Second paragraph of third chapter:
| Преди няколко години тая стара ограда се гордееше с исполински бор, който със своята рунтава шапка, дето пееха хиляди птичи гнезда, заслоняваше старовремската черкова. Но бурята катури бора, а игуменът – черковата и съгради нова. Сега тя, със своя висок, по новото зодчество издигнат купол, странно противоречи с осталите стари постройки, паметници на миналото, и даже грози като къс нова хартия, залепена на стар пергамент. Старата черкова и старият бор паднаха под ударите на съдбата и оттогава манастирът затъмня, не весели вече окото с гигантското дърво до облаците; не възвишават благочестиво душата зографисаните по стените образи на светци, архангели, преподобни отци н мъченици с изчовъркани очи от кърджалии и делибашии. | Some years before, the old building had rejoiced in a gigantic pine-tree, which sheltered the church with its high- spreading branches—the home of a thousand feathered songsters. But a storm had uprooted the pine and the church tower, and a new tower, which had been erected in its place, with a lofty new-fashioned cupola, made a strange contrast to the dilapidated old remains of a past age: it gave one the same shock that is produced by a piece of fresh white paper stuck on a time-worn parchment. The old church and tower have fallen under the assaults of time and destiny, and henceforth the monastery has become sombre: the eye no longer follows the towering pine to the clouds: the soul no longer draws pious inspirations from the paintings on the walls representing saints, archangels, holy fathers, and martyrs, defiled and with their eyes put out by the Kirjalis and Delibashis. |
A classic of nineteenth-century Bulgarian literature, a mercifully short novel about the 1876 uprising against Turkish rule. I must admit that I was surprised by how well it reads, given that I have read any number of much worse-written books about Ireland (or England, or the United States) at the same period. Vazov’s revolutionaries, all men, are outnumbered, outgunned and fight valiantly to the end; his women are in fact also three-dimensional characters; you can’t really say the same for the Turks, and it’s a rather black and white novel, but still it’s a good and digestible insight into that particular part of Europe at that particular time. You can get it here.
This was the non-genre fiction book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on that pile is a collection of Three Plays by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, but it will have to wait until I have read all the other unread books acquired in 2017.
