Thursday, February 13, 2020

Heart of a Terror

The novel starts on the 40th birthday of Lovely, the eldest daughter of Farida Khanam and Mukhles Shaheb. Lovely is out on the market, all alone, and we soon find out, this is the most unexpected thing Farida Khanam could allow, to break a rule, to any of her daughters – Lovely, and Beauty. Filled with both excitement and joy, Lovely visits the market to buy a shawl, however a terror is lurking in her psyche, just like the voice in her head. She has to return home at a particular time, but she doesn't make it. There is a world of shame, guilt, terror, and lovelessness inside Lovely. At home, Farida Khanam is eagerly waiting for her daughter to arrive on time, and when she doesn't, the dark secrets, failures and guilt all unravel themselves inside her – she looks like a captain of ship that is about to sink. Beauty has her own distorted life. Mukhles Shaheb, whose health is not in a good state, is like a shadow living in the house, with no voice, no authority, but only the presence.


As the novel progress, a dark story of the family comes to full view. If we think to be a part of it, a terror runs through our bodies. Of course, people are taking care of each other, but freedom of the daughters is at stake. The family has become a living prison with its own set of rules. Farida Khanam, the mother, who believes has kept the family alive has already destroyed it, but she is not ruthless by heart; she just can't change; she cannot be weak; she has tried her best not to harm her daughters and but something else has been concocted in all this long years… until she makes up her mind to reveal a secret to their daughters, however something dreadful happens in the story, and we don't want to know what happens next; the complexity and darkness of the drama is hard to live on, we just want to run away from the characters. The mental burden they all have been living with, and the torture each of them have been inflicting on each other – this engulfs us. This is the power of the story – to make you feel what characters feel and live. I think HellFire has achieved it. This is one of the best Family Thriller I've read in years.


Author: Leesa Gazi
Translator: Shabnam Nadiya
Publisher: Eka, Westland Publications Pvt. Ltd.

Murder Mystery from an Ionian Island

In the opening of the novel, Rodini appears before the notary Tapas asking to arrange a loan for him and on pushed hard tells the notary in private that the Count Nannetos, the wealthiest in the Cephalonia, who is unwell, has made him his heir to the inheritance after his death. To satisfy the curiosity of cunning Notary, Rodini further goes to tell him that – believing that to confide to a notary is safe – despite Yerasimos being the Count’s nephew, with all the shame and trouble he has caused, Count Nannetos has disinherited him. 

Alexandros Rizos Rangavis - Wikipedia

But it happens that Tapas’s daughter is in love with Yerasimos and he has promised to take her as his wife, and still believes that after his uncle dies he’ll inherit his riches. But Tapas, with the intention of saving her daughter – whom he loves immensely and is ready to take any trouble for her – from marrying Yerasimos, who’ll have nothing after the death of the Count, discloses the secret to Yerasimos what he heard from Rodini. Yerasimos, anxious and angry, then urges Tapas to write a false will from the Count that will guarantee his inheritance and dismiss the privately made will, and confirms that he’ll get the signature of the Count by hook or by crook. And, in return Tapas also promises to make the will valid when he gets it, and when the time is right.

The Next day, Count Nannetos is found murdered on his bed. Tapas appears at the murder scene and tries to influence and settle things quietly, but when it fails, he helps the investigation leading to suspect Rodini who had left in the morning to meet his mother. Knowing well that Yerasimos killed the Count after receiving the signed will, Tapas suggests that he leave Argostoli.  The investigation leads to Rodini’s arrest and the privately made will he presents at the court is dismissed and finally the court rules for the death penalty.

When Marina, the daughter of Tapas, finds out that Yerasimos had been cheating on her and is going to marry her friend in Lixouri, she poisons herself and leaves a letter to her father. I’ll leave it to the readers to find out what happens next in this murder mystery and to find out who will hang in the gallows!

The novel is set on Cephalonia (One of the Ionian Islands) in the early 1820s. First published in 1855, The Notary gives us the flavor of classical murder mystery tales. The plot tapestry may not be intricate like in the modern day novels, yet is riveting. There are elements of romanticism in the story and in the dialogues that may lessen the thrill of the murder, however, the plot built around the murder is so precise, like the work of a doctor or a detective, fueled by the character of crafty Tapas, we feel the novel gently forming the curve of resolution that the best mystery tales make, with sufficient thrills until the very end. The Notary is a story built on the foundation of love, obsession, betrayal and brutality.

Translation seems to be preserving the lingual idiosyncrasy of both the author and the period. And the frankness of the author visible in these two openings:  ‘Having followed Rodini up to now, I must talk again of the most charming character in my drama, Angeliki’  ‘In the evening of the day on which this story began, we saw…’ makes us believe that, he wants us to enjoy the story, which we do. Leaving aside the prejudice for the modern dramatic plots, The Notary is one such enjoyable gripping tale brought back from the vault which also leaves us with some historical insight on the formation and integrity of Modern day Greece.

Author: Alexandros Rangavis
Translator: Simon Darragh
Publisher: Aiora Press
Author's Photo Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandros_Rizos_Rangavis
Review Copy Courtesy: Aiora Press

Coming Soon...

Long Night of Storm
by Indra Bahadur Rai
Translated from the Nepali by Prawin Adhikari


Coming Soon...

Dressed for a Dance in the Snow: Women's Voices from the Gulag
by Monika Zgustova
Translated from the Spanish by Julie Jones


Full Swing Humanity

In the title story, Is There Anybody to Love You, the narrator and his friend – both of whom are doctors – are at their work place in an office chatting about trivial things, and soon their journalist friend becomes the subject of their talk who has recently been left out by a girl. What follows is a freestyle composition sharp with revolting ideas and views on the personalities, way of life and fate of modern men and women. In the story with social criticism, satire on elites and white-collars, and quirks of reason, all with a blend of humor, the characters realize that in this intricate and selfish out-of-control life, it is hard to realize a pure love from anyone. In The Collector of Valuable things a man assembles the junks and remnants from the street to create a collection in his apartment and enjoys its value. In The Beggar a father and his daughter walk along a street and they come across a beggar. The father’s charity to the beggar just to prove1 himself in front of his daughter goes awry when he finds that the beggar is nothing but a conman.

1.       I feel weak and dissatisfied that I can’t even influence my own daughter. I can’t teach her what I think is good. She’s seven years old and already knows more than I do. She’s prepared to argue with me. I don’t have the strength to argue back.

Kalin Terziyski - Wikipedia

There are stories where: A man finds his joy in the company of a wisest man who has settled in a cave; An old man and woman talk about their dissatisfaction and feeling of injustice and anger against the people in their apartment who are irresponsible, in their view, to the cleanliness, however what unsettles them in their bed is the memory of their son who had suicided recently; A man strolls around in the city in rain feeling lonely and miserable, and in his soliloquy, he reflects upon the cause of his loneliness and all the trouble he has caused with his habit and behavior – one of which was bringing drunk vagrants to his mother’s home – and thinks that if he had enough money everyone would have loved him regardless of his flaws, meanwhile the rain has inundated the streets and he comes across a woman who’s drowning; The narrator searches for the hidden stories in the decay, dismay and disorder just by mere observation in the Ladies’ Market in Sofia, which is a conglomerate of ethnicities, and people gathered from every walks of life – madman, prostitutes, drunkards, buyers and sellers. Meanwhile he is critical2 of everything in desolation and disorder amidst the animated surrounding.

2.       Bulgarians don’t have censorship anymore, and for that reason they don’t have any opinions on anything. They’re not interested in anything, because nothing’s banned anymore and they’re not interested in anything.

The author never forgets to throw a bit of humor3, which are not mere decorative, but lifts the spirit of the story, such as evident in the Fights where a fight between a drunken husband and his wife turns bloody and then settles in love. However, the jolliest is the story A Christmas Triptych about the adventure of two drunken men – who are like angels or Santa Claus – who help people in desperate need on Christmas Day. Two Specific Cases is a set of two unusual stories which have to read to believe; they are almost like tall tales. Most of the stories also deal with personal voyages – mostly internal – and solitude of individuals – which are sad, unusual, transforming and even funny like The Case of the Necktie, Christmas, Nevermore, Orange, Almost Brown. The lengthiest story of the collection Tired of Understanding is a story of a boy called Anton K., and it tells his story almost in a bildungsroman fashion, from his early childhood, and the shaping of his personality and understanding. As his curiosity grows and he absorbs his surrounding, he disentangles the mysteries of understanding, and his conclusions are philosophical and practical with which we can identify ourselves. The trouble of dealing with ambiguity and perplexity, or even oddities, is so palpable, that this story reminds us of our own development. However, as the years pass, with a load of experience: love, fear, shame, hatred, desperation, guilt, regret… he realizes, as he grows old, that he is tired of understanding4; despite all the troubles he took to understand throughout his life.

3.   He comes home at two o’clock in the morning and he’s very drunk. No, he isn’t drunk. He’s just full to the top with alcohol. A drunk is someone who has imbibed alcohol. He is just alcohol without anything else.

4. More years would have to pass for Anton k. to understand that senseless cruelty is one of the main forms of enjoyment for people… He understood that when a feeling is not reciprocated for a long time, it turns into displeasure, and then into indifference… He also understood that such stupid things as pride and honor are human inventions created to confuse the minds of idiots… He understood that once you have taken the rough, cheerless road toward middle age, you have no right to even a moment of relaxation.

We touch upon the stories that have profound sense of distractions and disbelief surrounding individual lives, and the sweet melancholy in the face of personal crisis. Even in the tense turns in the story, the author is able to find a space for social satire and humor, and the voice of the narrators is marked with perfection, so is their mood, intensity and impact upon the story. The collection is definitely a blend of ‘humanity and humor’ at its best! Stories are rich in voices and therefore, the world they represent, or precisely, the individuals and intricacies whom and which we don't understand much.

Author: Kalin Terziyski
Translator: David Mossop
Author's Photo Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalin_Terziyski
Review Copy Courtesy: Dalkey Archive Press

Voice from a Past, View from a Distance

“I have a whimsical tale to tell, starting beside a grave…” – this is the opening line of the novel Newton’s Brain . Even before knowing wha...