Armenia: Three Apples Fell From the sky, by Narine Abgaryan

When I first started this project I had a really hard time finding a book to read from Armenia. And then when I finally found one, more kept popping up that I just couldn't resist. This is a new book recently received at our local library, and it looked interesting enough not to pass by, even though I had already read a couple of others.

The title comes from an Armenian saying "Three apples fell from heaven, one for the storyteller, one for the listener, and one for the eavesdropper". The story is set in the remote mountain village of Maran. Hard times have fallen on the village whose inhabitants are now all elderly. They have survived an earthquake which caused half of the village to tumble into an abyss, war, drought, and famine. And yet, there is something strange and rejuvenating in the air. An elderly widow, Anatolia, about to give up on life, instead is persuaded to marry the widowed blacksmith Vasily. And an unexpected romance blossoms, and with it something else..

Despite covering most of the twentieth century in Armenian history, the events in the outside world are only vaguely sketched. There are references to "the war" (which takes eight years, so I am not quite sure which war is referred to), "the world war" and "the massacre". There is also a family which fled south to avoid "the Bolsheviks". But mostly, life in the village continues in the old, traditional ways, with little reference to the outside world. The villagers eat in a traditional and self-sufficient manner. One of the residents had been sent yeast by her son who now lives in the outside world. She tries it but everyone agrees that the bread produced from this yeast is tasteless. A rather comical incident arises from her attempt to dispose of the yeast.

Despite all the hardship depicted, this is a gentle and ultimately joyful book, which was easy and enjoyable to read. "Three Apples Fell From the Sky" was translated from Russian by Lisa C Hayden with the help of an English Pen Award, and published by Oneworld Publications in 2020.

Armenia: The Gray House, by Mariam Petrosyan

It often seems to happen that, when I have trouble finding a book from a particular country, the solution comes in pairs. So, not long after I located Aram Pachyan's novel Goodbye Bird, I also came across a reference to Marian Petrosyan's fantasy novel. It sounded so intriguing, I bought it as well. But at over 700 pages,it is not a quick read, so it stayed on my shelf for quite a while before I started it.

I've been working my way through it since Christmas, reading other, shorter, works at the same time. But its uniqueness kept me going. While I describe it as a fantasy novel, it's not typical of any genre. On the surface, the world it describes seems almost normal at first. It is set in a residential school for children with various physical disabilities - although in The House they are not seen as disabilities, merely individual characteristics. And the House itself seems to be alive. As the novel progresses, certain happenings become stranger and stranger. The culmination of the book is the final year and graduation of the group of pupils on which the book is focused.

There were one or two points that seemed to be a bit odd - not odd in the sense that this is a fantasy, but odd in a way that didn't quite fit. There seemed to be only two intakes of new pupils over a twelve year period so that there were juniors, all roughly the same age, and seniors, also all roughly the same age as each other. The seniors had only observed graduation, and The Longest Night that preceded it, once in their time in the House,before it was there turn. One would expect - even in the context of the world of The House - new pupils each year, with a full range of ages at any one time.

Minor points such as this, however, could be overlooked in the overall powerful story telling.

This is Mariam Petrosyan's first novel and also likely to be her last - she worked on the book for eighteen years, and says that readers should not expect another book from her, since The Gray House is not merely a book but a world she knew and could visit, and she doesn't know another one. She was born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1969, where she currently lives, after a time in Moscow. The book was published in Russia in 2009, and translated into English by Yuri Machkasov. It was published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle in 2017.

Armenia: Goodbye Bird, by Aram Pachyan

It took me quite a while to find a suitable book from Armenia. At first it seemed as if there were quite a few books around by Armenian authors, most set in the early years of the twentieth century at the time of the Armenian genocide. In the end, they all proved to be written by second and third generation Armenian Americans, based on the stories of their grandparents. Furthermore, it appears that the boundaries of Armenia have changed over time, and that the area where these books were set falls substantially within the borders of present day Turkey.

Eventually, I found that a modern Armenian writer, Gurgen Khanjyan, had a book translated into English, Yenok's eye. But it was somewhat expensive, and while I hesitated, it seemed to go out of print and become wildly more expensive. (Currently showing as $999 at Amazon - plus shipping to New Zealand).

So when I heard of a new release, "Goodbye Bird" by Aram Pachyan, I thought I had better buy it quickly, before it suffered the same fate. The book is described on the dust jacket as a best seller in Armenia. Either the Armenians have very sophisticated tastes, or their tastes at least are wildly different from those of readers in the west. I can't imagine a book of this type becoming a best seller here. I found it surreal, imagistic and confusin. The language swings wildly at times from first person to second person to third person and back again all in the course of a few sentences. It is often not at all clear whether the change of person is actually a switch in who is being referred to, or whether it is the same person being referred to from a different viewpoint.

The novel concerns a young man of twenty eight who has newly left his service in the army. He does not appear to have a job. He reflects on his experiences, his former girlfriend, and friends from his childhood and the army. The "Bird" of the title is apparently a cat, which he is carrying around in the early part of the book. There are many references to both Western and local literature and music. Fortunately the book was relatively short. I think I would have struggled to get through it had it been longer. And yet, once I did finish the book, I realised that even though I thought I had been totally confused while reading it, I had indeed built up a picture of the young man and his life. Perhaps it is like an impressionistic painting, where one needs to stand back to get the picture, instead of examining it too closely and seeing only random brush strokes.

Aram Pachyan was born in 1983 in Vanadzor, Armenia. He studied at the law department of Yerevan State University. Currently he works as a journalist and columnist for the Hraparak newspaper. Goodbye Bird was translated by Nairi Hakhverdi and published by Glagoslav Publications in 2017.