Han Ong

And gossip and infighting and ditties and slangy colloquialism, you know, low-down language, you know.

Yeah, well, looping back to when I said earlier on that the first thing I wanted to do when I got to this section was put down the pages and stand up and applaud, is that, you know, I have so rarely seen this kind of nakedness in fiction.

But let it not be said that my admiration for this section is just pure admiration, because I was horrified, too.

I was, you know, reacting from my vantage point for...

younger than these characters whose body has yet to go to see the way theirs has.

And yet at the same time, recognizing that Ulitskaya's portraiture isn't cruel.

It's just factual.

But there's also a strange kind of peevish, impish delight in saying to us, this is what old age does to your body.

It will happen to you too.

And so we might as well face it.

Well, I think he is our proxy in the story for our own reactions.

He is both disgusted by the sight as well as energized by it.

You know, as I said, he sees in these women's bodies an opportunity to sort of portray something that probably...

You know, being an artist and knowledgeable about art history, he probably knows that there's scant portrayal of this in art history.

And now here's this opportunity firsthand sort of witness that he can put down directly onto paper.

So as an artist slash explorer, this is sort of manna from heaven for him.

Yeah, and I don't know how instructive it is or what it says that he makes these drawings on top of wallpaper.

So, you know, that is sort of an evocative visual image, but I don't quite know what it says, what realm it ushers his art into, what new realm.

Or maybe he's just making do.

This is just part of the illustration of Russian ingenuity, you know, improvisatory skills and virtuosity.