michael strogoff the courier of the czar

They must at least have known in the back of their minds that all great moments eventually vanish - just as the golden hues of my childhood themselves had, alas, also an expiry date! Shall we follow the deception of the thrush?”ĭid these artists know that soon such sentimental books and painting would be relegated to the black dust heap of art history? Of course, ALL the post-impressionist book plates of that time had a wonderful, fairytale, autumnal effect - just like in the famous September Morn - Mâtinée de Septembre, by Chabas. What I could read back then was much not much more than at the snail’s pace of those learned Dick and Jane tomes we got in First Grade!īut - finding the odd word I knew, looking at those particular post-impressionist plates that graced kids’ books so many years ago, I dreamed of being the Czar’s courier, riding wildly over those rugged steppes, MYSELF: wow, I loved it. This was my grandmother’s gift to me - from her large collection of 1920’s children’s books - that long lost summer so long ago. So there I was, in her room, as the late afternoon summer sun filtered through the Navajo hemp curtains, deeply and fatally immersed in the far-flung exploits of this young heroic man, Michel Strogoff, Courier to the Czar! This same room had always traditionally doubled as a nursery, so my kid sister was relocated to my parents’ room for the duration. She could sense that deeply and profoundly.

My grandmother always took the spare room when she came - not actually much of a big deal for the First Lady of Tooele, Utah - the mayor’s wife!īut our enormous love for her made up for it. My dear grandmother had come all the way from Utah, by train, to see us all - and especially her baby granddaughter, my sister, who’d been born in the previous October. well, this less of a review than a series of rambling reminiscences -Ī wonderful illustrated version of a fantastic odd-book-out odyssey by that idol of our long-forgotten childhoods, Jules Verne. I’ll have to beg my readers’ forgiveness once again, for this.

Michael strogoff the courier of the czar