{"id":385,"date":"2008-10-07T09:19:55","date_gmt":"2008-10-07T05:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=385"},"modified":"2008-10-07T15:24:46","modified_gmt":"2008-10-07T11:24:46","slug":"sakhalins-literary-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/385\/","title":{"rendered":"Sakhalin’s Literary History"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is well known that the\u00a0remarkable author and playwright Anton Chekhov<\/a> undertook an arduous journey from St. Petersburg to Sakhalin Island in order to study the conditions in the Tsarist penal colony.<\/p>\n

What is less well known is that many famous literary works were the product of inspiration drawn from the author’s visit to Sakhalin Island.\u00a0 I list a few of these below:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0The Big Sleep<\/em> by Raymond Chandler<\/strong> – Detective Philip Marlowe takes on a difficult case requiring his attendence in\u00a0a progress meeting at the offices of a local oil company.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0The Odyssey<\/em> by Homer<\/strong> – Odysseus is working a 7\/3 rotation on Sakhalin Island and\u00a0is supposed to go\u00a0home after each trip to be with his wife Penelope.\u00a0 This epic poem is an account of the ten-year journey Odysseus undertakes following his first rotation and the dangers he faces, such as the Sirens of Chas’te who help our hero out of his clothes, the cyclops at the immigration counter whom Odysseus outwits by working on a business visa, and the milkman who has won Penelope’s affections whilst he has been away.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0The Tristan Betrayal<\/em> by Robert Ludlum<\/strong> – Oxbridge engineer Tristan Corey-Barnett arrives for a management role on Sakhalin Island with an oil and gas service provider, only to find that his salary will not<\/em> be reviewed in the New Year and promises of a bonus\u00a0were actually lies.\u00a0 Tristan is also shocked to discover the existence of an incumbent in the form of a\u00a0short, fat, unpleasant, incompetent, corrupt local woman of whom he was told nothing prior to coming.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 A Time to Kill<\/em> by John Grisham<\/strong> – Rotating equipment engineer Carl Lee Hailey has been sent to Korea to renew his visa,\u00a0a trip which involved him racking up several hundred dollars in expenses.\u00a0 On his arrival back in Sakhalin, he submitted his business expense report as per the correct procedure.\u00a0 Six months later Hailey has still not been reimbursed and calls up the appropriate department to find out what’s going on.\u00a0The girl at the end of the phone says it’s nothing to do with her.\u00a0 Another person says it is to do with him, but he’s off on leave.\u00a0\u00a0A third person says it has been paid.\u00a0 After making a series of international phone calls to his bank, Hailey confirms it has not been paid.\u00a0 He calls the department again.\u00a0 A girl says it is is nothing to do with her.\u00a0Another person says he thought he’d been paid.\u00a0 A third person says they have lost his business expense report.\u00a0 A fourth person is off on leave.\u00a0 Shortly afterwards, Hailey is on trial for murder.\u00a0 Will the jury sympathise?<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0Anna Karenina<\/em> by Leo Tolstoy<\/strong> – Formerly known as “The Belle of 777”, the story of Anna Karenina tells of a simple girl working in the\u00a0finance department of a foreign company who dreams of meeting a wealthy expat (preferably not much older than her grandfather),\u00a0weekends in Japan, a child, and – if she’s lucky – an apartment.\u00a0 Will Anna find a man and\u00a0get her wishes before his wife finds out?<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0The 39 Steps<\/em> by John Buchan<\/strong> – In this whirlwind action thriller we follow hero Richard Hannay through his work visa application process.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0The Da Vinci Code<\/em><\/strong> by Dan Brown<\/strong> –\u00a0A team of top engineers are tasked with decoding a\u00a0commissioning\u00a0procedure written by Julio Da Vinci, an Italian\u00a0engineer\u00a0who quit the project six months back without a handover.\u00a0 This sad tale takes us through a journey of\u00a0initial optimism which leads to despair, anguish, and ultimately, suicide.\u00a0 Not for the faint hearted.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0Much Ado\u00a0About Nothing<\/em>\u00a0by William Shakespeare<\/strong> –\u00a0A play set in the immediate aftermath of somebody having been caught not using a handrail.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0 Around the World in Eighty Days<\/em> by Jules Verne<\/strong> – Phileas Fogg lives in London and has just signed up for a job in Sakhalin.\u00a0 He has planned his route from London to Sakhalin via Moscow to perfection, but his employer has found an alternative route which will save them thirty-five dollars.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this new route takes Fogg from London to Tirana on Albanian airlines where he must help refuel the aircraft upon arrival, and from there to Ankara by bus.\u00a0 Leaving early in the morning eight days later, he will travel by\u00a0taxi (the fare\u00a0for which must be paid\u00a0in daughters, sisters, or nieces)\u00a0to Nagorno-Karabakh where Armenian bandits are enjoying shooting at Azeri soldiers who seem to have forgotten that the war ended 14 years ago.\u00a0 Having served on an Azeri mortar\u00a0crew for a period of no less than five weeks, Fogg will be permitted to walk to the coast of the Caspian Sea where, if he is lucky, he can catch a ferry across to Turkmenistan where, if he is lucky, he can avoid catching anything at all.\u00a0 On the Turkmen-Uzbek border regular camel trains leave for Tashkent, which Fogg should make in about ten days if he avoids becoming somebody’s husband at the two-day stop in Kiva.\u00a0 Assuming Fogg makes it, we can expect him to be crossing the Pamirs into Tadjikistan and onto China by the seventh week (or ninth if winter has set in) and making his way across the Gobi desert.\u00a0 On the third day in the barren wilderness, he should turn northwards and into Russia where he will find himself in a barren wildnerness only with bears.\u00a0 If he doesn’t loaf about he should make it to the Tatar Straits in good shape to strip to his undies, dive in the water, and strike out for the distant shore.\u00a0 If he takes the recommended rest on Moneron Island, he should hit Kholmsk on the 79th day of his journey.\u00a0 From there it is a simple day’s walk into Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, where he will find that nobody has arranged his accommodation and he has forgotten to bring his diploma.<\/p>\n

10. The Man in the Iron Mask<\/em> by Alexandre Dumas<\/strong> – A short story about a welder working for a local contractor who is forced to make his own PPE by his unscrupulous employers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is well known that the\u00a0remarkable author and playwright Anton Chekhov undertook an arduous journey from St. Petersburg to Sakhalin Island in order to study the conditions in the Tsarist penal colony. What is less well known is that many … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,46],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}