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We skim, fret, find the words to be just that, words, and we soon abandon the book, allowing it to gather dust. Sergeyich is a witness to the constant harassment and subjugation of the Tatar community by the Russian authorities. Both the severity and the stupidity of the various political games of tug of war in the region are clear throughout Grey Bees.
Er macht Halt in der Ukraine im Gebiet von Saporoschje und der Krim - und muss an beiden Stopps erkennen, dass auch dort der Krieg tiefe Spuren hinterlassen hat. Overall, it’s a well-crafted narrative and frequently moving, despite the awkward, slow, opening sections. The sense of nationhood and internal mistrust pervade the lives of all the characters he meets and come to infect one of his three precious hives.My little vignettes are a meditative representation of books I love reading and which bring me comfort, and of places I visit to find calmness and solace, especially during anxious times. Andrey Kurkov (Andrej Kurkow, Andreï Kourkov, Андрей Юрьевич Курков) was born in Leningrad in 1961 and now lives in Kiev. That said, I can see from your closing comments that you got a lot out of it, which is good to know! They spend many good moments together until a Ukrainian soldier suffering from PTSD attacks Sergeyich, smashes the windows of his Lada, and leaves a single faint ax mark on the bottom of one of the beehives.
For the novel to kindle our spine, we must have “some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that [we] can neither define, nor dismiss. Each time, he winds up confronted against his will by physical violence arising out of wartime politics—violence directed first at himself when an out-of-control traumatized former soldier attacks him and smashes all the windows of his van, and then at a Tatar family he’s befriended. Sergeyich, on the other hands, befriends the Ukrainian soldier who helps him out by charging his phone and throughout the novel they both check on each other with simple text: Alive? If this could happen to him, the Everyman of the story, it can happen to anyone, and is certainly happening to the marginalized groups.
Akhtem and his family were Tartars, locals who were infamously deported en masse from Crimea under Stalin. Sergey lives in the Grey Zone, the area between fighting forces in the war-torn Donbass region of Ukraine, it’s been several years since Euromaidan, and ever since pro-Russian factions have been fighting with Ukrainian forces. Those he encounters too are for the most part warm hearted and helpful, the Tatar family for instance, extending every hospitality despite their own continual and increasing troubles. The town has mostly been destroyed and consists of only two roads, one named Lenin and the other after Taras Shevchenko, a Ukrainian poet and symbol for Ukrainian nationalism. alighanem azért jó, mert Kurkov mesterien mutatja be, hogyan kell egy viszonyulást fokozatosan felépíteni, ahelyett, hogy lendületből rákényszerítenénk az olvasóra.
They are the ordinary people, those with only a vague stake in the conflict but mostly hoping it’ll be over so they can get back to regular life. Near the end of his trip, they even come and insist they have to inspect his bee hives, taking one of them with them for a closer look; the consequences of this are a nice last dark touch to the story. Behind these recent deaths are previous wars and grievances: Afghanistan, World War Two, and mass displacement under Stalin. This seeming lack of action and change in Grey Bees allows Kurkov to explore the most important challenges that his native Ukraine is currently facing.Her translation of Yoko Tawada’s novel Paul Celan and the Transtibetan Angel is forthcoming in 2023 from New Directions. In addition, Grey Bees explores the importance of human connections, mutual understanding and cultural as well as ethnic diversity. When Sergeyich tells a woman in Crimea that the Tatars have long been in the region she spouts propaganda yelling ‘ This land's been Russian Orthodox since time immemorial…When Putin was here, he told the whole story -- this is sacred Russian land,’ as if forgetting that mere months ago it was Ukrainian territory. Kurkov handles the book’s solemn argument—how war destroys everyone’s lives—with a light touch and gently ironic humor that comes through beautifully in Boris Dralyuk’s translation, which alternates lush lyricism with wry humor . But I suspect it’s moved on a little since then, although he always did tackle the big issues, albeit in a quirky way.
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