Arts & Entertainment
YOTSUBA
JAPANESE RESTAURANT & BAR
Bar
Catering and carryout
WEST BLOOMFIELD
7365 Orchard Lake Rd
Inspired By A Classic
(Corner of Northwestern & Orchard Lake Rd.)
(248) 737-8282
www.yotsubarestaurant.com
Hours:
MON-FRI 11:30-10 pm
FRI-SAT 11:30 am-11 pm
SUN 12 pm-9:30 pm
I
RISTORANTE
10% OFF Total Food Bill
Sandee Brawarsky
Special to the Jewish News
Not valid with other offers. Offer exp 11/30108
With Ad
T
f:
Fine Italian Dining in a
Casual Atmosphere
r
I
1r0OFF
TOTAL FOOD BILL
OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK!
(Mon-Thurs Only)
(248) 538-8954
I Please present this coupon to receive discount!
One coupon per customer • Exp: 11/30/08 '
(Not valid on holidays)
Mon-Thurs: 4pm-10pm • Fri: 11am-11pm
Sat: 4pm-11pm • Sun: 3pm-9pm
33210 W. 14 Mile Rd
In Simsbury Plaza, just east of Farmington Rd.
West Bloomfield
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
•
10% off
•
•
with this ad on any purchase thru 11/30/08 •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Clothing for women and children • Gifts and Accessories
•
39530 W 14 mile in the Hiller shopping center • Commerce 248-438-6136 • Open Monday-Saturday
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ' 1*
•
STEAKS • SEAFOOD • MI • COC iTAILS
10% '1 LUNCH ; KAHANE
OFF I SPECIALS I NIGHT
Total Bill
Sun.-Thurs.
I
excludes alcohol I
expires 11/20/08
Under $10
includes Sushi
and Hibachi.
expires 11/20/08
Fri. & Sat
1 10:30 p.m.— 2:00 am.
Sushi
I Serving
MAKE YOUR
RESERVATIONS TODAY
OPEN 7 DAYS • LUNCH & DINNER • FULL BAR • EXOTIC DRINKS
THE FUN PLACE TO DINE • MEETINGS • PARTIES • CATERING
248. 661.8898 • 7390 HAGGERTY RD. • WEST BLOOMFIELD
Northeast corner of 14 Mile & Haggerty
in the Waigreen's Shopping Plaza
C8
November 6 • 2008
m
he Russian soul, that hard-
to-define, but deep and
informed melancholy, is
flourishing in Rego Park, Queens.
To the title character in Irina Reyn's
novel, What Happened
to Anna K (Touchstone;
$24), the velikaia russ-
kaia dusha, Russian
soul, transplanted to
America might be
embodied in the way
Russians avoid voicing
public praise, rebuke
strangers in public and
show a fondness for
politically incorrect
jokes.
Shards of it are
locked up even in
Anna, who wakes up
optimistic to a new day, yet loves to
drink — even if it makes her argu-
mentative or depressed afterward
— and tends to see things in binary
mode: as either wonderful or terrible.
An overall feeling of doom is never far
away.
"The Russian soul had come to
claim her, extinguishing all that was
sanguine and buoyant, all that was
American inside her, leaving only the
Siberian Steppes, the crust of black
bread, the acerbic aftertaste of mari-
nated herring, the eternal, bleak win-
ter," Reyn writes.
In an interview, the Moscow-born
author, who immigrated to the United
States at age 7, admits that she, too,
has a lingering Russian soul. Her well-
written and very enjoyable first novel
recasts Tolstoy, as its title suggests,
observing immigrants from the for-
mer Soviet Union, body and soul.
Reyn said, in unaccented English,
that she began writing some stories
and sketches that would become
pieces of this novel during gradu-
ate school, when she reread Anna
Karenina. As she was thinking about
issues of identity for her characters, of
integrating tradition and modernity,
she realized that Tolstoy had dealt with
some of the same concerns; and her
questions overlapped with some of his.
"Once I decided that I was going
to draw attention to a dialogue with
Tolstoy, the challenge was how far to
go with this. I didn't want to literally
transpose his story:' she explains, but,
rather, wanted to find moments that
would inform her novel. She took care
to be sure her novel had its own iden-
tity, even while calling attention to this
other great work.
Readers don't need to have read the
Russian classic to appreciate Reyn's
novel. She says that many American
readers have turned
to Tolstoy after read-
ing What Happened to
Anna K.
Reyn's Anna K., who
had expected great love
for herself and that she
would shape great art
reflecting her emotion-
al life, "waited patiently
for the call of the rel-
evant lovers through
her twenties and early
thirties." Single at 36
and aware that her
creative inspiration
has yet to materialize, she settles into
marriage with a successful Russian
businessman. Even at her wedding
at a Brighton Beach nightclub, she
feels that uneasy desire for something
more.
She and her husband move from
Rego Park to the Upper East Side
of Manhattan; their circle consists
of his friends and their wives, who
speak "a Russian-English patois
— Americanizing their Russian,
Russifying their English."
Anna K. is drawn into an affair with
the boyfriend of her Bukharan cousin
— first glimpsed at a train station.
With him, she can talk about books
and ideas, and she likes the notion of
being his muse. Her cousin Katia mar-
ries Lev, a fellow Bukharan, who's pas-
sionate about French film. But Anna
K.'s life resembles that of Tolstoy's
tragic heroine.
With humor laced into this story,
Reyn explores aging, love and mar-
riage, ethnic identity, the power of
tradition and the pull of family and
community.
"I think of myself as a Russian
Jewish American writer:' Reyn says. ❑
Irina Reyn speaks Wednesday,
Nov.12, at two JCC book fairs:
at 1 p.m. at the JCC in West
Bloomfield and at 7:30 p.m. at
the JCC in Ann Arbor.