional support, Yeva equipped the trailer as a roaming laboratory and storage site where (at the peak) she sustained over 270 species of rare gastropods. Though she prefers mollusks to men, it's Yeva who insists on reducing the kidnapping target from 100 to 12, a number that the trailer could humanely accommodate. Pasha, one of the men Nastia lures to the trailer, has his own ambitions. Born in Ukraine and raised in Canada, Pasha's secret is that he doesn't plan to return to the West with his bride like the other clients. Instead, he fantasizes about resettling in the Ukraine and forging a life that might command the respect he craves from his parents. Pasha is the sympathetic face of Western men beguiled by nostalgia for 'traditional' wives unsullied by feminism and high expectations. His motives are sincere even if his relationship with women and his family might be better served through therapy. 'Endling' isn't an easy read, but it is brilliant and heart-stopping. Authorial interludes can feel like interruptions, but by breaking the fourth wall, Reva forces us to pay attention to the ongoing devastation behind the narrative while unpacking the compromises of storytelling. Plus, Yeva, Nastia and Pasha and the merchants of romance spin their own fictions: They have trouble telling the difference between truth and make-believe even as the sounds of war grow near and even when bullets penetrate flesh. This building up and breaking down of artifice forces reflection on how we use fiction to explore and bend reality while undermining the comforts of distance. As the author confesses, 'I need to keep fact and fiction straight, but they keep blurring together.' Bell is a critic and media researcher exploring culture, politics and identity in art.
Scotsman
31-05-2025
- Scotsman
Refugee Tales: Why stories of indefinite detention in UK should shock us all
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... This summer, 'Refugee Tales' marks its tenth anniversary. Described as a 'walk in solidarity with refugees, people seeking asylum and people who have experienced immigration detention', it is modelled on Chaucer's great poem of movement and narrative, the Canterbury Tales. The project was founded to call out the fact that the UK is the only country in western Europe that detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. Our call is for a future without detention and, as an urgent first step, an immediate end to indefinite detention. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The way we make this call is by sharing stories of people who have been detained, in the context of large-scale, public walks. Some are told in the first person or, where their identity must be protected, in collaboration with writers. A protester communicates with people held inside the Brook House Immigration Removal Centre near Gatwick Airport (Picture: Niklas Halle'n) | AFP via Getty Images Cruel and dehumanising The project is based on two straightforward observations: that indefinite detention is a cruel and dehumanising process, fundamentally in breach of a person's human rights; and that when human rights are abused, people's stories are silenced, and therefore those stories must be heard. The facts of the situation are shocking in themselves. In 2024, more than 20,000 people were detained indefinitely in the UK. This number is down from the 32,000 when Refugee Tales first walked in 2015 but, having dipped, the numbers are rising again. Arbitrary as the process is, periods of detention vary. A person might be held for days or weeks, but periods of months and years are not uncommon. The longest period that Refugee Tales knows of involved a man who was 'found' by HM Inspector of Prisons in Lincoln Prison, having been abandoned to and by the system. He had been incarcerated for nine years. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Periods of over two years are a common occurrence, as is re-detention after release. One man who Refugee Tales walks with, who fled slavery in his home country, and only finally won his case for asylum after more than a decade, was held in all ten immigration removal centres in the UK. Since securing his release, he has gained a first-class degree in social work. The trauma of having been detained is with him every day. We could pile up the statistics. Consider that whereas the Home Office's rationale for detention is that it is for 'administrative purposes' pending removal, more than 60 per cent of those held are in fact released, begging the question why they were held in the first place. But it is their stories, more than the figures, that tell the truth. Through the stories, we have learned that in detention, where two people often share a cell with an open toilet, people can be locked in their cells for over 12 hours a day. Mock deportations We learned of people being taken to a bus that would lead to their deportation – to the country which they were forced to leave – only to be told they were not being removed at all, and that their parade to the bus had been a terrifying 'joke'. It was through the stories that we heard about a man seeking asylum who didn't receive urgent medical attention because the doctor could not treat someone the removal centre staff refused to unchain. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Story after story, what the five volumes of Refugee Tales document is a systematically abusive process. But the project is hardly the only source. Two years ago, a report was published following a public inquiry into abuses at the Brook House Immigration Removal Centre. The inquiry was triggered by a 2017 BBC Panorama programme in which a centre guard, using a hidden camera, exposed the shocking hostility of other staff. As the report's author, Kate Eves, put it, 'the documentary portrayed Brook House as violent, dysfunctional and unsafe. It showed the use of abusive, racist and derogatory language by some staff towards those in their care… the use of force by staff on mentally and physically unwell detained people.' Despite having found 19 breaches of article three of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits 'torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment', the report's recommendations have met with no discernible improvements. Nor has any thought been given to Kate Eves' suggestion that the findings might have 'wider application'. 'Island of strangers' Now, surely, is a moment to reflect. The UK's practice of detention underpins an asylum regime designed to produce almost total social exclusion; witness the fact that people seeking asylum are not allowed to work. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It is a social exclusion that becomes self-fulfilling and, in the minds of politicians, comes to justify brutal political pronouncements. Barely a week has gone by in the past ten years without a further criminalising or vilifying of so-called 'migrants'. Nor should we think that such language doesn't have material effects. Two days after the Prime Minister's chilling 'island of strangers' speech earlier this month, a man in his 60s, who has walked with Refugee Tales since it started, was subjected to a violent, racist attack. It is hard to think of a more charitable man. He sought sanctuary in the UK because, in the country he fled, he had been persecuted for defending human rights. As Refugee Tales marks its tenth anniversary, it sets out, once again, to picture a language of welcome, and to call for a politics grounded in human rights. Detention is a scandal that depends on the silencing of stories. As Refugee Tales walks, it calls for those stories to be heard.
Telegraph
16-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
‘Pilgrim' cat travelled 150 miles to Canterbury
A missing kitten made a 150-mile journey to an historic pilgrimage site. Percy, a black British shorthair, disappeared in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and was found in Canterbury, Kent, almost a week later. The journey made by the five-month-old pet is reminiscent of the pilgrimage made by thousands of people in the Middle Ages to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The kitten's journey has even been compared to Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, about medieval pilgrims travelling to the site. Salisbury Cathedral, which had helped to appeal for information on Percy, said it believed the cat had crept on to a coach to make the journey. After the animal was reported missing on May 5, an appeal was posted on the cathedral's social media, which was shared by more than 30 people in the hope of the pet being found. The cat belongs to a member of staff at the cathedral. On May 12, the church said that 'Percy's pilgrimage' had come to an end when he was found in Canterbury and brought home. 'Must have hopped on a coach' It said: 'We are pleased to let you know Percy has returned home after a surprise trip to Canterbury! We assume he must have hopped on a coach and gone for a visit, before being found and taken to a vet's to have his chip scanned. 'He is back at home now, and we wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who helped us in locating him'. People took to social media to welcome the cat's return. Helen Mooring said on Facebook: 'His name should be Chaucer – bless him it's lovely to hear the intrepid pilgrim has returned home safe and sound.' Joanne Johnson added: 'Percy has been on a pilgrimage, perhaps thinking he should visit Canterbury Cathedral.' 'Glad he is safely back' Sue Ludbrook said: 'If only he could talk and tell you about his adventures. Glad he is safely back where he belongs.' Another reply from Jacqui Josephson said: 'I hope he had a very good excuse. Wonder if he has a girlfriend in Canterbury.' A regular pilgrimage from Salisbury to Canterbury can take several days to complete. Walkers may expect to pass four cathedrals on route: Salisbury, Winchester, Guildford and Rochester, before arriving at Canterbury.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Harnessing chaos and charm, Pere Ubu's David Thomas rewrote rock'n'roll
Rock journalism in the 1970s was never short on hyperbole, but when Jon Landau described seeing the young Bruce Springsteen as 'rock'n'roll future' – a line which subsequently became part of Springsteen mythology – the singer felt so 'suffocated' by the quote he tried to stop it being used and even reputedly tore down his own posters. However, some years later, when a similarly excitable Rolling Stone magazine declared that 'modern rock'n'roll reached its peak in 1978' with Pere Ubu's debut album The Modern Dance, the band's singer David Thomas took it as a challenge. 'I wasn't going to stop making music in 1978 just because everybody said 'they've ended rock'n'roll',' he insisted later. 'I had – I have – other things to say.' Thus, by the time of his death this week aged 71, he'd made a further 18 studio albums and dozens more live albums with Pere Ubu, plus many others as a solo artist with a myriad of backing bands. He performed in theatrical productions and delivered lectures. Another LP was apparently almost finished, along with an autobiography. He carried on performing even after technically dying twice and subsequently requiring kidney dialysis and a Zimmer frame. 'I'm sort of glad that I can't jump around any more because I don't have to worry about falling into the drums,' he gleefully insisted. 'All my concentration goes into singing.' Absurdly, given his gargantuan critical reputation, he once attributed his almost pathological desire to keep working to a feeling that 'artistically, my entire life is failure. I want to get it right'. In fact, had this son of a literary professor stopped at The Modern Dance, he would have already sealed his legacy as one of rock's great outsider innovator-pioneers. Thomas's infamously self-destructive first band, Rocket from the Tombs, were only together for a few months in Cleveland, Ohio between 1974 and 1975 yet created a prototype for punk cited as a major influence by Ramones, Devo and the Fall. Then, Pere Ubu's 'avant garage' – a turbulent mix of punk, garage, art rock, jazz, experimental noise and influences ranging from MC5 to Sun Ra – ushered in a no wave/postpunk sound and inspired bands including Joy Division, Gang of Four, Sonic Youth, REM and Pixies. Other fans ranged from Rebus writer Ian Rankin to Beach Boys lyricist Van Dyke Parks, who once introduced Thomas to Brian Wilson with the words: 'Meet the other genius'. On a mission to 'challenge the narrative' and 'rewrite the rules of musical production', Pere Ubu's groundbreaking early albums laid out Thomas's mission to take rock music into new areas, whether those areas welcomed it or not. A colossus of a man with a yelping, howling voice, in his earlier years he would career around the stage, leaving audiences open-mouthed. He put on 'Disastodromes' – festivals of noise acts promising 'confused, liberating disorder' – and even a rock adaptation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. He was a fearless, vivid, literary lyricist, describing guitars as sounding 'like a nuclear destruction', and visions such as 'the stars on fire, the world in flames', as he insisted that rock could and should be 'smart'. Musicians who worked with him knew they had to be on their mettle. There would be freaky pre-gig monologues, or lyrics they'd hear for the first time when he sang them. Original Ubu keyboardist Allen Ravenstine described 'brutal' creative sessions, yet Thomas insisted that the 20 musicians he worked with in Ubu over the years would welcome further work together. His stature and fierce intellect could certainly make for an intimidating presence, but behind it all were a gleeful, childlike playfulness and thrilled fascination with the absurdities of human life. Once, in Manchester, he started a show with a hilarious monologue in which Bon Jovi and Madonna were reduced to playing Holiday Inns while Pere Ubu had a global No 1. When he mock-cantankerously forbade the audience to clap, they cheered him to the rafters. Although the band spent time on a major label, Thomas was one of the few great artists of his generation who never compromised his art to become popular, declaring: 'The only reason I would have liked to have been rich and famous is because I would have spent the money on even more outrageous projects.'
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
April heralds return of migratory birds to UK – unless the weather turns cruel
Despite TS Eliot's famous reworking of the opening lines to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, April is not usually the cruellest month, weather-wise. For birders, it sees the welcome return of the majority of long-distance migrants from their winter quarters in sub-Saharan Africa – including warblers, flycatchers and chats, along with those masters of the air: swallows, martins and swifts. Both we and the birds hope for clear skies and soft southerly winds, allowing these global voyagers to safely cross the Channel to Britain. But from time to time, April's weather feels more like February or March, with a bitingly cold airstream from the north or east, rather than the south. April 1989 was one of the coldest on record, with persistent northerly winds bringing widespread snowfalls, stopping those returning migrants in their tracks. Just five years later, April 1994 had equally bad weather, but this time from a very different direction. That year, a series of Atlantic depressions brought cool, unsettled weather, rain and westerly winds. Once again, this presented a formidable barrier to returning migrants, and delayed their arrival. Some of the worst spring weather conditions for birds occurred in April 1981, with easterlies bringing heavy snowfalls. Towards the end of that month, heavy north-easterly gales caused a major 'wreck' of seabirds in the North Sea, many of which were swept inland on the strong winds.
