OBOC - Kyrgyzstan & Kazakhstan

It is with trepidation that I picked up “The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years” by Chingiz Aitmatov the most celebrated writer from Kyrgyzstan. The novel itself is set in Kazakhstan; hence this OBOC project is for both the countries. I had almost decided to skip Kazakhstan, but felt it would be great injustice if the only thing I could associate with the country is Borat. The Hundred Years in the title reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude and that was quite a difficult read. But I am glad I forced myself to pick up this book, because once I did there was not much coercion needed to make me finish it.

Set in the remote Sary-ozek steppes of Kazakhstan in the early 50’s close to the end of Stalinism, one would think that besides the railways there was hardly any modernization. After all a Bactrian camel plays a colorful and significant role throughout the novel. But hidden among the barren landscapes are the spacecraft launch stations which are lighting up the night sky with rocket launches.

Yedegei Burranyi the hero of the novel is a railway worker at the Boranly-Burranyi Junction. When his friend and coworker Kazangap dies, Yedegei begins a long arduous journey through the Steppes to bury him at the Ana Beiit cemetery as per the dying man’s wish. The day long journey is carried out by Yedegei on his camel followed by the grave digger and his equipment, a tractor and the close male relatives and friends of the dead man. The novel is basically Yedegei reminiscing about his life, his friendships, notably his relationship with the family of Abutalip who is wronged by the Party, and life in Burranyi Junction, combined with myths and folktales from Kazakhstan. 

Running in parallel is a science fiction plot where 2 cosmonauts, 1 American and 1 Russian have made contact with an extra terrestrial civilization on the planet Lesnaya Grud which now wants to reach out to the humans on Earth. Both nations decide not to entertain any contact with the extra-terrestrial civilization and therefore choose to abandon the two cosmonauts who went over to Lesnaya Grud. The whole operation is kept secret from the Public and the two governments decide to launch missile-equipped satellites to defend the earth from any launches from Lesnaya Grud.  

Although there is some discussion about the “mankurt” (people alienated from their motherland, culture and overall society) and the story of Abutalip’s imprisonment and persecution can be viewed as containing dissident themes, I found “The day…” to be fairly ambiguous that it escaped the censor board in Russia. Yedegei is a practicing Muslim and in the death rituals we see that he hasn’t given up his way of life. At the same time “The Party” which is seeing winds (maybe I should say light breeze) of change following the death of Stalin re-opens the case of Abutalip and clears his name, and there is overall optimism.

The science fiction plot was loosely tied with Yedegei’s life, and if one wants to make any kind of analogies to the main plot, it is tenuous at best. I still enjoyed the book.  Wouldn’t call it a classic, but this is a perfect book for a project like OBOC. Learned about a new country, a new author and a different narrative style and it was mostly easy-reading!