Scan barcode
A review by andrew_russell
Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories by Svetlana Alexiévich
4.0
And so the little boy died. Moaned and moaned and died. I heard it grow quiet. I lifted the little sheet. He lay there all black, only his little face was white, it remained clean. A little white face, the rest completely black. Night. Dark windows. Where to go? I'll wait til morning, in the morning I'll call people. I sat and wept because there was no-one in the house, not even that little boy. Day was breaking. I put him in a trunk...we had kept our grandfathers trunk, where he stored his tools; a small trunk, like a box. I was afraid that cats or rats would come and gnaw at him. He lay there so small, smaller than when he was alive. I wrapped him in a clean towel, a linen one. And kissed him. The trunk was just his size...
In Svetlana Alexievich's Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories, the author does what she does best - writes hauntingly beautiful testimonies provided by those who bore witness to a significant event in Soviet history. In the case of this book, that event was the Second World War and Alexievich also homes in on a specific group in society. Children.
The testimony which is related at the start of this review was provided to Alexievich by Dunya Golobeva, writing of the death of her infant cousin. Her and her family had been fleeing from the Nazi war machine, following the commencement of Operation Barbarossa, the German operation to invade the Soviet Union. When she talks of being alone, she shares a trait with others who also provide the words of Alexievich's work; the murder of entire families, with only the children remaining alive (although, often they too were murdered). Consequently, the reader is left with a sense of children witnessing the unbearable at far too young an age, forced to grow up in a way that nobody should have to experience. The results can be devastating to read of.
I saw what shouldn't be seen. What a man shouldn't see. And I was little...I saw a soldier who was running and seemed to stumble. He fell. For a long time, he clawed at the ground, he clung to it...I saw how they drove our prisoners of war through the village. In long columns. In torn and burned greatcoats. Where they stayed overnight, the bark was gnawed off the trees. Instead of food, they threw them a dead horse. The men tore it to pieces. I saw a German train go off the rails and burn up during the night, and in the morning they laid all those who had worked for the railroad on the tracks and drove a locomotive over them. I saw how they harnessed people to a carriage. They had yellow stars on their backs. They drove them on with whips. They rode along merrily. I saw how they knocked children from their mothers arms with bayonets. And threw them into a fire. Into a well...our turn, mama's and mine, didn't come...I saw my neighbours dog crying. He sat in the ashes of our neighbour's house. Alone. He had an old man's eyes....And I was little. - Yura Karpovich - eight years old
If this kind of stuff doesn't move to you to feel something - certainly a sense of sorrow and heartfelt sadness, possibly one of anger at the injustices perpetrated by man upon fellow man - then...well, I have no words to explain politely how that could come about. But perhaps more importantly than all that (and this maybe goes without saying), is the statement this work makes regarding the effects of war upon the most helpless - young children. All of the words written in Last Witness relate to testimony provided by the victims when they are well into their adult years. But it is clear that they are still haunted by the memories the words evoke. Families rent asunder, close ones and loved ones murdered in brutal cold blood. It leaves it's mark and if nothing else, this is the powerful message that Last Witness conveys.
At times, making the creative choice to focus on one societal group gives the book a sense of uniformity that leads to repetition - this can be not only draining but seems to do a disservice to to the topic in hand. But then a passage of poetic devastation leaves you slack-jawed in wonder at the animalistic behaviour that fellow humans are capable of. And you realise that this work is powerful, in a way that outweigh's most of the negative effect of this sense of repetitiveness.
This collection is worth reading. Sure, I would have liked a greater variety through the book's length but nonetheless, it's sure as hell worth reading.
In Svetlana Alexievich's Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories, the author does what she does best - writes hauntingly beautiful testimonies provided by those who bore witness to a significant event in Soviet history. In the case of this book, that event was the Second World War and Alexievich also homes in on a specific group in society. Children.
The testimony which is related at the start of this review was provided to Alexievich by Dunya Golobeva, writing of the death of her infant cousin. Her and her family had been fleeing from the Nazi war machine, following the commencement of Operation Barbarossa, the German operation to invade the Soviet Union. When she talks of being alone, she shares a trait with others who also provide the words of Alexievich's work; the murder of entire families, with only the children remaining alive (although, often they too were murdered). Consequently, the reader is left with a sense of children witnessing the unbearable at far too young an age, forced to grow up in a way that nobody should have to experience. The results can be devastating to read of.
I saw what shouldn't be seen. What a man shouldn't see. And I was little...I saw a soldier who was running and seemed to stumble. He fell. For a long time, he clawed at the ground, he clung to it...I saw how they drove our prisoners of war through the village. In long columns. In torn and burned greatcoats. Where they stayed overnight, the bark was gnawed off the trees. Instead of food, they threw them a dead horse. The men tore it to pieces. I saw a German train go off the rails and burn up during the night, and in the morning they laid all those who had worked for the railroad on the tracks and drove a locomotive over them. I saw how they harnessed people to a carriage. They had yellow stars on their backs. They drove them on with whips. They rode along merrily. I saw how they knocked children from their mothers arms with bayonets. And threw them into a fire. Into a well...our turn, mama's and mine, didn't come...I saw my neighbours dog crying. He sat in the ashes of our neighbour's house. Alone. He had an old man's eyes....And I was little. - Yura Karpovich - eight years old
If this kind of stuff doesn't move to you to feel something - certainly a sense of sorrow and heartfelt sadness, possibly one of anger at the injustices perpetrated by man upon fellow man - then...well, I have no words to explain politely how that could come about. But perhaps more importantly than all that (and this maybe goes without saying), is the statement this work makes regarding the effects of war upon the most helpless - young children. All of the words written in Last Witness relate to testimony provided by the victims when they are well into their adult years. But it is clear that they are still haunted by the memories the words evoke. Families rent asunder, close ones and loved ones murdered in brutal cold blood. It leaves it's mark and if nothing else, this is the powerful message that Last Witness conveys.
At times, making the creative choice to focus on one societal group gives the book a sense of uniformity that leads to repetition - this can be not only draining but seems to do a disservice to to the topic in hand. But then a passage of poetic devastation leaves you slack-jawed in wonder at the animalistic behaviour that fellow humans are capable of. And you realise that this work is powerful, in a way that outweigh's most of the negative effect of this sense of repetitiveness.
This collection is worth reading. Sure, I would have liked a greater variety through the book's length but nonetheless, it's sure as hell worth reading.