'The Last of the Vostyachs' by Diego Marani (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 15)

I have a thing for languages and linguistics, so I'm always happy to read books where language plays a leading role.  My final read for last year's IFFP Longlist, New Finnish Grammar, definitely fell into that category, meaning that I was especially happy when Diego Marani made it onto the longlist again this year.  The good news didn't end there. The Australian edition of his new book is about be released by Text Publishing, and I was lucky enough to get a review copy :)

*****
The Last of the Vostyachs by Diego Marani (translated by Judith Landry - from Dedalus Books, my review copy from Text Publishing)
What's it all about?
We begin in Siberia, where Ivan (a local youth) has just been released from a prison camp.  After the death of his father in captivity, he hasn't spoken for years - for he is the last of the Vostyachs, a tribe speaking a language long thought extinct.  One day, he ventures into a village to trade furs - and happens to meet Olga, a Russian linguist who instantly realises what she has in front of her...

She is shortly to head off to an important conference in Helsinki, so she immediately contacts the convenor Professor Aurtova, an old colleague and an expert on Finno-Ugric languages.  Olga has new evidence (Ivan) linking Finnish to native-American languages, and she is burning to present the evidence - and the man - at the conference.  The thing is, this could destroy Aurtova's life's work; and when it comes to matters linguistic, he's not a man to be crossed...

The Last of the Vostyachs is  a book which really shouldn't work.  It's part Tarzan, part linguistics lecture, part pulp fiction, and it's less than two-hundred pages long.  It's a story of language death, academic selfishness, and linguistic and personal relationships - and (naturally) it's a great read :)  Marani is an expert at taking an esoteric subject and making the reader accept it as an important part of the plot, even for those who couldn't imagine anything more painful than pages of arguments about language families.

In parts, it's also a story about nature and civilisation coming into conflict.  Ivan, the wild boy, is plucked from his natural environment and sent off to a big city to be paraded in front of intellectuals at a conference.  Surprisingly though, he does learn to adapt after his initial disasters; it probably helps that Helsinki in winter is pretty much home territory for a man from Siberia...

Olga, the Russian linguist, is an interesting woman, a social scientist who is focused on her life's work, but not so blinded by success that she fails to take Ivan's feelings into account.  In a letter to Professor Aurtova, she looks at the ethics of pursuing remnants of tribes to preserve languages, wondering who really benefits:

" For a moment, I thought that it would be better to leave Ivan Vostyach there where he was, in his own land; that introducing him to people so different from himself would cause him suffering, make him feel even more alone." p.30 (Text Publishing, 2013)

"All in all, it probably doesn't matter if he carries on living among the Nganasan and forgets his Vostyach.  One peaceful human life is surely more important than the survival of the lateral affricative with labiovelar overlay." (p.32)

Does the survival of the lateral affricative with labiovelar overlay really matter that much?

The main character, however, is Professor Aurtova, a sociopathic user who will go to any lengths, sexual or violent, to get his way.  He  sees languages as invading forces and wishes to defend the purity of the Finno-Ugric family group, to the death, if necessary.  Towards the end of the book, he gives an extraordinary speech at the conference, a bizarre, racist rant about linguistic purity:

"In the world of mass culture, where the weaker languages are threatened by a new linguistic colonialism which stifles minority cultures, only ignorance can protect us from extinction.  My call to the new generations, here as in the former Soviet republics of Finnish stock, is therefore this: cherish ignorance, do not study the language of the foreigner, but force him to learn your own!" (p.164)

Erm... let's move on, shall we?

The Last of the Vostyachs is a very different book to New Finnish Grammar.  It's a lot more of a page-turner (with some farcical humour), and it lacks a little of the subtlety of Marani's previous novel in English.  Nevertheless, it's a great read, and it manages to come up with a surprising ending which turns the idea of language death on its head.  What else can I say?  More Marani translations, please :)

Did it deserve to make the shortlist?
Although I enjoyed it, I'd have to say no - it's one which will finish just outside my top six.  A lighter book than New Finnish Grammar, it's still well worth reading, but I don't think it was up there with the top few books this year.

Why didn't it make the shortlist?
The panel obviously agreed with me.  A great read, but perhaps with not enough depth in a very strong year.  Having said that, there's at least one book on the shortlist that this one should have dislodged...

*****
One more stop to make on our IFFP travels, and (luckily enough) my virtual Hungarian visa has just arrived.  It's time to head off to the woods...

The Music of Migration

After reviewing my second Arnold Zable book recently, I was very keen to read his latest work, Violin Lessons, and I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from Text Publishing.  Unlike Scraps of Heaven (but similar to Café Scheherazade), Violin Lessons is less of a novel and more of a reworking of fact, a blending of real life events and fiction.

Over close to two-hundred pages, Zable travels around the world, exploring the themes of music, migration, suffering and hope, uncovering incredible stories in unlikely places.  In each section, the writer takes elements from stories he has been told and weaves them into a brief, poignant tale, one part of the tapestry of words culminating with the tragic, yet exultant, finale of the fate of Amal Basry and the SIEVX, a boat carrying asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia.  From Carlton to Baghdad, Saigon to Berlin, Ithaca to Warsaw, we learn of the repeated fate of the displaced and the strength they show in moving on.

Violin Lessons, while consisting of stories, is also about stories, and the importance of telling them and keeping them alive.  Zable has a unique style of writing, episodic and circular, darting off on tangents and giving the reader time to digest what is being said before moving on.  He also has a habit of slipping out of the role of narrator, leaving the story to its owner through the liberal use of direct speech.  Each character has their own recognisable style of telling their story, from Amal Basry's repeated claims that she has been spared to tell the tale, or Phillip Maisel's constant remarks to the listener, telling them that the next part is interesting or important.  In effect, Zable is letting the affected speak, giving them a voice - and an opportunity to have their story heard.

A theme running through most of the tales is war and the effect it has on ordinary people.  The author's background seems to compel him to seek out people who have been affected by the past, not only in his ancestral homelands in Eastern Poland and Lithuania, but also in South-East Asia and the Middle East.  While the details may vary, there are several chilling similarities: the repeated ghettoisation of minorities, whether it be in Venice or Woomera; the inability of many sufferers to exorcise the ghosts of the past; and the difficulty of forgetting about a place you once called home.  As Andrei, a Pole in exile on a visit home says:

"Words conceal more than they reveal... They cannot convey how I longed to get away, yet how, within days of leaving I long to return - the curse of nostalgia." p.74, (Text Publishing, 2011)

However, the further you get into the book, the more you realise that it is just as much about the writer as it is about the people he interviews.  Zable paints himself as a restless wanderer, never satisfied, always needing to penetrate to the source of a story in an attempt to find out one thing: why?  His travels to various conflict-ridden countries are both an attempt to understand the past and to return to his roots, to uncover more about his family and himself.  In a book like this one, it is apt that one of the chapters centres on the Greek island of Ithaca, home of another famous wanderer...

The other major issue the reader must confront when reading Violin Lessons is to understand just what it is they are reading.  The collection reads, at times, like a work of fiction, a series of loosely-connected stories, yet they are all based on true stories and interviews Zable has had with the protagonists.  Just when you have adapted to the idea of a work of non-fiction though, you see the author's notes at the end of the book, where he explains how he has, in some cases, combined several characters and events into one composite story.

So which is it, fiction or non-fiction?  And does it actually matter?  Perhaps the binary split is a misleading one anyway.  Stories have their own weight, their own momentum, and it is the essence, the core of the story that is vital.  The important question is whether we can trust the writer to keep the essential information while adapting certain elements of the tales to enable readers to get to the core truth more easily.  It's a matter of trust, and a decision each reader must make for themself - having read several of Zable's books now (and read up a little on his literary and journalistic background), I am willing to suspend my disbelief and allow myself to be drawn into the stories without any feelings of suspicion.

Violin Lessons is a wonderful book, a series of vignettes, each of which is fascinating and thought-provoking in its own right.  Together though, they build up to a fitting climax, The Ancient Mariner, the story of Amal Basry and the sinking of the SIEVX.  It is clear that this is the story closest to Zable's heart, and one he is determined to get right.  He promises Amal that he will tell her story:

"Yet each time I sit down to write, anxiety rises for fear I will not do the story justice, will not find the words that convey the terror and beauty of Amal's telling, the fire in her eyes, the look of incredulity and wonder she retained..." p.146-7  

Now more than ever, in a time when the Prime Minister is attempting to make deals to avoid having to handle the messy problem of boats arriving on Australia's shores, it is important to hear stories like these, stories which help us to remember the past and avoid repeating our mistakes in the future.  As for the writer's fears above... I, for one, am sure that Amal would be very happy indeed with the way Zable brought her story - and the way she told it - to life.