OBOC - Belarus

I now understand why Vasil Bykov has the reputation that he has. I was fortunate to have stumbled upon "Sign of Misfortune" as part of my OBOC project. This book is going to stay with me for a long time.

A view of WWII told from the point of view of two pesants whose life was nothing to boast about before the German invasion, and one that only gets more miserable with every passing day, is one gripping narrative. Poverty is nothing new to Stepanida and Petroc, as they lived through Stalin's collectivization policies (the reality of which is exposed through flashbacks throughout the novel), but now they were witnessing a new kind of tyranny something that they are not able to comprehend with their "simple" peasant minds.

As the Nazis roll into town, take over their farm, they see their own countrymen acquiring brutal qualities as they become the new Polizei. How do human beings who have experienced the dignity of being humans at some point stand up to these "brutes". With no news about their son and daughter, they see their only possessions - a cow named Bobovka (and yes, I remember the name as Bykov makes you feel for the cow too!), a piglet and a dozen chickens - also succumbing to this incomprehensible tyranny.

Stepandia - the "activist" is a doer - she is not used to taking things lying down, and she keeps up her spirit until the end. Petroc on the other hand is just a simple, quite man who would rather step aside than pick any quarrels. In their life time they lived through a harsh world, first as laborers for Kulaks, then they saw the individual farmer rooted out through collectivization, then they lived in anticipation of a future when everything would be organized and they'd be in clover. In reality they only lived a life of shortages and anxieties. And then the war came along.

In one chapter Bykov says about Stepanida, "She had not read their (Germans) books and knew nothing of their high-level politics. She was used to judging great things through small, the world by her own village." That is exactly what Bykov does in the Sign of Misfortune - he describes the world under Stalin and Hitler through the eyes of these 2 peasants.

Is human good powerless in the face of evil? Wasn't man made to repay good for good? Whoever is in the right has no need of weapons. Are these just simple, saintly reflections of two peasants? It certainly got me thinking.

While there was so much "action" in the book, it also devotes significant number of pages to describing day-to-day routines of two unsophisticated farmers, and even those narrations were so gripping and moving.

I dont know how many people in the West have heard of Vasil Bykau but he certainly is considered a literary treasure in his native Belarus. As someone who has lived through war, his writings and his stance are so relevant in today's world and I am glad I got to read him through this effort.

OBOC - Azerbaijan

I spent a lot of time trying to find an author from Azerbaijan whose book I can get hold of here and had almost given up when I chanced upon Afaq Masud's short stories which are freely available on the web! I should concede that i've never been a huge fan of short stories, but Afaq Masud's 4 short stories completely took me by surprise.

I especially liked "Dormitory" which I believe was written in 1983 under Soviet occupation. Living in extremely close quarters with 150 other families, where even walls have ears, Mastaan and his family don't get a single private moment. When they indeed get their 10 days off to be all by themselves, all hell breaks loose. 15-16 years of suppressed emotions all burst forth in an uncontrollable manner revealing newer darker sides of Mastaan, his wife and their son. At the end of 10 days they can't wait to get back to the 400 people commune and find comfort in that environment. Is this an allegory for living under the Soviet regime?

In any case I found her stories very witty, very well written and offering a glimpse into the lives of Azerbaijainis especially the women. I wish I can get hold of her novels.

Off to the B's now! Oh wait, still have Argentina to finish, but have already started Belarus, and will get to Argentina in a bit.

OBOC - Austria

This was one of the most difficult reads for me. I picked Peter Handke as opposed to the obvious choice of Elfriede Jelinek, one of the few women Noble Prize winners, and i went with "The Goalie's anxiety....". So why did a 133 page book took me forever to finish?

A well-known goalie, who has lost his construction job, wanders around aimlessly,picks up a movie cashier and murders her for absolutely no reason at all, and all this happens in the first 20 odd pages.. How his life disintegrates from that point on fills the remaining 100+ pages.

Bloch who is the protagonist is not a man of words, so the author employs language to describe the most mundane everyday happenings. In some pages there were nothing but ramblings.

I didn't enjoy the book as much as I had hoped to. I think i made a couple of mistakes when reading the book - 1) i expected a story, maybe even a mystery 2) i was reading too much between the lines trying to figure out what the author could possibly mean. I should've viewed the book as an experimental piece of fiction based on existentialism.

Apparently the book was made into a movie in the early 70s. Now i am curious to see the movie.

Anyways, done with Austria but i dont think i got any insight into Austria or Austrians :( Trying to wrap up Argentina now.

OBOC - Armenia

Unfortunately the only thing I knew about Armenia is the controversy with Turkey regarding acknowledging the “Armenian Genocide” in 1915 during WW1. So while looking for a book from Armenia I realized that most of my searches centered around this phase in history. I ended up reading “Knock at the door” by Margaret Ajemian Ahnert which was the story of a daughter narrating her mom Ester’s story of survival and escape from the incidents of 1915.

While on one hand it is a story of the genocide as seen from the eyes of a teenaged Armenian girl whose life is completely torn apart, it is also the story of the bond between mother and daughter as Margaret copes with her 99 year old mom’s illness and her impending death.

The first few chapters when Ester narrates her life in Amasia give a good glimpse into the Armenian culture especially the food! Following that Ester narrates how her life takes a turn for the worse as Armenians are forced out of their cities and are systematically murdered. She loses most of her family, her home, her blissful life and her innocence in this process but she is miraculously saved from one catastrophe after the other, leading her to believe that God must have a purpose for her. She survives hunger, rape, brutality in marriage with simple faith and the constant refrain “This too shall pass” and escapes to America where she slowly learns to put these thoughts out of her mind. It is in America she meets her husband and raises a successful family. So it is essentially a story of a survivor triumphing against all odds.

All along one question is constantly raised – why is Turkey still denying these incidents ever happened? This I believe is the overwhelming feeling among Armenian diaspora in the US. I remember during the Presidential campaign both Obama and McCain had to answer questions regarding acknowledging the Armenian genocide. This is the case even with Margaret, who was born in the US and had visited Armenia just once in her life. More than Ester's story, Margaret's sense of insecurity despite living in the US intrigued me. She identifies so much with her mother's experiences and feelings and seemed to be very wary of engaging in any conversation with people from Turkey and that made me wonder how these 2 countries can sit down and start negotiating without bringing some closure for the victims of 1915.

The book was interesting and quite an easy read. I found the initial chapters describing Ester's childhood were not as well written as the other chapters. The narration seemed disjointed in those chapters.

Now that i've read this book, I am hoping I will have more context when i pick a book from Azerbaijan... I get through Argentina and Austria of course!

OBOC - Australia

Even before I started searching for books I knew it had to be about the outback and the native people of the country. Of late I’ve been reading quite a few Native American books and recently watched “Bury my heart at wounded knee”, so I was already primed to know more about the Aborigines of Australia. I also saw the movie "Rabbit proof fence" but couldn't find the book it was based on. So I am glad I made an exception when I picked up Harvey Arden’s “Dreamkeepers”. Arden is not an Australian author but his book was about Australia and I decided to read this one for OBOC.

This book was very different in its style and in its grace and more importantly in its respectful tone. The author decided to step away from the limelight and not interpret or summarize anything he learned from the Aborigines. Instead he lets them do the talking which i found to be very very refreshing. Every other book that deals with Native people anywhere always has a lens – be it anthropological, historical, mystical or spiritual.

This book is of, by, for the aborigines. Harvey Arden has been very respectful of local traditions and has let natives do all the talking and just acted as a scribe for whatever was permitted. As Daisy Utemorrah said to him “Just stop by and say hello to us, that's all we ask” – he did just that and let them drive the conversation and captured it as accurately as possible.

In his quest for dreamtime stories, he realizes that those are not his stories for him to take, publish and make money from. Just because you ask someone the time, it doesn't mean you have a right to their watch is the analogy that was used.

The book offered some amazing insights into the minds of the aborginal people and their culture, customs and aspirations ...how they've reconciled christianity with their Wandjina spirits, the white man's law to their own law , dreamtime to today's real time. I was also intrigued by how each tribe had its own dreamtime and how even today depiction of dreamtime in art is symbolic to not give away anything and how business was classified as "man's business" and "woman's business".

Arden also shared his book "wisdom keepers" about Native Americans with the Aborginals he met, and it was fascinating to see how they quickly identified themselves with Native Americans. When Arden couldn't resist his "touristy desire" to see the Aboriginal Jack Rogers all painted up, he is told that painting up is only for ceremony. That takes him back to the conversation he had with a Lakota leader when he asked him to wear his "war bonnet"

White man always gets everything wrong. He calls us savages, but he's the savage. See, he calls this headdress a war bonnet. Sure, we used it in war, but most of the time it was for ceremony. Every feather stands for a good deed, and I have thirty-six in mine. It's not about war; it's about who we are. When we sing songs he calls them war songs. But they're not war songs , they're prayers to god. We have drums, so White Man calls them war drums; but they're not for war, they're for talking to God. there's no such thing as a war drum. He sees how our warriors paint their faces, so he calls it war paint. But it's not for war, it's to make it so God can see our faces clearly if we have to die.

The narrative also gave a glimpse of stark realities facing the aborginals as they have been relegated to outbacks, living off pensions and succumbing to grog. At the same time the conversation with Reg Birch, the Aborginal commissioner was very uplifting as he outlined his vision for the nations of Aborginals. I especially liked his long term vision of having a separate seat in the UN for native people.

Being uprooted from the land of their ancestors in the name of development - this is an issue that indigenous people all over the world have faced and are still facing, and reading this book took me back often to the Adivasis of India and their struggle against the Sardar Sarovar Dam in India.

Many a time Arden was consumed with "gadia guilt" for taking away something which was not his from the aborginals, but as his guide Mike pointed out, "What you're doin' is important. You're seeing through all the crap to these people's dignity. That's well worth doin' to my mind."

This book is a great testimony to the lives and struggles of a community coming out of repression into a life of dignity