THE COMEDIANS

Author: Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
Year: 1968 (1854)
Publisher: Wydawnictwo Literackie Kraków
Language: Polish

Unknown heirs materialising at the reading of a will. Lovers discovering, at the worst possible moment, that they share a parent. Love triangles sustained by pride and silence. Scheming matriarchs. Secret debts. Broken promises delivered under chandeliers. Honour invoked hourly and violated daily. Tears, slaps, duels, declarations. Such are the dependable ingredients of the telenovela.

On the surface, “Komedianci” (not available in English but a translation might be “The Comedians”) by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski might appear to belong in that universe. There is pride. There is deceit. There are broken assurances and carefully staged appearances. A grand household presides over a web of obligations and resentments. The title itself suggests performance, artifice, theatricality.

And yet Kraszewski is not interested in melodrama for its own sake. He is interested in structure. Where the telenovela thrives on sensationalism, “Komedianci” is concerned with the slow burn of social hypocrisy. Its drama does not hinge on blood ties unexpectedly rearranged but on credit extended too far. Its climaxes are not interrupted weddings but the sudden implosions of reputation that they trigger.

Set in the 19^th century Volhynian countryside among the rural szlachta, the novel dissects a social world built on land, lineage, and mutual dependence. At its centre stands the Dendera family, aristocratic in demeanour and confident in entitlement. They perform generosity with elegance. They host, flatter, and cultivate admiration. Around them lesser landowners orbit like satellites, eager for recognition and proximity to prestige.

If this were a telenovela, Count Dendera and his family would be unambiguous villains, their downfall punctuated by confession and disgrace. Kraszewski is subtler. The aristocrats are not scheming conspirators. They are embodiments of a class that has come to confuse appearance with substance. They believe in their own performance. That is precisely their weakness.

The metaphor of the stage governs the novel. Social life is theatre, rank is costume, courtesy is choreography. But unlike melodrama where performance heightens truth, here performance obscures it. The Dendera estate becomes a set on which aristocratic virtue is acted out while, behind the scenes, economic reality deteriorates.

Kraszewski’s insight is that exploitation need not be dramatic to be devastating. The Denderas do not ruin their neighbours through a single spectacular betrayal, nor do they in essence aim to do so. Rather, they draw upon their trust incrementally by extending loans, assuming obligations, grant deference, and avoid payments. Each gesture appears small. Collectively, they amount to extraction.

The surrounding community is not innocent in the way a betrayed heroine might be. The lesser szlachta participates in the illusion. They want to believe in the Count’s grandeur because that belief reflects well on them. Association with high nobility confers symbolic capital. Reputation becomes collateral. In this sense, “Komedianci” offers a more unsettling message than any melodrama: deception persists because it is mutually convenient.

When Count Dendera’s true position finally comes to light, the revelation lacks the thunderclap theatrics of serialised television. There is no shocking revelation of secret parentage, no courtroom confession. Instead, there is gradual exposure, the quiet, devastating recognition that the performance has outstripped reality. Financial and moral insolvency converge.

For modern readers, the novel feels unexpectedly contemporary. We, too, inhabit a world rich in performance but poor in productivity. Personal branding and curated identities are valued higher than industriousness and hard work. As of early 2025, Tesla’s market cap was higher than the next 15 car producers, including Volkswagen, Toyota, General Motors, Ford and Daimler Benz, combined despite producing less than 15% of the amount of vehicles that Toyota alone did that year.   reputational management. To a banker in particular, Count Dendera’s complacency and sense of entitlement will bear an eerie resemblance to the events preceding the collapse of the Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008. “Komedianci” reminds us that the temptation to substitute optics for substance seems perennial.

If I may have one remark about this book, it is that it somewhat obscures who the main characters of the novel are going to be. While the first of the novel’s four parts centres around one of the orbiting szlachta noblemen, the mellow but shrewd Cavalry Captain Kurdesz, subsequent parts see his importance fading, and the narrative arc increasingly requiring the reader’s investment to shift to other characters. Once, the recalibration has been finalised, the story continues to flow smoothly.

In the end, I am a bit surprised that this novel has not found a larger audience because, much like a telenovela, this is a most supremely entertaining story. Yet while a telenovela resolves itself through catharsis, Kraszewski offers something more sober. He demonstrates that exposure does not restore innocence; it restores proportion. The social order survives, chastened. Illusion yields to reality, not with fireworks, but with consequence. Sooner or later, the stage set gives way, and the comedians find themselves without a script. In that unguarded moment, the illusion breaks, and the telenovela that has been the comedians’ life all along embarks on its final season.

THE LITTLE PRINCE

Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Year: 1952 (1943)
Publisher: Rabén & Sjögren
Language: Swedish (translator Gunvor Bang)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “Lille prinsen” (“The Little Prince”) is often, correctly or not, classified as a children’s book, a categorisation that itself reproduces one of the central faults the text quietly dismantles: the adult tendency to sort meaning into rigid taxonomies that obscure lived experience. Beneath its deceptively simple narrative lies a potent ethnography of adulthood, observed through the eyes of a child positioned as The Other within the dominant social order of grown-ups.

The main character, in social anthropological sense, functions as an etic observer. He moves between worlds, asteroids, deserts, and human institutions, and interacts with their respective societies without fully belonging to any of them. In the adult world, he is systematically misconstrued. Adults interpret through institutionalised parameters: numbers, ownership, rank, productivity. The child, by contrast, operates with relational epistemologies: care, curiosity, attachment, and presence. This mismatch renders the child an outsider, not because of juniority, but because of incompatibility.

The grown-ups Saint-Exupéry depicts are not individualised characters so much as social types. The king, the businessman, the geographer, and the lamp lighter are caricatures of actors captured in their roles. These are all people who have mistaken symbolic systems for reality itself and whose identities have consequently collapsed into their functions. Their lives are governed by what I call “self-imposed futility”: activities sustained not because they generate meaning, but because they reproduce the illusion of purpose. The businessman counts stars he can never use; the geographer records landscapes he has never seen.

Self-imposed futility resembles what Sartre called “mauvaise foi” or “bad faith”, but while self-imposed futility proposes to name a collective condition in which people inhabit empty roles sustained by social norms rather than lived meaning, mauvaise foi is the individual’s conscious self-deception that denies personal freedom by mistaking role for destiny. Both diagnose role capture, but Sartre moralises it whereas Saint-Exupéry anthropologises it, as it were.

Another concept akin to self-imposed futility is the Marxist notion of “estrangement” which describes how people can become disconnected from the fruit of their labour, and by extension from their context in society, which may lead to apathy and nihilism. However, in the most basic Marxist understanding this alienation is experienced, whereas self-imposed futility, I submit, encapsulates the continuous illusion of meaning into a state of the subconscious.  

What makes “Lille Prinsen” remarkable is that it, kills two birds with one stone, without announcing its didacticism. First, it reassures the child reader that they do not need to understand, or envy for that matter, the adult world. The book subtly delegitimises adult norms by revealing their arbitrariness. Children that are used to hearing “you will understand when you grow older” may find this refreshingly liberating as it legitimises not only their childhood, but also their worldview. Childhood here is not a preparatory stage but a fully realised cultural environment with its own logic and value system.

Second, the book offers grown-ups a mirror that is gentle but unsparing. By adopting the child’s point of view, Saint-Exupéry uncloaks adult practices, making them visible as odd, ritualised, and absurd. This is a classic ethnographic manoeuvre, externalising the familiar allowing for outside scrutiny. The result is an invitation for adults to recognise the arbitrariness of their life choices and the ways they have normalised nonsense in the name of seriousness. In Millennial vernacular: adulting.

Crucially, the text resists nostalgia. It does not argue that children are purer or morally superior. Instead, it suggests that adulthood often involves a narrowing of perception, a loss of interpretive plurality. The tragedy is not growing up per se, but forgetting that other ways of being remain possible. The little prince does not reject adulthood. He simply refuses to normalise it. Being an adult, he teaches us, does not have to follow a pattern. We could choose to break the routine, but we have grown blind to that option. And even if we saw it, having forgotten what it is like to be a child, we would no longer grasp the value of it. We are victims of self-imposed futility.

In the end, “Lille Prinsen” endures because it operates simultaneously as a fable, a philosophical critique, and a soft ethnography of modern life. It speaks to children without condescension and to adults without accusation. By positioning the child as The Other, Saint-Exupéry exposes how adulthood, far from being an inevitable norm, is itself a culturally specific, and perhaps questionable, way of organising existence.

KALEVALA

Author: Elias Lönnrot
Year: 2001 (1849)
Publisher: Atlantis bokförlag
Language: Swedish (översättare Lars Huldén and Mats Huldén)

It is easy to fall into the trap of reading “Kalevala”, compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the nineteenth century from oral traditions throughout the Finnish heartland, as a national epic in the heroic tradition of Homer or Virgil. Yet the key to understanding this work, seems to be the realisation that its virtue lies not in grand heroics but in the realistic representation of human frailty, contumacy, and recklessness. The three central figures, Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen are not heroic in any conventional, triumphant sense. Their pedestrian habits, repeated failures, and moral ambiguities form a mirror of Finnish cultural self-understanding and of a folklore tradition that values endurance, craft, and restraint over glory.

Väinämöinen, the nominally supreme hero, is defined not by martial prowess but by experience, song, and verbal skill. He is a singer and a seer, whose power is manifested in words carefully remembered, spoken, or sung. Even so, he is hardly idealised. Väinämöinen is stubborn, prideful, and often slow to adapt. His wisdom does not prevent him from making errors, nor does it grant him control over events. He loses contests, fails in courtship, and ultimately departs not in victory but in resignation. This portrayal resists the epic convention of heroic ascent; instead, it emphasises the limitations of knowledge and the inconspicuous dignity of persistence. Väinämöinen’s authority is provisional, rooted in experience rather than domination, and this modesty resonates with a cultural ethos that values patience and tacit understanding over spectacle.

The smith Ilmarinen embodies another deeply unglamorous form of excellence: labour. His defining achievement, the forging of Sampo, is not an act of conquest but of skilled craftsmanship carried out at great personal cost and against his will. Ilmarinen is diligent, reliable, and technically brilliant, yet emotionally inarticulate and unlucky in love. He forges wonders but cannot secure happiness for himself. His exploits in love end in death or bitterness, and his attempts to repair loss only underline the limits of craft as a solution to human grief. In Ilmarinen, “Kalevala” elevates work and technical competence while declining to romanticise them. Creation is necessary and valuable, but it does not legitimise existence or guarantee fulfilment. This sober view of labour aligns closely with Finnish folklore’s emphasis on work as a duty rather than a path to excellence.

Lemminkäinen, by contrast, appears at first glance to be the most conventional hero: youthful, handsome, adventurous, and impulsive. Yet his narrative arc is a sustained critique of reckless bravado. Lemminkäinen ignores warnings, provokes needless conflicts, and pursues honour without reflection. His death in Tuonela is not tragic heroism but the predictable outcome of carelessness. Even his resurrection, accomplished through his mother’s painstaking labour rather than his own merit, reinforces the poem’s scepticism toward individual glory. Lemminkäinen survives, but he does not mature. He remains a cautionary figure whose energy lacks direction. Through him, “Kalevala” suggests that courage without judgment is not admirable but dangerous, and that survival often depends on communal care rather than personal valour.

Taken together, I find that these figures articulate a vision of humanity grounded in limitations. None of the heroes achieves lasting success, moral purity, or final victory. Their world is governed by scarcity, weather, and fate, not by destiny shaped through will alone. There are no castles, only farms. There are no monsters, only forest animals and evil humans. There are deities, most prominently Ukko, the father of all gods, but they play a minor role and, much like forces of nature, show no sign of any will of their own. Conflicts in “Kalevala” are rarely resolved cleanly; instead, they fade, fracture, fluctuate, and rely largely on coincidence. This narrative texture reflects a folklore tradition shaped by harsh environments and long historical marginality, where survival depended less on conquest than on adaptability and cooperation. “Kalevala’s” heroes are thus not ideals to emulate but companions in endurance; figures whose flaws make them recognisable rather than exemplary.

The poem’s geography further underscores this mundane perspective. While “Kalevala” is rich in spatial imagination, moving between Kaleva, Pohjola, Tuonela, and distant lands, it is notable for what it omits. As a Swede, I am made aware that despite its long political and cultural dominance over Finland, Sweden is conspicuously absent from this work. By contrast, regions to the east and south are more readily invoked, and I noted references that point toward Russia and even Germany as part of a wider mythic horizon. Russia symbolises distance. Germany luxury and flair. This asymmetry is striking. The stories were collected in a time where Finland was still recovering from its violent and sudden decoupling from the Swedish realm, which it had been a part of for 800 years, and yet, Sweden is neither idealised nor demonised. It is, much to my surprise, completely ignored.

I choose to read the silence regarding Sweden not as ignorance but as a meaningful absence: an epic drawn from vernacular tradition does not centre on imperial power but instead maps a world defined by trade, rumour, and cultural contact beyond official authority. At the time Elias Lönnrot collected his stories in the mid-19^th century, Karelia in the easternmost parts of Finland was considered the heart of Finland, and the farther west he travelled, the less genuine and more “swedenised” he may have perceived the people and the lands. In this sense, “Kalevala” reflects a folk worldview that resists dominant narratives and preserves its autonomy through curated collective memory. Russia and Germany never threatened to pollute Finnishness and so reference to these lands may have appeared safe.

On a final note, despite the ostensibly chronological storyline and recurring heroes, I propose that each of the 50 songs is best read in isolation. Each carries its own secret and its own message. The songs sometimes interact with one another, and jointly describe a chain of events, and yet there are logical gaps and plot holes everywhere. One soon learns to overlook them.

There is infinitely more to say about this curious work, and scholarly coverage continues to develop, not only in Finland but around the world. Ultimately though, “Kalevala” is an epic of restraint. Its heroes are weary, flawed, and often morally weak; its values are practical rather than transcendent. By refusing the consolations of heroic triumph, the poem offers something rarer: a meditation on how ordinary virtues such as skill, patience, care, and memory, sustain life in an indifferent world. In this way, the non-heroic qualities of Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen are not shortcomings but the very substance of the epic’s wisdom and a peephole into the Finnish soul. I can only fantasise about what the 50 songs must sound like to a Finnish ear in their original tongue.

ANIMAL FARM

Author: George Orwell
Year: 1962 (1945)
Publisher: Penguin Books
Language: English

Let’s not complicate things: “Animal Farm” is simple. It is by all standards a straightforward and easy novel to understand, with little to no hidden meaning or subtext to explore. George Orwell, its author, does not cloak his ideas in dense symbolism or ambiguous allegory; rather, he presents a transparent political fable whose parallels to historical events and figures are direct, intentional, and unmistakable. On the nose, one might even be tempted to say. Yet this accessibility is a defining feature of the text. Orwell’s purpose is not to invite endless interpretive speculation but to instruct, warn, and criticise through clarity. As a journalist, he wants to help you understand; not challenge you to dig through layer upon layer of obscure symbolism.

The novel recounts the rebellion of farm animals against their human owner, Mr. Jones, after they are inspired by the ideals of equality and collective ownership articulated by the aging hog Old Major. Following a successful uprising, the animals establish a new society based on shared labour and common benefit. However, a group of pigs gradually assume leadership roles, consolidating power over the other animals and altering the farm’s guiding principles to serve their own interests. Over time, the revolutionary ideals erode entirely, culminating in a regime that is indistinguishable from, and arguably worse than, the human tyranny it replaced. The simplicity of this plot mirrors the simplicity of the historical trajectory Orwell critiques: the rise, corruption, and betrayal of revolutionary movements.

The characters all correspond to historical persons or events.

Old Major, who represents Karl Marx, functions primarily as an ideological catalyst rather than an active participant in events. Like Marx, Major articulates a theoretical vision of liberation rooted in equality and collective struggle, but he does not live to see how his ideas are implemented, or indeed distorted. His speech lays out the moral foundation of the rebellion, yet its vagueness leaves ample room for manipulation. Orwell suggests that abstract theory, when detached from practical safeguards, is vulnerable to appropriation by those seeking power rather than justice.

Mr. Jones embodies negligent and decaying authority and is based on Tsar Nicholas II. He is neither competent nor particularly malicious; instead, his downfall results from indifference and failure to recognise the needs of those he governs. Orwell portrays Jones not as a uniquely evil ruler but as a dysfunctional one, whose removal seems inevitable.

Napoleon’s role as Joseph Stalin is one of the novel’s most overt parallels. Napoleon is defined by his brutality, secrecy, and obsession with control. He does not persuade through reason or charisma but rules through fear, violence, and the systematic elimination of rivals. Orwell’s portrayal emphasizes the transformation of revolutionary leadership into authoritarian dictatorship, underscoring how power, once centralised, tends to perpetuate itself regardless of ideological justification.

Moses, representing the Church, occupies a marginal yet symbolically important position. His tales of Sugarcandy Mountain provide comfort and distraction, offering spiritual consolation that discourages resistance. Orwell presents religion not as an active oppressor but as a tool tolerated or suppressed depending on its usefulness to those in power. In practice it serves to pacify suffering rather than alleviating it.

Mr. Frederick of Pinchfield, symbolising Nazi Germany, is characterised by aggression, deceit, and opportunism. His eventual betrayal of Napoleon highlights the fragility of alliances formed purely on convenience. In contrast, Mr. Pilkington of Foxwood, representing the British government, is portrayed as complacent, self-interested, and ultimately accommodating. Orwell suggests that external powers are less concerned with justice than with stability and self-preservation.

Boxer, the embodiment of the uneducated and naïve working class, is the novel’s most tragic figure. His unwavering loyalty, physical strength, and simplistic maxims, render him indispensable yet disposable. Orwell’s treatment of Boxer illustrates how exploitation thrives not only through cruelty but through misplaced trust and lack of critical awareness.

Squealer, the propagandist, is perhaps Orwell’s most scathing creation. He embodies the machinery of misinformation, manipulation, and rhetorical deceit that sustains tyranny. Squealer’s power lies not in strength or intelligence but in his frantic eagerness to serve authority. He is weak, subservient, and hysterically devoted to justifying every abuse committed by his masters. Orwell’s contempt for such figures is palpable. Mouthpieces like Squealer thrive not because they believe in truth, but because they crave proximity to power. Their worthlessness is masked by their utility, and their moral emptiness by their loud orations.

Snowball’s function as a representation of Leon Trotsky is one of “Animal Farm’s” most historically interesting parallels. Like Trotsky, Snowball is an intellectual architect of the revolution, distinguished by energy, eloquence, and a genuine commitment to improving collective life. Trotsky played a central role in the Bolshevik Revolution and later organised the Red Army. Similarly, Snowball is instrumental in defending Animal Farm and shaping its early policies. His emphasis on education, committees, and long-term planning reflects Trotsky’s belief in modernisation and ideological development.

The windmill project closely mirrors Trotsky’s advocacy of rapid industrialisation and technological progress. Snowball envisions a future in which labour is reduced and productivity increased, while Napoleon dismisses such ideas in favour of consolidating personal power. This ideological divide echoes Trotsky’s conflict with Stalin, whose rise depended less on visions than on control and violence.

In sum, “Animal Farm” achieves its enduring impact precisely because of its clarity. Orwell strips political catastrophe of complexity to reveal its recurring patterns, making the novel not a cryptic allegory but an unmistakable warning which rightfully occupies its unquestionable position in any Wester school curriculum. One may only hope, that the ears of future generations do not grow deaf to its message. Authoritarianism, after all, does not thrive among the wicked as much as among the ignorant.

Special shoutout to Paul Hogarth for the evocative cover art. 

HERTHA

Author: Fredrika Bremer
Year: 2020 (1856)
Publisher: Svenska Vitterhetssamfundet
Language: Swedish 

Anybody who has cared to ask, should know that I am not an undivided supporter of literary canon. No matter how you slice it, it will be exclusive and narrow, or if you make it more comprehensive, it is soon rendered meaningless. And yet, I hereby submit, contradictory as it may be, that every resident of Haninge municipality where Fredrika Bremer’s residence Årsta Castle is located, ought to read at least one of her works; and in particular her most famous one “Hertha” from 1856.

“Hertha” is often celebrated as a foundational text in the Swedish women’s rights movement. The story follows Hertha, a young woman trapped by her father’s authority and by laws that deny her legal independence, education, and meaningful work. Under the 1734 Civil Code, unmarried women in Sweden were treated as perpetual minors under the guardianship of male relatives, limiting their legal capacity to work, own property, or make decisions about their own lives. Unlike her peers, who are more concerned about getting married and avoiding scandals, Hertha finds it impossible to accept her fate. She demands change; not only for herself, but for all women in King Oskar I’s dual monarchy.

Beneath the most obvious romantic and dramatic narrative, “Hertha” is, however, a sophisticated political treatise*, only thinly disguised as fiction. Through her protagonist and key supporting characters such as Yngve and Rudolph, Bremer crafts a forceful critique of the social and legal structures that limited women’s autonomy in mid-19th century Sweden, while simultaneously offering a vision for reform that is both rational and morally sound.

A critical figure in amplifying this argument is Yngve whose role is central in demonstrating Bremer’s vision of a society in which men support women’s rights. Yngve is not portrayed as a revolutionary, nor as a mere romantic interest. He is a morally and intellectually engaged participant in the broader social debate. His respect for Hertha’s autonomy illustrates an essential point: men’s support of women’s rights is not a threat to their masculinity, authority, or social power. On the contrary, Yngve embodies the idea that enlightened men have a vested interest in promoting justice and equity. By affirming Hertha’s agency and moral insight, he models how a man can act as an ally without diminishing his own stature or influence.

What makes Hertha particularly convincing is her insistence on constructive change rather than simple rebellion. The way the societies in Sweden and other Nordic countries were transformed in the 20^th century by social reforms, contrasted many other at the time by their emphasis on peaceful and gradual transformation, rather than radical and violent revolutions (see review of “What is Social Democracy” from November 2025). Fredrika Bremer foreshadows that ambition in her writing and holds it up as a preferred vehicle for lasting change. Hertha’s struggle is framed not in terms of personal vengeance or overturning social order, but as a reasoned plea for structural reform. She challenges the legal guardianship system and the social expectation that women must remain dependent, but she does so through reflection, argumentation, and moral appeal rather than impulsive action. Explicitly so, as when presented with an offer to bring her father in front of a judge to force him to grant her autonomy, she refuses.

Bremer drives her point home early in the novel by introducing the character of Rudolph, Hertha’s distant relative. Contrary to Hertha’s, Rudolph’s actions are designed to liberate them from the oppressive father by force. Not only does the path of violence that Rudolph chooses fail to solve the problem, it moreover creates unimaginable destruction and, ultimately, his own defeat. Bremer’s message could not have been clearer.

Bremer’s use of surnames in the novel carries another powerful symbolic weight, particularly through bird imagery. Hertha’s surname, Falk (Falcon) evokes strength, freedom, and agency, emphasizing her aspiration for autonomy and moral elevation. This symbolism recurs with other characters: minor female characters often bear names suggestive of small birds, representing potential, delicacy, or the societal constraints placed upon them. Owls, cocks and other feathered animals are similarly utilised for different effects. By weaving bird imagery into the naming structure, Bremer creates a thematic network in which characters’ identities reflect their moral or social roles. Flight and freedom are not merely personal desires but symbolic markers of agency of all womankind, linking Hertha’s personal quest to broader social reconfiguration. Even birds unaware of their ability to fly, ought to have the liberty to do so.

The novel’s political strategy is further enhanced by Bremer’s literary techniques. The narrative alternates between Hertha’s personal experience and broader social observation, allowing readers to engage emotionally while also absorbing analytical critique. Bremer’s attention to Hertha’s internal life, her reflections on morality, education, and the limitations imposed upon her, transforms the novel into a vehicle for social argument. Every moment of personal frustration is carefully linked to systemic issues, from legal guardianship to marriage customs, illustrating the interplay between individual suffering and societal structures. Some sections, although framed as dialogue, read like lectures or info-dumps.

In the end, when all facts and declarations have been identified, established, and elaborated on, more than anything else it is Hertha’s very self: intelligent, morally unbreakable, steadfast, and rational; that embodies the main argument why women can be nothing but equal to men.

 

 

*This is amplified by the appendix that followed the book, containing a factual breakdown of the legal situation in Sweden at the time, complete with recent court decisions on the matter of women’s rights and the written arguments issued by the judges in support of their verdicts.

 

THERE THERE

Author: Tommy Orange
Year: 2018
Publisher: Bokförlaget Polaris
Language: Swedish (translator Eva Åsefeldt)

Present day America. The date for the annual pow wow in Oakland is approaching. Native Americans, predominantly from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, prepare for the great event, each for their own personal reasons. A middle-aged woman is going to re-unite with her children, a young man to collect stories for posterity, still another to dance for the first time in the ritual dances, and some are up to no good and plan to steal the safe containing rewards for the winners in various competitions.

Tommy Orange’s “Pow wow” (“There, There”) follows a dozen individuals in their preparations for the big day. It is a groundbreaking novel that reexamines the narrative of contemporary Native American life. Some critics have already hailed it as the beginning of a new era in Native American writing in the United States.

By means of a diverse gallery of characters and interwoven storylines, the book offers an intimate depiction of the challenges faced by Native peoples navigating urban environments, grappling with history, and negotiating identity in the 21^st century. Among the characters, to me Edwin Black in particular stands out as a compelling figure whose struggles illustrate the complexities of later-generation First Nations identity.

Edwin Black, a middle-aged man living in Oakland, embodies the tension of inherited trauma without the means to process it. The son of a white mother and a Cheyenne father, he is raised with little exposure to his Native roots. He struggles with alcoholism, obesity, sporadic employment, and his addiction to online gaming. Yet beneath this dysfunction lies a yearning for cultural grounding. His identity is less about participation in traditional rituals, which he remains largely oblivious of, and more about negotiating absence: absence of homeland, of community, and of coherent selfhood. Edwin’s narrative exemplifies the identity struggles likely faced by many later-generation First Nations individuals, whose connection to their heritage is fragmented due to historical displacement, systemic erasure, and colonial assimilation policies.

In this respect, Edwin’s experience shares similarities with second-generation immigrants in countries such as Sweden, who juggle multiple cultural belongings. Both groups negotiate between inherited cultural identity and dominant societal norms. However, the key difference lies in the historical context: second-generation immigrants often engage with living, accessible cultures from their parents’ homelands. Their identity is tied to a physical place where their heritage is prevalent as an idea. Edwin, on the other hand, must reconstruct identity from fragmented histories, oral narratives, and intermittent exposure to tribal knowledge, often from a distant, perhaps mythical, past. The urban Native experience, as dramatised by Edwin, is thus uniquely burdened by historical erasure and dispossession, making identity reclamation both a personal and generational endeavour, based on myth rather than roots.

Comparatively, later-generation First Nations identity shares features with other stateless or marginalised peoples, such as Kurds, Roma, and Sami. All face pressures of marginalisation, displacement, or cultural suppression. Kurds navigate multiple nation-states that deny sovereignty; Roma contend with centuries of persecution and societal marginalisation; the Sami face assimilationist pressures in Arctic regions. In this sense Native Americans’ experience is similar in its intimate connection to settler colonialism and land dispossession. Unlike diasporic peoples whose cultures may persist across borders, later-generation Native Americans must contend with erasure within a single nation-state. Edwin’s identity crisis is therefore intertwined with the absence of homeland and the historical trauma, adding layers of complexity absent from many other marginalised identities.

Juxtaposed with second-generation immigrant identity, Edwin’s experience is uniquely shaped by politics of recognition and erasure. Immigrant communities often negotiate belonging within pluralistic frameworks, while urban Native Americans must assert cultural presence against a backdrop of historical invisibility. It is telling that while a mere 0.3% of the population in the United States identified as First Nation in 1960, nearly 3% did so in 2020. Similarly, compared with Kurds, Roma, or Sami, the struggle of Native Americans intertwines personal, cultural, and legal dimensions: treaties, reservations, and federal recognition create a complex framework where identity is simultaneously lived and legislated. Edwin’s search for selfhood is therefore not only personal but also political, bridging historical trauma with contemporary urban realities.

Orange’s structural choice to follow multiple characters amplifies these explorations. For Edwin, the Oakland Coliseum pow wow symbolises both a literal and metaphorical “there”: a site of reconnection, performance, and confrontation with the past. Like other characters, such as Orvil Red Feather who learns traditional dance through Youtube, Opal Bear Shield who tries to hold her family together in a hostile social environment, and Dene Oxendene who documents Native stories as a filmmaker, Edwin’s journey emphasises the active labour required to reconstruct identity in contemporary urban contexts. The novel shows that Native identity in cities is neither static nor monolithic; it is a dynamic interplay of memory, cultural performance (or re-enactment even), and resilience. One could argue that the colonial and later US authorities over the centuries successfully shattered it, but failed to erase it.

In conclusion, “Pow wow” is a profound exploration of identity, trauma, and resilience. The individual journeys of each of the characters illustrate the particular struggles of later-generation Native Americans negotiating urban life and ancestral heritage. Tommy Orange’s novel challenges readers to confront the legacies of colonisation, the nuances of urban Native identity, and the interplay between past and present. This is knowledge that has been available to sociologists and anthropologists for decades. Would that this literary effort bring it to the attention of a broader public.

FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS

Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Year: 2007 (2004)
Publisher: Penguin Books
Language: English

I am not a particularly intelligent man. I know what I need to know and I understand what others have told me I need to understand. I totter around the world like most other people oblivious of the size of the universe, relying to a large degree on knowledge generated by others and wisdom accumulated by generations before me. I am, by all accounts, a banker belonging to the most commonplace persuasion.

And yet, the mediocre mind that I possess, I still cannot find a single original thought in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Fooled by Randomness”, hailed by Fortune Magazine as ‘one of the smartest books of all time’.  

“Fooled by Randomness” has achieved near-canonical status in the literature of risk, uncertainty, and human irrationality. Its reputation rests on its supposedly radical thesis: that we routinely mistake luck for skill, underestimate randomness, and build narratives to explain what is often just noise. Yet reading the book critically, one is struck less by its originality and more by Taleb’s flair for repackaging ideas that, while vital, are hardly new.

At its core, “Fooled by Randomness” argues that human beings are cognitively ill-equipped to understand probabilistic reality. Taleb illustrates how traders, investors, CEOs, and even scientists often credit themselves for success that is better attributed to statistical variance. This insight, though forcefully delivered, echoes long-established ideas from behavioural economics, cognitive psychology, and philosophy from Hume’s scepticism about causation to Popper’s critique of historical determinism. Taleb’s contribution thus remains shrouded in mystery.

Ironically, what he presents as revelatory is something many thoughtful readers might consider common sense: unpredictable events happen (or “shit happens” might better capture it), luck plays a large role in outcomes, and our confidence in our own stories far exceeds the evidence of their actuality. His central admonition, “expect the unexpected”, is ancient in spirit. So is “alea iacta est”. Or “pride goeth before destruction”. The list goes on and on.  

One is reminded of Stoic counsel, medieval warnings against hubris, and the probabilistic humility embedded in scientific method or the biblical call to modesty, piety and reflection. Taleb’s philosophical posture is a modern reframing of old wisdom, delivered with charismatic frustration at humanity’s refusal to internalise it.

But this lack of originality does not render the book irrelevant. If anything, it underscores Taleb’s larger, and surprisingly damning, point: even the simplest probabilistic truths must be endlessly restated because we as humans persistently fail to live by them. We prefer neat explanations over messy randomness, confident predictions over uncertainty, and flattering narratives over the humbling truth of chance.

A particularly sharp example is his takedown of the caste of Risk Managers in financial institutions. Taleb argues that Risk Managers act primarily to protect themselves rather than their firms. From my own professional experience, this rings painfully true: risk frameworks often become bureaucratic armour rather than genuine safeguards, designed more to deflect blame than to confront uncertainty.

The very fact that “Fooled by Randomness” feels obvious is part of its evidence: our institutions and personal decisions alike routinely disregard what should be common sense.

This is where the book earns its value. Taleb’s observations, though not groundbreaking, are delivered with a piercing clarity that exposes the gap between what we should know and how we actually behave. He forces the reader to confront not merely intellectual errors but the emotional and cultural forces that encourage them. If we continuously act as though the world is more predictable than it is, then perhaps even cliché warnings about uncertainty need to be articulated, loudly and repeatedly.

In the end, “Fooled by Randomness” is less an original treatise than a necessary one. Its power lies not in novelty but in its unrelenting insistence that our blindness to randomness is self-inflicted and catastrophically persistent. Taleb may not tell us anything fundamentally new, but he tells us what we perpetually fail to remember. Rather like a demented patient is repeatedly fascinated by the same discovery, to our oblivious selves, this book endures as a periodical reminder of something our primitive minds simply cannot contain for any meaningful period of time.