Finding My Wings

Armenian Genocide Remembered in Fiction (Part 1)

History is written by the victors. – attributed to Winston Churchill, author unknown

Once I realized that for 100 years a key objective of the government of Turkey has been to hide from the world knowledge of a systematic campaign to rid the Ottoman Empire of its Armenian citizens, I was less embarrassed by my ignorance and far more angry. From 1915 – 1923 between a million and 1.5 million citizens of Armenian descent were systematically forced out of their homes, subjected to death marches, crammed into railway cars, raped, tortured, starved and placed in concentration camps. Sound familiar? While it isn’t clear which nation came up with the techniques, among those aligned with the Turks and serving alongside them throughout WWI were the Germans.

Sometime within the last decade I first realized I knew next to nothing about what is now called the first genocide of the modern era. I’ve been learning, bit by bit, but I didn’t started with history books. An unexpected encounter at a B&B in Harpers Ferry, WV, was the beginning. But it’s Chris Bohjalian’s The Sandcastle Girls and Aline Ohanesian’s Orhan’s Inheritance (see post Part 2) that set me on the path to understanding.

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The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian (Doubleday, 2012)
In 40 words or less: A young woman travels to the Ottoman Republic in 1915 to aid Armenian refugees. Her experiences with all those she meets change the course of her life. Strong historical underpinnings provide critical insights.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Locale: Ottoman Empire, Aleppo, USA
Time: 1915-16 and 2012
Read this if you have limited knowledge of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks from 1915-23. Fans of Bohjalian will be thrilled with the balance between storytelling and history.

Continue reading Armenian Genocide Remembered in Fiction (Part 1)

Culture clash at the breakfast table

In 2011, my husband and I decided to celebrate our February anniversary with a getaway to Harpers Ferry. The big news story at the time was the Arab Spring. As we headed out all eyes were on Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the next steps in Egypt’s revolution. Like many inside the Beltway, I welcomed the chance to dial down the political conversation when DC disappeared from the rearview mirror.

The Jackson Rose is a small B&B, only 3 rooms, close to all the sights – a perfect choice when the weather might be blustery. After a day exploring the park and the hilly streets of Harpers Ferry we headed to Charlestown for dinner. Everything as planned.

The next morning we headed to breakfast and a table set for six. I can’t remember anything about the food but the conversation will stay with me always. As guests at the same dining table, we introduced ourselves. We started with a coincidence. Before leaving town, Dan was a guest on a weekly radio show at WFED. While there he was introduced to a new engineer with WTOP, with which WFED shared studio space. The engineer, a young recent Egyptian immigrant, was there with his wife, a Palestinian staff member at CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. For both of them the news from Egypt was critically important. Most of his family was still there so there was a mix of concern and excitement. For her, the political and public impression of the Arab Spring and its impact on Arab-Americans was key. So much for leaving the Beltway behind.

The second couple was visiting from Norfolk, VA. Retired, she was a dedicated docent at the art museum. After talking about that for a few minutes she began speaking about her real passion. Her grandmother was a survivor of the genocide of Armenian Christians by the Turks in 1915-16. Her mother was born shortly after her grandmother arrived in the US. Her mission was two-fold: 1) to see a museum in downtown DC dedicated to telling the story, raising awareness of this often forgotten event, and 2) to secure a proclamation from the Congress criticizing the government of Turkey for the genocide and demanding acknowledgement that it did occur. The museum plans stalled and, despite many calls for passage, neither the Congress nor the White House formally criticized Turkey on the 100th anniversary this April.

And then Dan and Ellen. The “small world” conversation made clear what Dan does and I mentioned I facilitated a number of book groups. Any questions about our ethnicity/religion were answered with my responses about the groups and books that I was working with at the time.

At this small table we sat, Muslims, Christians and Jews, talking about the perceptions and misperceptions of our peoples. Talking about lands under contention and governments with mixed motivations. A playwright would have been criticized for writing such a scene. We all looked or sounded our parts. The young Palestinian-American with the hijab, the older Armenian-American with a glistening gold cross and me; each with our matching spouses. We each spoke with passion about our heritages and the importance of respect. I’m certain there were many points of difference in our views, but I see their faces at that table whenever the Armenian genocide or CAIR are mentioned. And I hope they do as well for putting a human face on conflicts can change the way we deal with them.

Yesterday, on the confluence of Yom Kippur and Eid al Adha, the holiest days on the Jewish and Muslim calendars, I completed my second reading of Chris Bohjalian’s The Sandcastle Girls, a novel about the Armenian genocide and those who stood witness. While I will write about the book separately, I’m sure Bohjalian would have loved to be at that accidental gathering. Sometimes it is a book or a serendipitous conversation that brings a new perspective. When we hold on to those experiences we more able to bring the a human face to big international issues.

An award winning story of Soviet-era politics meeting contemporary mores

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The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis (Little, Brown and Company, 2014)
In 40 words or less: A disgraced Israeli politician on vacation sees the man who betrayed him to the KGB forty years earlier. One is a prisoner of his past, the other has no sense of his future. Each is changed by the meeting.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: Crimea, Israel, Moscow
Time: 2012 and 1972
Read this if you enjoy novels where difficult moral choices are front and center. Bezmozgis provides incisive historical context and characters consistent with the issues presented. It is rare that an author can pull it all together so succinctly .

David Bezmozgis has spent more than ten years opening the door on the lives of refuseniks that left the former Soviet Union (FSU) in a trickle in the early 1970s becoming a tidal wave in the 1990s. His latest, The Betrayers, tells of a senior Israeli politician, Baruch Kotler, a poster child of the dissident movement, who travels to Crimea with his young lover as pictures of their indiscretion hit the press. Kohler left Israel in disgrace after taking a position against the government, speaking out against dismantling settlements in the territories. The exposure of the affair came about after he refused to change his position.

The plot centers on an unfortunate coincidence. Upon arrival in Yalta there is a mixup at the hotel and Baruch and Leora are forced to find accommodations in a private home. Their host is the wife of Baruch’s roommate from 40 years earlier. He betrayed Baruch to the KGB, resulting in 13 years of imprisonment. When Baruch recognizes Volodya (Chaim) through the window, he has a choice – leave without disclosing his identity or confront the man he considered a friend and colleague.

From start to finish, the story covers less than a weekend. Using a mix of memory to bring in details of the past and technology to connect to the conflicts of the present, The Betrayers is tightly written and clearly drawn.

The title is plural for a reason. Each of the principals makes explicit choices with major repercussions for themselves and their families. By focusing on the encounter between Baruch and Chaim, the ripples of these decisions are clearly seen.

In this and his prior works, David Bezmozgis has been frank about the motivations that sent Jews (and non-Jews) from the FSU and the reasons some regretted this choice. Each book has shown the challenges in acclimating to a completely different way of life and the difficulties that the older generation, in particular, has had in finding a place in the new world.

As Bezmozgis was completing The Betrayers, the Russia/Ukraine conflict erupted. While this provides an odd current events twist for the reader, the setting was key to the story and Bezmozgis had undertaken extensive research so no changes were made.

For those in the DC area, David Bezmozgis will be on a panel on October 19 at the Folger Shakespeare Library as part of the DCJCC Literary Festival. The Betrayers won the National Jewish Book Award and was a Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist in the same year.

Grab a copy of Jessamyn Hope’s debut novel

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Safekeeping by Jessamyn Hope (Fig Tree Books, 2015)
In 40 words or less: An array of seekers volunteer at a kibbutz in the throes of change. The kibbutz’s elder holds tight to 50 year-old secrets as the community she created crumbles. A young, troubled New Yorker arrives desperate for redemption.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: Primarily Israel
Time: 1994
Read this if you enjoy complex characters dealing with the life choices they have made. The plot lines are enhanced by the detailed descriptions of kibbutz life which were under great upheaval at that time. Fig Tree Books is a new press and this is a beautifully put together paperback. It would be a great discussion title.

A confession. I was given advance access to this wonderful book in April. Life happened and I didn’t finish before my electronic copy disappeared. The story so grabbed me that this was the book I bought when I reached Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC. An excellent decision.

Adam is a mess. Drug addicted and bereft after the death of the grandfather who raised him, he assaults a jeweler and escapes New York for Israel, his goal to fulfill his grandfather’s lifelong wish and deliver an antique brooch. With this inauspicious start, he is not the ideal volunteer for Kibbutz Sadot Hadar. He hopes to quickly locate Dagmar, his grandfather’s true love, and get on with his life.

Times are tough in the kibbutz. Young people are moving away, the original Socialist Zionist principles are falling by the wayside. Without volunteers and workers from the neighboring Arab villages, the kibbutz’s survival is in jeopardy. Ziva, the last remaining founder, is insistent that the original path is the only true path for Sadot Hadar. And she will devote every last breath to have that as her legacy.

Volunteers have come to Sadot Hadar from the unlikeliest of places. Ulya, a survivor of Chernobyl, sees the kibbutz as a way station on her path to New York. Claudette arrives from Quebec, her OCD and Catholic faith complicating her acclimation to the kibbutz. She is on a personal pilgrimage with an unknown destination. Subject to assignment by Eyal, the kibbutz secretary, they all remain on the periphery of the controversy about the future of the kibbutz. Ofir, a talented teenage musician on the kibbutz and their only peer contact, was badly injured in a terrorist bus attack.

Adam’s quest propels the story. His dealings with both the bureaucracies trying to locate Dagmar and the rules of the kibbutz test his commitment. Throughout the book he is challenged to heal physically and emotionally, and that can’t happen alone. Only through the actions of others is a richer portrait of life on the kibbutz and Adam’s challenges seen. From a historical standpoint, Jessamyn Hope captures the kibbutz movement at the crossroads. The changes that Ziva works to stave off were occurring across Israel and marked a dramatic shift in the country’s social and economic history.

Grounded in 1994 but with clearly delineated departures to the past, Jessamyn Hope weaves a novel filled with life’s successes and missteps. For each of the characters family, or the absence thereof, helps set his/her path. Each is broken and sees Sadot Hadar as a step on the road to redemption. This is a wonderfully crafted debut novel and I look forward to reading more from Jessamyn Hope in the future.

In some books, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard!

While the phrasing may have originated at the ballpark, letting the reader know who’s who has been common, particularly among plays, for over 300 years. Several times this week readers have mentioned how important this information has been to their understanding and enjoyment of a variety of books. For many, the first introduction to an annotated character list comes with Shakespeare. How else can you keep the Capulets and Montagues straight? Plays are almost completely dependent on dialogue to convey every detail of the story. Without the most basic of character information (i.e. Blanche DuBois is Stella’s sister) the laser-sharp precision of many plays would be completely lost and it would require hours to convey the story. The platform you choose for reading may also make a big difference in how well you can track a complicated array of characters.

More and more character lists and/or family trees are critical in delivering the author’s message. Why is this?

Foreign language/foreign names – a classic example is War and Peace. For those not facile with Russian first names, the familial structure of last names, and common nicknames, successfully navigating this massive novel would be almost impossible. The first page introduces no less than ten characters, many with multiple lengthy names. The explosion of literature in translation as well as internationally themed books in English often require the reader to remember unfamiliar names and sometimes figure out the gender of characters without the linguistic clues that names sometimes provide. Particularly with epics, having a notebook handy can really make the book more enjoyable.
Complex relationships – many historical novels are centered around or refer to royal families, political dynasties or closed communities. Since the author used this information as the underpinnings of the story, having the family tree or list of members and relationships fills in critical material. Hild, Nicola Griffith’s novel about a real seventh century girl, would be overwhelming without the family tree. More than 50 years ago, Allen Drury provided annotated listings of his many characters in his Washington-based novels of political intrigue. Nonfiction titles about military units or campaigns often use listings to define the authority structures.

It turns out that how one reads books with this level of complexity really does matter. When a listing is included, reading a physical book makes referring back much easier. It is a bit harder with an e-book but a reader with annotation skills can build linkages without having a pad nearby. Those that enjoy audiobooks can find these titles frustrating because of the difficulty in keeping track of the characters and complex story lines. While it may require adjusting your preferred reading pattern going back to the basics may make the experience more pleasurable.

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