GEORGIAN ALTERNATIVE PROSE
PAICHADZE SOSO
Soso Paichadze’s prose, in many aspects, is special, above all for dealing with and elaborating extraordinary moral problems, which is done by the use of original artistic and representational devices. Soso Paichadze is an architect of voluminous syntactical constructions. He tell us the strange adventures of his characters in extended sentences that are highly saturated with information. This is how he succeeds in bringing, as if simultaneously, into the reader’s consciousness a number of contemporary phenomena or experiences, and together with them, sometimes, when necessary, things that have happened or are about to happen. The purpose of this narrative method must be to let us perceive the world, as far as possible, as something that cannot be divided up into separate phenomena, as a whole in which the past and the present cannot be separated – indivisible, inseparable and… hidden in fog. This is a fog which has the power of dimming the conscious mind and bringing to life the subconscious. A cool, magical fog, endowed with healing powers, capable of catharsis. Success in creating this atmosphere is also achieved by Soso Paichadze’s characteristically spacious, if we can put it like that, epic similes, which are extremely idiosyncratic and acutely devised, giving the reader a complex, maximally precise idea of an experience: it is reliable proof of the great literary craftsmanship of the author of these stories. Soso Paichadze’s prose is a literary reflection of the mysteriousness of the universe, which in today’s mercenary world people’s capacity to sense has been massively blunted. As a consequence, their life has become colourless and grim. These stories try to enhance our feeling for the mysteries of the world, so that we look at the world and our own selves with interest.
‘Soso Paichadze’s prose lies outside the framework of conventional, traditional prose. It deals with themes which previously went unnoticed or were by-passed, or were only implied by a subtext. In order to convey extraordinary, complex experiences which are hard to take in, naturally, it is necessary to create new artistic and representational methods. Complex syntax, complex and unusual associations, complex comparisons, complex composition are all characteristic of Soso Paichadze’s stories. In short, he has to be classified as a ‘difficult’ writer. The one thing that is relatively simple in his work is the plot.’
L. Bregadze, literary critic
‘A lot of other pieces remind me of Michelangelo Antonioni’s cinema work; one of his much-praised stories in particular, Warm, Magical Rain, has induced me to pass on this book to one of our famous film directors in the hope that he will want to make a film of it and, if he does, then I would not hesitate to write the script, if he entrusted it to me, of course.’
M. Mosulishvili, writer
Extract will be available soon
In case of using the information, please, indicate the source.