Customers
both infuriate and entertain me. I have just tried to help an non-Russian speaking customer who wanted a present for a friend with an interest in politics. She wanted fiction, ideally modern, but as I approached the Russian books, I was accosted by another Russian customer looking for Lukianenko. I pointed her towards the master of the vampire novel, but as I then proceeded to help the other customer, she butted in repeatedly, deriding my recommendations of Gogol and Bulgakov, and insisting that Shukshin was a greater writer than either of them. She huffed and puffed as I tried to explain Master & Margarita. She exclaimed that everyone knows Gogol and is sick of him. Pelevin was a hack. Sorokin was rubbish. And yet I couldn't help but smile. I cannot imagine a British sci-fi fan (as she loudly proclaimed to be) having such a knowledge of and passion for (no matter how misguided I may consider it to be) English literature as a whole.
posted by lukeski at 4:52 pm
2 Comments:
How big and hard was her hair?
Not very - the numbers of blonde, big, stiff haired, blue eye shadow-wearing customers is diminishing all the time. The blue eye shadow was my major impression of Russia when I was in Kazan - I had see photos of my siter wearing a similar style of make-up in the mid-70's, but growing up in the provinces in the 80's, I had never been exposed to it before.
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