Ok, so the last one for this year wasn't another free ebook, since I ended up sorting several boxes of old books to be given away (those we'll find a home for, recycled for the rest) and saw this one that was small, easily accessible (in the literal sense, could easily take it out of its box and put it back without digging through much), not originally in English to say I don't want a translation because if I'd care to read it I'd want to read it untranslated, and said satire, so said might as well go through it while I have them here and am sorting and checking lists, even if not something I'd care for (after all, read whatever's in here that I did care for it in my teens, some even as a kid).
Name on the Romanian edition is
Bai Ganiu, though I gather the English translation is
Bai Ganyo. As usual, copying quick review also posted
on Goodreads and
blog.
The first stories are reasonably funny while obviously pointing out and criticizing certain character traits and behaviors. Later ones become more serious, with deeper character and social commentary presented more directly. Those taking place after the character’s return to Bulgaria continue this trend, the author harshly lashing out against the politics and the press of the time. As for the brief ones added at the end, written after the others were first gathered in one book, they’re something of a mix of these categories, squeezed in a few pages each.
As this was written in the late 1800s, by a Bulgarian and for and about Bulgarians, the specifics obviously reflect this. However, taken generally, the negative traits, behaviors, attitudes and ways in which things work, or don’t work, are sadly still very much present in many people and many parts of the world. Of course, the author often exaggerates, but that’s a characteristic of this style of writing.
Do need to make a note that
the edition I read was translated and published in 1964, so under Communism, and includes a foreword that’s quite a lengthy propaganda piece, stressing how readers should take the stories as supporting certain ideologies and opposing others despite stating repeatedly that the author himself understood little about such matters. As such, on top of what’d normally be expected to get lost in translation, wonder how much else was censored or intentionally changed. But it was just a little book I wouldn’t normally care about which I picked up while going through and sorting boxes of old books to give away, so I’m not going to care too much if it may not have reflected the source material as accurately as it should have. Not going to give much thought to the rating either.
