corner of 9th St. and Second Ave., NYC
My Orchidia
by Alexander Motyl
reviewed by Mykola (Mick)
Dementiuk
Two very talkative gentlemen wander through
the streets of the East Village
and mostly through the Ukrainian neighborhood discussing Art, History,
Creativity, and most importantly, where to get some good varenyky or pierogis.
Their mouths water as they discuss the Orchidia, the famous Ukrainian/Italian
restaurant which has served the Ukrainian community for years and years.
But the book, My
Orchidia, really is a walk back in time, with historical figures making an
appearance, Nikolai Gogol, Lenin, Mahkno, Simone De Beauvoir, TS Eliot, and a
host of others. Alexander Motyl feels very much at home with these characters,
as he surely should, they are his
characters and this is his book, and
an uproarious book at that, too.
I love the many
different characters making an appearance as the two prime characters continue
making their way to the Orchidia. One of the best and funniest, is the poet
Allen Ginsberg complaining to his landlady and howling with rage, “What does
she think we are--a beet generation?” The beet an intentional misspelling and this
had me howling and laughing on the floor…plus there are many gems such as that
one.
The low price of
the paperback book, $10.00, is ideal for today’s almost non-existent book market
and it is well worth the laughs you will get from it. I highly recommend it.
You’ll laugh, you’ll chuckle, you’ll simply sigh with amazement at all the
characters coming through the East Village of New York as Motyl’s characters
make their way nearer and nearer to the Orchidia.
In all the years
that the Orchidia was on that site I had the lucky fortune to at least be there
just one time, stepping in from the Ukrainian Festival just a few blocks away
and knowing the bartender who invited me in to have a drink on the house. I
felt the mood of the place was comforting, merry but peaceful too, and the
constant jabber of Ukrainian was like I was at home because for a moment I was at home…
There will never be a place like the
Orchidia, that’s for sure. But at least this book will give you a peek at what
was going on there. I’m sure that many characters sat at the Orchidia tables
discussing Life, as it was pondered by the two vareneky hungry gentlemen. Sure
hope they eat heartily.
Alexander
Motyl is a writer, painter, and professor. He is the author of five novels, Whiskey
Priest, Who Killed Andrei Warhol, Flippancy, The Jew Who
Was Ukrainian, and The Taste of Snow (forthcoming); his poems have
appeared in Mayday, Counterexample Poetics, Istanbul Literary
Review, Orion Headless, The Battered Suitcase, Red River
Review, and New York Quarterly; his artwork has been exhibited in
solo and group shows in New York, Philadelphia, and Toronto and is on view at
www.artsicle.com. Motyl teaches at Rutgers University-Newark and lives in New York.
See review for Motyl's Flippancy click here
order My Orchidia here
