“To Go on Living: Stories” by Narine Abgaryan

To understand the short stories of Narine Abgaryan in To Go On Living, I realized rather quickly that I had to learn more about a conflict I’d never heard of. I was familiar with the genocide of the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. That included the murders of more than a million Armenians, forced Islamization of women and children, and death marches into the Syrian desert.  

But Abgaryan’s stories seemed based on something far more recent. And they are – what’s known as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The roots lie in the old Russian and Soviet empires and what happened when the communist Soviet regime fell. Like many other regions, that of Armenia and Azerbaijan featured a mingling of ethnic peoples. 

 

Historically, the Russians had favored the Azerbaijanis. The region of Nagorno-Karabakh contained mostly ethnic Armenians, surrounded by seven districts containing mostly Azerbanjanis. In 1988, a referendum in Nagorno-Karabakh was held to transfer the region to Soviet Armenia, and violence erupted between the two ethnic groups. Once the Soviet Union dissolved, the violence became all-out war, ending in 1994. 

 

Two decades of relative if uneasy peace followed, until 2020, when conflict erupted again. Three years later, the victorious Azerbaijanis took control of Nagorno-Karabakh. In both wars, border towns suffered. Berd, in northeastern Armenia, was one such border town. And Berd is largely the setting where Abgaryan’s short stories are largely set. Collectively, they raise the question of how people survive war, deaths of family members and friends, and destruction of their homes and livelihoods. 

 

And the individual stories do need to be read collectively, with many of them involving the same families and characters. The title answers the question for you: you survive the destruction wrought by war when you go on living.

 

Some of the stories are set during the war, while others are after the war. A woman attends the funeral of her brother, only to return home to find her house destroyed. A man and his son travel like they usually do for their business, and they never return home. Families are cut off from each other. A bus filled with people is hit by a mortar shell; half of the passengers die. A young woman spends her time anticipating the evening of each day; nothing else matters. A man sitting on the stoop of his house is killed by a projectile. 

 

Narine Abgaryan

Lives are disrupted, people die, children are maimed, injured, and mentally stricken. And yet, life goes on. Abgaryan finds survival and resilience in customs, culture, and even the food that’s prepared and eaten. The familiar and the customary survive war and destruction. 

 

The 32 stories, translated by Margarit Ordukhanyan and Zara Torlone, ae short and succinct, amplifying their impact. They often surprise and horrify, but Abgaryan isn’t writing about the destruction of people’s lives  as she is their  continuation.

 

Abgaryan was born in Berd. She’s published numerous books which collectively have sold more than a million copies. Three Apples Fall from the Sky won the Leo Tolstoy Yasnaya Polyana Award and an English PEN Award, and a trilogy has been filmed as a television series. She lives in Armenia and Germany. Ordukhanyan is based in New York and translates both her native Armenian and Russian into English. Torlone is also a native of Armenia and a professor of Classics at Miami University in Ohio.

 

To Go On Living tells a story of war and destruction, yes. But it also tells a story of hope.

 

Map by Golden - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The dark yellow area is Nagarno-Karabakh; the small red dot in northern Armenia represents Berd.

Some Monday Readings

 

Conservation on mysterious Vermeer painting reveal it may have been his final work – Martin Bailey at The Art Newspaper.

 

How “Tesla Takedown” Activists Fool the Public – Christopher Ruge and David Reaboi.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict

 

Up Close with the Beauty of Gatsby – Emma Heath at The Metropolitan Review.

 

Seeking the Grail – Andrew Henry at The Saxon Cross.

Poets and Poems: Robert Schultz and "Into the New World"

I’m not sure how to describe Robert Schultz. Poet. Novelist. Photographer. Artist. All of the above.  

He’s written one novel, The Madhouse Nudes, the story of an artist who, in painting women, is trying to seem them truly. He’s co-authored an art book, War Memoranda: Photography, Walt Whitman, and Memorials, which also became an exhibition, and We Were Pirates: a Torpedoman’s Pacific War with James Shell . He’s written four poetry collections. His most recent work is Specimens of the Plague Year: notes and art, the “plague year” being 2020, the year of COVID. He’s also helped translate Wonderland: New & Selected Poems by Sarwat Zahra. 

What I’ve first turned to is one of his poetry collections, Into the New World (2020). In a word, it’s stunning. 

To continue reading, please see me post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Don’t Let the Old Man In – Garry Rodgers at Dying Words.

 

Waiting on Spring – poem by Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

 

Among the missing, among the dead: black poetry in America – William Logan at New Criterion.

 

How an Author Can Prevent Burnout – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Sugaring, poem by Raymond Holden – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

"The Maine Cottage" by Nicholas Rogers

James McNally is a former Marine who’s been working as a war photographer. He has plenty of work, unfortunately – Afghanistan, Iraq, other parts of the Middle East. But he’s been caught in a roadside IED explosion; several of the mend he was with were killed, and Jim nearly lost his leg. 

Even now, many months later, his leg is scarred and smaller than it should be. Walking is painful, but the doctors have told him that, the more he walks, the less painful it will become over time. He numbers the pain with prescription drugs and alcohol as he spends time recovering. And recovery is happening in a coastal cottage in Maine.

 

He has company. A former wat photographer turned fashion photographer is doing a nearby photo shoot with several models. A young Marine who serves in the Marine equivalent of the Navy Seals is on leave and preparing to return for his fourth deployment. 

 

Nicholas Rogers

The Maine Cottage by Nicholas Rogers looked at one point that it would sink into an endless round of parties with friends and fashion models, former Marines sharing (or not sharing) old stories and their experiences, and the women who might, or might not stand by them. And then it shifts, and the story develops into a discussion about war, war photography, how war changes people, and how participants deal with both physical and mental injuries. 

 

If you’ve had no war experiences of your own, you simply sit and read, knowing that what you’re seeing on the page is true and real, told through a fictional story.

 

Rogers has previously published two novels, 29^th Street South and Tides of War. A former Marine himself, he spent 26 years as a firefighter, paramedic, and city emergency manager. After he retired, he became a consultant on weapons of mass destruction. He lives with his family in Florida.

 

The Maine Cottage is a sobering read. And a good story.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

The singularity of speech – Wilfred M. McClay at New Criterion on the distinction between free speech & free expression.

 

The Backlist: Jonathan Kellerman on Returning to Margaret Millar and Ross Macdonald – Polly Stewart and MacDonald versus Macdonald by Rom Corbett, both at CrimeReads. 

 

Year of the Monarch: Butterfly Dreams – Laura Boggess at Tweetspeak Poetry.

The old soldier seeks help

After Ephesians 6:10-24 

Living in a prison cell,

the older soldier seeks help,

not rescue or supplies, but

help of a different kind,

the help of the right words

placed in his mouth,

the help of courage

to speak boldly the truth

he carries, the truth he’s

carried since the light

in the road, the blindness

in the road, the scales

dropping from his eyes.

He carries it still,

even in this cell, 

which is not to say

his spirit never falters;

he’s human, after all,

prone to doubts and fears.

But he knows what

feeds him, not the food

delivered by the jailer’s

hands, but the sustenance

delivered by the prayers

of the faithful. He is

an old soldier, veteran

of many battles veteran

of many wars, and he knows

what always takes

the battlefield.

 

Photo by Eric Ward via Unsplash. Used with permission.

A curious armor

After Ephesians 6:10-24

Expecting the weight

and awkwardness

of metaled defense,

it’s surprising to find

a different kind

of armor, the kind

you don’t see, can’t

see, but the kind

that’s stronger,

more flexible, resilient,

renewable, suitable

for the fight, the war

before us:

 

A belt of truth,

breastplate of 

righteousness,

shoes of readiness,

shield of faith,

helmet of salvation,

sword of the Spirit

(the Word),

the strategy of prayer

the tactics of staying

alert. And this

curious armor will

prevail.

 

Photo by Michal Matlon via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Suit up; war's on

After Ephesians 6:10-24 

Know your strength;

know its source. 

The battle is on, and

the enemy isn’t whom

you think it is (know

the difference between

the chess pieces and

the hand moving them).

The light stands against

this present darkness,

against forces of evil

in the unseen, heavenly

realms. The time has come

to suit up. The game’s

afoot; the war is on.

 

Photo by Duncan Kidd via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Poets and Poems: John Balaban and "Empires"

With Empires, the latest poetry collection by John Balaban, there’s a way to start it that helps bring clarity to what he’s writing about in the 31 poems included. Start with this poem, found about halfway through the work.

The Uses of Poetry

The poets descend like locusts

wings filmy, bright, whirring ambitions

with mandible greed for green expanses,

for tended lushest leaf, all foliage,

the fury of their wingbeats

sickening and familiar…

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

“Pax Romana” by Adrian Goldsworthy

The Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace,” was the period in Roman history from approximately 14 B.C., when Caesar Augustus consolidated power and became the first emperor, to 180 A.D, with the accession of Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius. It’s the period traditionally viewed as almost two centuries of peace, highlighted by expansion of empire, the building of the great roads, Roman law extended to a considerable portion of the known world, and the expansion of Christianity.

But was it really two centuries of peace?

Academic historians in Europe and North America have been actively rewriting all kinds of history (and some would say substituting political beliefs for history). Ancient historian Adrian Goldsworthy is no revisionist historian; instead, he is a very thorough and informed historian who writes engagingly. In Pax Romana: War, Peace, and Conquest in the Roman World, Goldsworthy has produced a comprehensive history of the period and provided a fascinating look at how the Roman Empire grew and consolidated, how it was ruled, and what daily life was like.

To understand the Pax Romana, Goldsworthy starts at the right beginning – the era of the Roman Republic. The republic provides the context for what came after. So Goldsworthy looks at the rise of the republic, how it waged war, how it made alliances, how its merchants could be found alongside its soldiers (or arrive shortly after), and how the Senate administered the republic’s growing territories.

From there he looks at the Pax Romana, including the role of the emperors, how the Romans dealt with rebellion and banditry, how the imperial governors administered the provinces, the Roman army, and what life was like under Roman rule. What emerges is a picture very different from what we understand from movies and popular culture.

Of special note is Goldsworthy’s reliance on original records. He draws heavily from Julius Caesar, Cicero, Trajan, Pliny, still existing records, Tacitus, and other writers of the time. He lets them speak in their own words, communicating how they understood the events and themes of the times they lived in.

Adrian Goldsworthy

Goldsworthy is a graduate of St. John’s College, Oxford. He was a junior research fellow at Cardiff University, and taught at both King’s College, London, and the London extension program of the University of Notre Dame. He eventually gave up teaching to write full-time.

He’s the author of Caesar: Life of a Colossus (2006); How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower (2009); Antony and Cleopatra (2010); The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146 BC (2012); Caesar’s Civil War 49-44 BC (2013); Augustus: First Emperor of Rome (2014); and In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire (2016). He’s also written six novels about the British soldiers who fight in the Napoleonic Wars. He lives in South Wales.

Pax Romana is an excellent history, full of insight, nuances, and deep understanding of the Romans and how they ruled the ancient world.

Top photograph: Status of Augustus Caesar.

News of peace

He heard the war

was over; voices

flashed the news

along the lines,

over the radio

he laid down

his gun and began

to walk

through desolation

devastation

destruction

for a time until

fields turned

green once again

he passed both

pessimism and optimism

and, not stopping,

left them behind

the coffins stacked

like false promises

he walked toward

the sun not

looking back

Photograph: View of Ypres, Belgium, in 1919.

I am too old for war

I am too old for war

but I go, anyway,

or in spite of; the war

demands all. I see

a sea of white linen

extending up hillsides

of this valley. I look

down to see what

I am wearing; the linen

is the same. My hands

are gnarled; old trees.

The linen is the same.

The sword in my hand

begins to sing. I know

the song, by heart.

I have sung it before,

when I was young,

too young for war.

Photograph by Anna Langova via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.