"The Russian Front", do we need diplomats?

The Russian Front (Le Front Russe, French original title)
Jean-Claude Lalumière

Cutting answer: NO. Or at least we don't need anyone who resembles any of the characters of this book. Because of my job, I have the occasion of meeting/knowing a considerable amount of people from that "world", and I have to say that, sadly, reality doesn't get very far from this. In my opinion, is a useless profession.

But "The Russian Front" doesn't have serious pretensions or aims to denounce the parasitism of diplomacy. Far from it. Author Lalumière only wants to create a lightweight entertainment based on his own experiences. I guess publishers decided to sell the book as a satire without reading it, 'cause you won't find many laughs. Exceptions aside, involving a pigeon or Lalumiere's boss, the book is not funny at all. Which, by itself, doesn't mean to be bad.

The problem is that the scenes of French bureaucracy narrated in first person are going nowhere, lost in a confused tone and a poor development of an argument that had a lot of potential. "The Russian Front"  fails in its goal to provoke smiles but when the character personal situation and its job starts to offer a darker more interesting side, you realize Lalumière won't go further than sketching things. And then, the book is over.

In particular, it is really frustrating to read the weak development of his character/persona, when he is the gravitational force that moves the book. This is not Woody Allen exaggerating tics about his family to make hilarious jokes, or its not a "rather not" Bartleby located into the diplomatic world. This should have been a person with some "issues": a dreamy misconception about what diplomacy is (so real that hurts, I have known so many students/aspiring diplomats who thinks the same) mixed with a notorious ego trapped into a pusillanimous character. The cocktail had a tremendous potential. But we won't see it.

"The Russian Front" is an ok novel to pass the time, not specially funny, and safe when it seemed it could offer a more attractive insight. Not much to highlight, in my opinion.

SCORE: 4,75/10

"Let England Shake", PJ Harvey's masterpiece

Let England Shake - PJ Harvey
NME gave the album a perfect ten. The average metascore on Metacritic (a website that summarizes all reviews made) rates the record with a phenomenal 88 (based on 35 critics right now). Its rewarding to see, for once, the majority of the "music scene" is recognizing the value of an album and an artist that restores the devalued idea that art (music in this case) should be important, should be meaningful.

"Let England Shake" its not just a new reinvention of Polly Jean Harvey, someone that simply deserves to be considered among the most important female artists music history has, due to her constant capacity of challenging herself while she creates a language of her own. Its also a reinvention of folk, connecting the traditional -"The Colour of the Earth", "On Battleship Hill"-, with the XXI Century -"Written on the Forehead"- a sound as rich as unique taken it as a whole. But its not just about what it means for a music genre. Far from it.

As the excellent review of Mike Williams on the aforementioned weekly music magazine says, on "Let England Shake" PJ declares herself as a "political animal". But she's not doing it by overexposing her opinions and sharing her vision about the current state of the world affairs. No, she does it by creating characters, stories and situations in her songs, going from a fictional individual to a recognisable universe of death, war and desolation. She brings us the past -Gallipoli- to unify it with the present -Iraq, Afghanistan- because she's not protesting against any particular crime or injustice -as all the wars are- she's revealing that England, and the whole world, has been making the same mistakes, committing the same atrocities, making violence a common pattern of world history. Take a look at news today, please.

To highlight the best moments of this record is a hard task. For me would be the desperate pledge of "What if take my problem to the United Nations?" in "The Words that Maketh Murder", the knock-out ending of "In the Dark Places", the poignant lyrics of "The Glorious Land" or the apocalyptic battleground described on "Bitter Branches". But even in the "riskier" moments -"England" goes a bit too far for my taste in the way she sings, or the reggae sampler in "Written in the Forehead"- is the record as a whole that works, is the enduring and compelling experience that "Let England Shake" provides to the listener. A genuine -and much needed- masterpiece.

SCORE: 9/10
The link to my article (in Spanish) reviewing the record, from the website I collaborate with: 
"Let England Shake", la guerra según PJ Harvey

Migration risk (Ignoreland 2)

I know I promised not to make many "ranting posts" but it seems my job is, sadly, forcing me to keep writing about it lately. This week we have learnt a new expression. It's called "migration risk". What does it mean? It means that what we were saying last week, the "economic concerns", were just an excuse (you can replace excuse with the word lie if you prefer). So, after wasting a lot of time (not to mention money from the students applying for the visas), someone on the area of visas from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs finally reveals us the reason behind the rejection is they are too many people applying and they find that suspicious. Of course we explained what's our activity before, and they have the documents to prove it in their hands. But it seems reading is not an option either.

Well, now you know what's a "migration risk".

In conclusion:
a) Your Ministry of Foreign Affairs (or at least the persons responsible at an embassy) can lie to you.
b) The reason for a rejection can easily show you they don't give a damn about the documents you present to them. They have a policy to follow, and that's all.
c) The whole process has more to do with Kafka. But Kafka wrote books, and here we are talking about real people, and their rights and dignity as humans...