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| Issyk Kul lake |
I have been so enthralled by Tchinguiz Aïtmatov’s novel “The white ship” ( 1970 ), that I gobbled it up in one single nocturnal reading. Incredible that it looks like I am the only one in the Librarything world who seems to own a book by this master story teller.
Born to a Kyrgyz father and Tatar mother, Aïtmatov
was one of the most prominent writers during the last years of the USSR. Celebrated
all through the Russian – speaking world and a national icon in his own Kyrgyzstan,
the novelist assumed in the last years of his life the responsibilities of a high
– level diplomat where he was both advisor and friend of the Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev.
Unlike the 20th century Russian
writers who did become famous in the West, Aîtmatov never wrote openly against
the system and he was branded by the West as a “communist” writer. Aîtmatov,
who was orphaned at the age of 10 when he lost his father ( a civil servant ) in
’38 during the Stalinist purges, preferred to stick to “safer” themes when
writing : the defense of local Asian populations against the encroaching Soviet
mass – culture, an early advocate of wildlife protection and a defender of the
weak against the new party- bullies running the Kolkhozes.
These three themes are intertwined in “The
white ship”. It is a beautiful but very sad book and Aîtmatov’s descriptions
shows he is a kind, sensitive and responsible writer.
The story brings us to the remote fringe of the
Soviet state in the years just after the second world war. We are introduced to
a small community of 8 people, all kin, from the Bagu tribe. They live high up
in the Kyrgyz’ mountains and are the keepers of the surrounding protected forest.
The main character is a unnamed young boy,
seven or eight years old. The kid, the only child in the tiny village, fills up
his loneliness with stories and innocent fantasies. He has been abandoned by
his parents, who fled to the city for a better life and is raised by a gentle grandfather,
his second wife and two other childless families. Their lives are primitive and
the small community is very poor. The only extra income that can be gained is
when the violent Uncle Orozkoul illegally sells cut –down trees from the
forests.
Soon enough we realize that the fantasy world
in which the boy flees, not only fills his loneliness but also protects him
from a terrible scary world of domestic abuse and violence. Two fantasies in
particular order the child’s chaotic world and soften the emotional blows : one
where the boy imagines himself a fish swimming down the raging mountain river
not far from his house all the way down the mountain towards the giant lake Issyk Kul, on which a white boat sails and his father (
he imagines ) is a sailor. The other story, is the legend of the Mother Maral deer,
the legendary ancestor of the Bagu people. The young boy has never seen one of
those magnificent ruminants. They have all been slaughtered and exterminated by
Soviet hunters.
His grandfather often tells him that these Marals
are the true ancestors of the Bagu people, and hence the imaginary parents of
the child.
Then comes a day, that a tree-selling scheme
gone awry coincides with a spotting of three Maral – deer close to the village.
A beautiful book but the most heart-breaking
rendering of a child’s vulnerability I ever read.
