The book begins with a man named Akmed fleeing from his village in war torn Chechnya in the company of a young girl, his best friends daughter, her father having been taken captive and transported to what the author refers to as the Landfill. Akhmed and Sonja especially are wonderfully captured, with each of them having something that draws the reader in. The descriptions are beautiful and detailed I could see the landscape destroyed by mines, feel the penetrating cold of the snow, imagine the destroyed city, recreated on the wall of the hospital. At times, that dignity is almost most entirely, but there is always a redeeming gesture that brings the situation back from the brink. I really got the feeling that in those times, life was so hard and survival so costly that standards shifted deeply it is engaging and inspiring to see how adversity can be dealt with whilst human dignity is still retained. I found this novel at some times almost unbearably sad, and yet it is told with a detachment that feels realistic. The life and happiness of a little girl, the dignity of a sister. However, some things remain of fundamental importance. Material shortages are told in a matter of fact tone disappearances are barely less shocking. Whilst Marra focuses almost entirely on the lives of Akhmed, a failed doctor who prefers to paint portraits of missing members of his village and Sonja, a very competent doctor who had the chance to lead a different life in London but has come back to single-handedly run a hospital, and on the terrible things that happen to them, their relatives and their friends, a feeling of the wider context pervades. Through the eyes of Sonja and Akhmed, a particular episode in the history of Chechnya is powerfully told. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. GradeSaver, 3 September 2018 Web.We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice. Next Section Quotes Previous Section Glossary How To Cite in MLA Format Anonymous "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena Themes". Will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback. You can help us out by revising, improving and updatingĪfter you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. There is meaning and order in life, sure, but not for these victims. The terrible, unspeakable chaos that Russia caused in Chechen lands is shown in full display, and the idea of order falls deep into the background-it's still there, but only in small images, like a medical textbook definition, or the backstory of a minor character. Instead of painting a moralistic picture, the novelist shows the real suffering of the victims of Russian oppression. The characters seem sure that the rest of the world will never care about their suffering. The truth is far more bitter and unfair than what it seems on the surface, so much so that a historian literally burns his history of Chechen lands, because after all, history will say whatever it wants. The novel has a way of asking, "What really happened?" Instead of showing the traitor as a traitor, the novelist draws attention to the torture that led the informant to give up the information that caused Kavaa's situation. Her father taken and her house burned away in the night, Havaa must face the terror of warfare with the innocence of an 8-year-old. A girl waking from pleasant dreams to a nightmarish reality. The terror of war is how the novel begins. Written by people who wish to remain anonymous We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.
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