‘Where the pyramids stand in silence, when the sun is being married, I shall lie down on the sun-coloured sand, where the pyramids stand in silence, I shall want you, your eyes, your arms, your tenderness,’ who is the author of these lines? Who wrote 14 poems using the pseudonym of Elene Dariani? Was it the famous Georgian avant-garde poet Paolo Iashvili, or Elene Bakradze, the femme mystère who is suspected of being his secret lover? For a long time it was thought that the proud and erotic ‘Elene Dariani diaries’ were a poetic mystification by Paolo Iashvili, although, on the basis of archival material, another version appears in the 1990s, according to which the author of these poems was actually a genuine, existing, but unknown woman, Elene Bakradze. The heroine of Tamta Melashvili’s novel is a young woman, Irina. She is trying to solve the century-old mystery of Elene Dariani, although her efforts, recently, have been more of an interpretation of her own personal life than a genuine search for the ‘truth’. In fact, Irina’s ‘search’ for the myth of Elene Dariani is determined by Irina’s wish, to take a century-old tense love story and merge it with her own life and use it to heal her own ‘failed love relationship’. In the words of the critic Shota Iatashvili, ‘Irina who is depressed seems in a way to chose this topic in a mechanical way solely in order to address her own problems by researching this story, but she does everything in the most feeble way. The irksome monotony which imbues all this procedure is depicted in the novel by repetitive actions, by opening and closing her lap-top, by checking her email, by going into the kitchen and making tea, by telephoning her ex-lover when he least expects it and by the operator’s unvarying response: ‘the number which you have dialled is temporarily unavailable or is outside the range of service.’ On the one hand, the book is about a girl growing up in Georgia without love, a girl who is looking for love; on the other hand, it is about a woman who experienced the era of totalitarianism, whom history has tried to punish through love, by silence about it and by hushing up the real story. The novel’s characters are very much alive and modern. As the literary critic Masho Samadashvili noted, ‘Tamta Melashvili is very good at creating character, and one of the merits of this novel is the interesting way characters are portrayed, which is at the same time a very good reflection of the times.’
‘War seen through teenagers’ eyes – just that theme is unusual in Georgian literature. But what is more noteworthy is the young woman writer’s style, the tempo of her text, which seems to be made up of verbatim direct speech. The dynamic dialogues, the short chapters and the rough slang of the adolescents make the novel Counting Out a breath-taking work.’
C. Eller, Spiegel
‘In this absorbing and breath-taking prose time and place are unbounded. Counting Out is a very special debut. From a linguistic point of view, given the narrative’s radical style, the themes and the attitude, Tamta Melashvili reminds us of Agota Kristof.’
M. Ebel, Tages-Anzeiger
‘With short, rhythmic sentences the author achieves immediacy, so that the narrative never becomes sentimental. The writer’s style and the narrative manner create a powerful impression. This is a book which I recommend for a wide range of reader.’
I. Rakusa, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Extract will be available soon
In case of using the information, please, indicate the source.
