Even if they do not always understand each other, they have a kind of natural attraction and need to have the opinion and support of the others. Together, they feel stronger in the fast changing environment, in which their friendship will also be caught up.
The story is told from today's perspective when three of the four women visit a photography exhibition of Dina in Brussels. They meet so many decades later, and try to regain the friendship they once had.
Nino Haratischwili’s novel is a monumental work—spanning 717 pages—yet its fast-paced narrative and dynamic plot keep the reader engaged and eager to discover what lies ahead. Her style is direct, with lots of dialogues and emotional interactions between the characters, with a well-balanced dose of reflection by Keto, the narrator. The four girls live in a web of many other characters, with changing allegiances and friendships, violence and even murder and attempted murder. The streets of Tbilisi are full of blood in this period.
Keto’s grandmothers are both educated women - one well-versed in French literature, the other in German - and though they constantly quarrel over politics, they are bound by a deep, mutual need for each other’s company. One day, Keto encounters one of their young pupils, perched high on a ladder in the living room - her physicist father having decided that, with the power and heating once again cut off, the air would be warmer up there than on a chair below. In Haratischwili's hands, a wonderful little image becomes symbol for the total decay of the country that just liberated itself from its Soviet yoke:
" And so I stood there as if frozen to the spot, before the little goddess for whom my father had erected a throne. We had gambled away our future before it had even begun. We had cheated this little madonna of her future, too. We were all lying to her. We let her study Hölderlin while we hurled grenades and set all that was beautiful on fire, while the people who were supposed to protect us preyed upon us, and sold freedom for five thousand dollars. I was ashamed, and couldn't bear being exposed to that open, questioning gaze.(p. 293)
The powerlessness of the individual citizens in the great movement of history is well described in the novel.
"The realization hit me like a bolt of lightning. We weren't going to escape. We were caught between the shooting and the growling, beneath the only cone of light in the city, in a country that didn't exist, not anymore, or not yet, because there was no better version of us, because we were the people we were— with our guns, with the saved-up money in a coat pocket, with our messiah on our breast, with our will to survive, and our fear ofadmitting that we had unlearned our desperately longed-for and hard-won freedom, like a foreign language you've had no opportunity to speak for decades. We were caught in an endless cycle of repetition". (p. 305)
Or a little further:
"There is no meaning anywhere, in anything. We're the ones who give meaning to ourselves and the things we do. We give meaning to the person we love." (p. 534)
She makes the interesting comparison of the different names that a plant has in both German and Georgian, as a symbol of how to look at reality:
"In Georgian, it has an idiosyncratic name that always snagged my attention: Jesus's tears. So I was all the more surprised to discover that, in German, this plant is known as Judas penny. I couldn't decide whether to choose the Georgian name or the German. Were they Jesus's tears, shed when he learned that one of his disciples had, as he prophesied, betrayed him, or were they that same disciple's traitorous pieces of silver? Which story most deserves to be told, that of the betrayed, or the betrayer?" (589)
Yet, the most important aspect of the book are the emotional relationships between the girls/women: who they are for themselves, how they interact, how they relate to each other. Also their lovers are essential. The novel is one of deep humanity, with the individuals being much more important than the political and military turmoil:
"It was only after voicing this thought that I realized it: maybe that was why I liked to be close to him. I enjoyed the sense that, with him, I had the freedom not to be the Keto I thought Ihad to be. I was free of myself. He saw me as I would like to see myself." (p.535)
It's great, it's grand, it's aspirational, it's sweeping, it's revealing ... also for readers not interested in politics and Georgia.
It is highly recommended reading for everyone.
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