Friday, 28 May

I read the English version of M. Sholokhov’s book “And Quiet Flows the Don”. It described the lives of Cossack farmers. He wrote what happened in 1914. He talked of fathers raping their daughters, the father-in-law raping his daughter-in-law, son killing his father and soldiers raping and so on. Our country stresses morality and we would never dream of these terrible things, even a lot of countries in Europe would feel shocked. But Sholokhov is considered one of the greatest modern writers and the Russians praise his works very much, but I was really puzzled. This is because I think so-called good literature should have the following properties.1) When people read it they should feel happy. 2) It should promote an awakening of a moral aspect. But this book was devoid of these two things. Furthermore, it took wife beating and fighting between son and father as daily routines and assumed them normal. From this we can divine what Russians are. They are different from our countries in many respects.

In the evening, I went to watch a film. The equipment was bad and the sound terrible. I watched the 1940 British film Lady Hamilton.