tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post3484395048617073210..comments2024-03-28T19:56:32.848-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `We Always Love Our Mushrooms'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-86087408552342995222009-06-07T09:49:55.517-05:002009-06-07T09:49:55.517-05:00Book three of Pan Tadeusz is the locus classicus f...Book three of Pan Tadeusz is the locus classicus for the Slavic fetish of mushroom-hunting, but it's described there in such posthumous language that it's as if they'd all eaten the wrong ones:<br /><br />"Beyond the orchard he noticed a grove<br />scattered with scrubby bushes and a layer<br />of turf, from which thin white birches rose,<br />their leafy branches bent as if in prayer.<br />He spied a multitude of forms dancing about<br />in strange costumes, like ancient spirits forlorn,<br />trolling beneath the moon. Some were decked-out<br />in flowing robes or snow-white gowns well-worn.<br />Others were all in black, with broad hoop-like caps.<br />Some heads were bare, but some appeared wrapped<br />in mist, as though the clouds themselves were traps.<br />Each figure would assume a pose in rapt<br />attention, joining hands to the smooth ground,<br />shifting only its glowing eyes, then gazing<br />straight ahead, dream-walking without a sound,<br />as if treading a tightrope—an amazing<br />vision, undeviating from the line,<br />only its arms reached down on either side,<br />as if regaining balance, or to design<br />some secret tapping language, new and untried.<br />If one approached another, it did not greet<br />or talk, so deeply were both plunged<br />in mime—no recognition, however discreet.<br />to each; each other figure was expunged<br />by separateness. And so the Count was sure<br />he’d been transported to the Elysian Field<br />where he observed wandering shades, pure<br />and cleansed, no longer full of woe, yield<br />their sins, their coming fate not yet revealed.<br />How could the Count have guessed that these silent<br />creeping people were the Judge’s guests?<br />That after sumptuous breakfast they all went<br />to gather mushrooms—one of the ritual quests<br />still done in Lithuania. They were all<br />respectable people who knew just how<br />to moderate speech and movement; they could recall<br />the stringent rules of etiquette, so now<br />they trailed the Judge, and likewise dressed<br />in his attire, donning canvas capes<br />to ward off the forest damp, and had expressed<br />delight when large straw hats of various shapes<br />were passed around. Thus it was no surprise<br />that they appeared like spirits from Purgatory."<br /><br />Chernobyl deserves at least a footnote in the world history of human folly. In Shostakovitch/Lesvkov's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the priest called to administer the last rites to Boris Timofeyevich quotes Gogol (a Ukranian) “Oh these mushrooms and cold soups are too much” after Boris is poisoned with mushrooms laced with rat poison. Post-Chernobyl, Ukranian mushrooms are now laced liberally with Caesium-137.Eric Thomsonnoreply@blogger.com