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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Pregnancy
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
slow-paced
So far my exploration of Georgian books has been really pleasurable. The two novels I've read so far, Waiting for the Electricity and Ali and Nino have been among the best I've read in the past year.
Today I finished Ali and Nino. I'm still buzzing from the ending of the book and the epic doses of sadness, pleasure, patriotism, and longing that a great novel like this one provides.
I learned about Ali and Nino because it was one of the Stories I Stole that I found in Wendell Steavenson's memoir of her time in Georgia during the last, dark years of Eduard Shevardnadze's reign over that country. Her review had me sold:
Today I finished Ali and Nino. I'm still buzzing from the ending of the book and the epic doses of sadness, pleasure, patriotism, and longing that a great novel like this one provides.
I learned about Ali and Nino because it was one of the Stories I Stole that I found in Wendell Steavenson's memoir of her time in Georgia during the last, dark years of Eduard Shevardnadze's reign over that country. Her review had me sold:
Ali and Nino was our guide and our touchstone, beautifully written gem-like, compact, full of perfect sentences, rich but never verbose. The story is epic.... I could pickit up at random and read any paragraph and it would make me smile (163)
Despite my rampant bibliophilia and my fascination with the eastern cultures of Turkey and Iran, I had never heard about the book before. Now, I can't stop sharing it with everyone I know.
The greatest part of this tale by Kurban Said (the pen name of a man--or the co-effort of a Jewish refugee and Austrian countess--whose life was every bit as epic as his books) is the theme of the differences between East and West, Asia and Europe. In this way the Caucasus proves to be the perfect location to sort out the differences, and the love between Ali and Nino is an ideal lens through which to examine differences that are, well, continental in size.
Ali is a Shiite Muslim, a son of the desert who loves spending time at home either sitting on cushions around the floor of a dark, cool room, or sitting on the rooftop looking out over walls of the old city of Baku. He hates the idea of sitting at a chair at table to eat or sleeping on a bed as the Europeans do.
One phobia that separates him from Europeans is an apparent fear of trees.'Ali Khan is afraid of trees the way a child is afraid of ghosts,' said Nino.
'It's not as bad as that. But what you feel for the trees I feel for the desert,' I replied...'The world of trees perplexes me, your Highness. It is full of fright and mystery, of ghosts and demons. You cannot look ahead. You are surrounded. It is dark. The sun's rays are lost in the twilight of the trees. In this twilight everything is unreal. No, I do not love the trees. The shadows of the woods oppress me, and it makes me sad to hear the rustling of the branches. The desert is simple like the thrust of a sword. the wood is complicated like the Gordian knot. I lose my way in the woods, [Nino].' (40)
This is the kind of ingenious insight that Said sprinkles throughout each chapter. That dissertation ends with the equally enlightening observation by Dadiani, an elderly Georgian guest at the table where Nino's father is Tamada (designated host):'The woods are full of questions. Only the desert does not ask, does not give, and does not promise anything. But the fire of the soul comes from twhe wood. The desert man--I can see him--has but one face, and knows but one truth, and that truth fulfills him. The woodman has many faces. The fanatic comes from the desert, the creator from the woods. Maybe that is the main difference between East and West' (40).
"Two households, both alike in dignity" Shakespeare begins Romeo & Juliet with this expression of warring households, and Romeo & Juliet is a good text to begin the comparison of Ali & Nino. But even though the book lacks the incendiary passion that the play features--every book does--the relationship goes deeper, the insights are stronger. Both characters give and take, in word and deed. (Pictured: this image from a play, dramatizes the racial differences between Ali and Nino)
In Ali and Nino, though, the focus of the novel isn't on the differences between Europe and Asia, so perfectly encapsulated in the existence of Baku, Azerbaijan, which flip-flops between Asian and Russian rule over the chaotic course of World War I. Ali and Nino are a thoroughly modern couple who forge a strong partnership in the face of entrenched differences of religion, gender, nationality, and worldview. While this book hasn't caught on in America, this relationship would be recognizable to so many partnerships that cross class, religious, ethnic and regional differences.
Even though the book is told by Ali in first-person, Said gives many characters their say. Nino's perspective is fully realized, and her disagreements with Ali are given respect. In the second half of the novel, as first vendetta then war banish Ali from Baku, first to Dagestan, then to Teheran, Nino follows Ali, but hers is not a submissive acquiescence. There is fire between them.
An underlying threat to Ali and Nino's relationship is the Asiatic view of women. Ali's family does not expect much of Nino--not necessarily because she is a Christian, but because she is a woman. There is doubt as to whether or not she even has a soul. Consider this advice Ali gets from Seyd:A wise man does not court a woman. The woman is just the acre, on which the ma sows. must the field love the farmer? Enough that the farmer loves the field. Marry, but never forget: the woman is just an acre.
Later, once Ali and Nino are engaged, the idea is advanced that Ali has the right to murder Nino for any slight to his honor. Ali demonstrates his love for Nino, repelling these terrible ideas, honoring her in many ways and receiving from her honor in return.
Dagestan proves to be an idyll. Ali hides there to avoid vendetta for a murder he commits. Nino joins him. They are poor there, living in a hovel, but there is real happiness, too. They return to Baku when the violence of war wipes out the threat of vendetta, but a battle against Russian forces launches them into exile in Teheran, in the palace of Ali's uncle.
I never expected to read the words, "I hate you, Ali," in such an epic love story, but Persia tears at Nino, because she refuses to conform to the Islamic standards for women. She refuses the veil, she hates the harem and other enforced terms of separation from the world at large. Her time in Persia closes when Ali's practice of self-flagellation during a Shiite ceremony, an experience she sees as utterly foreign, "fanatical barbarian."
Ali could put Nino in her place here--in his culture, he has the power of life and death over her. But this is where love wins out--and it is also the place where a new love introduces itself. Ali and Nino return to Baku. The Turks have pushed the divided Russians out of Baku, and Ali returns to take a place in the new, Islamic government of the city, returning to the side of his close friend Ilyas Bey (a nationalist who reminded me of Enjolras, that great, minor character from Les Miserables).
Nino will arrange an opportunity for Ali to transfer to a major European city, but the lessons of Teheran are fresh for the young couple. Baku is the place where Asia and Europe are in balance, where Ali and Nino's partnership is strongest.
Ali and Nino is actually a great guide to many locations in the Caucasus. During his courtship of Nino, Ali spends some time in Tiflis (Tbilisi) with Nino's family, where he is introduced to the fanatical hospitality of the Georgians.
A devout Muslim, Ali resolves to withstand wine or any other strong drink, but his resistance is overcome by Nino's cousins and they spend a night drinking, followed by a trip to the sulfur baths to mitigate the hangover. In the throes of the wine, Ali has a revelation about Georgians:[They] seem to me like noble deer, strayed amongst the jungle mixtures of the Asiatics. No other Eastern race has this charm, these graceful movements, this fantastic lust for life and healthy enjoyment of leisure (96)
The stubborn love of Georgians for their homeland is captured in a speech by Nino's elderly relative Dodiko
It is beautiful... this our country. The sulphur and the town, the war and Kakhetian wine. Look at the Alasani flowing across the plain! It is wonderful to be a Georgian, even if Georgia perishes. You sound hopeless. But has it ever been otherwise in the Land of Tamar? And yet our rivers run, our vine grows, our people dance. It is a fair country, this our Georgia. And so it will remain, for all its hopelessness" (100)
Georgia certainly lies in a perilous location, at the crossroads of empires since antiquity. In the past two hundred years, it has most often been dominated by Russia, but there have been Persian and Turkish incursions as well. Yet this culture has survived, miraculously. Ali knows this--even though it is his own country that will face annihilation in the book's closing chapters.'But this country is held between the two claws of a hot pair of tongs, Nino' (103)
Even today, a war between Russian proxies and Ukraine rages 1000 km northwest of Tbilisi, and rumblings of war to the southeast between Azerbaijan and Armenia are featured in American newspapers. Two claws of a hot pair of tongs, indeed!
Reading Ali and Nino, I felt the same that someone from Asia or Africa might feel after reading Les Miserable or Moby Dick. It reminds me of when I lived in Albania, and I realized how much of the culture I already knew because I had read The Odyssey. This book is an epic mixture of history, demography, religion, and love.
I won't know until I visit Georgia for myself how much of Ali and Nino is still true. I know that Georgians celebrate the book and a famed statue of Ali and Nino can be found in Batumi (Pictured: the figures actually move back and forth, interlocking in their process of movement).
Considering that it was set in 1914-18 and written in the 1930s, expecting too much of the book would be like someone coming to America, expecting to see The Great Gatsby come to life!
Still, I'm glad I read the book, and I can't wait to share it with other readers that I know and care about.
Magnificent satire (this is satire, isn't it?)! Such beautiful imagery and witty, hilarious dialogue in this tragic dichotomy. I was repeatedly fascinated by how Ali seems to know everything and nothing about the world.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Global Read Challenge 28: Azerbaijan
This book is worth reading if only for the fact that I've never heard of a country having a national book in the way that Azerbaijan has Ali and Nino. Between that and the fact that the author was unknown until recently, the book has a lot going on before you even open the cover. The plot is pretty classic- star crossed lovers/the tension of living at the intersection of Europe and Asia. But it has great details and a lot of drama. I wouldn't say the characters are completely realistic or three dimensional but that's not why your'e reading it.
This book is worth reading if only for the fact that I've never heard of a country having a national book in the way that Azerbaijan has Ali and Nino. Between that and the fact that the author was unknown until recently, the book has a lot going on before you even open the cover. The plot is pretty classic- star crossed lovers/the tension of living at the intersection of Europe and Asia. But it has great details and a lot of drama. I wouldn't say the characters are completely realistic or three dimensional but that's not why your'e reading it.
Read this for school and was pleasantly surprised with the story! However there was the many jarring instances of writing pertaining to the rights ir lack there of in middle eastern women in the 1930s
adventurous
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes