A white crow in Riga...
While in Riga I picked up a book on a whim and quickly devoured it. I found it gripping, even though it lacked anything that could be considered a plot or storyline:
Iveta Melnika: The Tale of the White Crow. Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Latvia. Ellis Press: Granite Falls, MN, 2003.
The book is made up of journal entries from the mid 1980s into the mid 1990s. In the entries we follow the day to day concerns of Iveta as she deals with the same problems teens everywhere deal with: social hierarchies, crushes, trends and clothing, music, privacy or lack thereof, etc. In the background, we also get whiffs of the political and economic changes sweeping through the country: the little rebellions at school and conflicts with the local Russians, the independence movement, the collapse of Soviet-era industry, the influx of American religious cults, etc. The title comes from a story Iveta wrote for a school assignment and an allegory to which she returns repeatedly throughout her journal: Her status as a "white crow," someone who doesn't fit into normal society, a misfit.
The misfit aspect of it is something that appealed to me about the story. I was neither a total misfit nor one of the "top boys" in school. The story showed me that teen social hierarchies are very subjective and that the "cool" people are also very insecure. It also shows that strategies for deailng with these hierarchies vary greatly. Despite rooting for her throughout her journal and occasionally thinking, "Gee, I would really like to talk with this young lady about this and offer some encouragement," I think her journal showed that she had, in many ways, a very different approach to her situation than I would have had. She was a very different person - and did just fine in the end without my advice!
Much of the latter part of the "story" recounts Iveta's involvement in the International Church of Christ during her early university years, the early 1990s. I found myself rooting for her journal-entry by journal-entry, biting my nails and hoping that she would snap out of it and follow her instincts - so clear in her writing - which were telling her to bolt. I particularly cheered for those who were telling her, from outside the cult, to get out. If I am not mistaken, I think I might even have met one of the "characters" in the book mentioned in that context, her German professor. There were a few clues, however, that names had been changed during the editing
The book is very convincing, almost embarassingly honest. It is a great read. It goes a long way to show both the universal experience of youth and the particularities of Soviet and post-Soviet life.
While the editing of the journal down to 158 entries covering a ten-year period does not detract from the story - indeed it probably makes it readable - it does offer some challenges for those trying to place the events into their exact historical context. The entries are not dated, only numbered. It turns out to be very revealing when an historical calendar is laid over them:
- Entries 30 to 42 seem, during the reading, to recount the events of a single summer, from June through September.
- Enty 44 then mentions February and March which confuses the reader because....
- With entries 46 and 47, we are at the barricades, the "siege of Riga" by the Soviets in January of 1991.
- In entry 50, we are in March of some year, presumably the same year.
The interesting thing here is that this is an editorial "trick". The Helsinki '86 demonstations mentioned in entry 31 took place in the summer of 1987. The meetings at Arkadija park mentioned in entry 37 were in 1988. The Baltic chain mentioned in entry 41 took place in August of 1989. The events of February and March mentioned in entry 44 can be dated in 1990. So what would appear to be the account of a single year is, in fact, a period of five years compacted into one. Throughout that period, however, months mentioned fall in sequence, strenthening the illusion that it is all one calendar year. That, I think, is a legitimate literary device which detracts nothing from the narrative.
It gets confusing, however, when the May 4th declaration of independence is placed after that period, in May of 1992 - a date explicitely mentioned in the text (entry 61). But that historically happened in May of 1990. That could be a misprint, but then it falls out of the chronology, out of the order of the story. It is conceivable that the author is noticing, in 1992, an anniversary of the 1990 event, but it seems unlikely based on her remarks. I suspect this is an example of the editor taking liberties with the order of events.
Sometimes reconstructing the author's age at a particular point in the story is difficult. In the very first entry, she mentions being a teenager. In entry 6, she refers back to a past event when she was "9 or 10." So far so good. But in entry 7 she mentions Andropov as the current Soviet leader, placing this part of the story before March of 1984. Later, we learn that she was one year old in 1978, meaning she was born in 1976 or 1977. So the first entries are not the experiences of a teenager after all, but of an elementary-school-aged girl, possibly as young as six. The editor's introduction makes it clear that the earlier passages were written at least in part after the fact. That might explain the "fuzziness" of chronology and age in the first part of the book.
Again, I do not think this editorial license detracts from the story. I would think, however, that revealing the journal dates to the reader would not have detracted either. Most people would read over them anyway. Those paying attention to the dates would see the narrator growing up along the way, in pace.
I would highly recommend the book to anybody interested in teenage pyschology, non-mainstream religion, Soviet and post-Soviet society, or life in Riga. I have already started pushing it on my spouse and friends.
Iveta Melnika: The Tale of the White Crow. Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Latvia. Ellis Press: Granite Falls, MN, 2003.
The book is made up of journal entries from the mid 1980s into the mid 1990s. In the entries we follow the day to day concerns of Iveta as she deals with the same problems teens everywhere deal with: social hierarchies, crushes, trends and clothing, music, privacy or lack thereof, etc. In the background, we also get whiffs of the political and economic changes sweeping through the country: the little rebellions at school and conflicts with the local Russians, the independence movement, the collapse of Soviet-era industry, the influx of American religious cults, etc. The title comes from a story Iveta wrote for a school assignment and an allegory to which she returns repeatedly throughout her journal: Her status as a "white crow," someone who doesn't fit into normal society, a misfit.
The misfit aspect of it is something that appealed to me about the story. I was neither a total misfit nor one of the "top boys" in school. The story showed me that teen social hierarchies are very subjective and that the "cool" people are also very insecure. It also shows that strategies for deailng with these hierarchies vary greatly. Despite rooting for her throughout her journal and occasionally thinking, "Gee, I would really like to talk with this young lady about this and offer some encouragement," I think her journal showed that she had, in many ways, a very different approach to her situation than I would have had. She was a very different person - and did just fine in the end without my advice!
Much of the latter part of the "story" recounts Iveta's involvement in the International Church of Christ during her early university years, the early 1990s. I found myself rooting for her journal-entry by journal-entry, biting my nails and hoping that she would snap out of it and follow her instincts - so clear in her writing - which were telling her to bolt. I particularly cheered for those who were telling her, from outside the cult, to get out. If I am not mistaken, I think I might even have met one of the "characters" in the book mentioned in that context, her German professor. There were a few clues, however, that names had been changed during the editing
The book is very convincing, almost embarassingly honest. It is a great read. It goes a long way to show both the universal experience of youth and the particularities of Soviet and post-Soviet life.
While the editing of the journal down to 158 entries covering a ten-year period does not detract from the story - indeed it probably makes it readable - it does offer some challenges for those trying to place the events into their exact historical context. The entries are not dated, only numbered. It turns out to be very revealing when an historical calendar is laid over them:
- Entries 30 to 42 seem, during the reading, to recount the events of a single summer, from June through September.
- Enty 44 then mentions February and March which confuses the reader because....
- With entries 46 and 47, we are at the barricades, the "siege of Riga" by the Soviets in January of 1991.
- In entry 50, we are in March of some year, presumably the same year.
The interesting thing here is that this is an editorial "trick". The Helsinki '86 demonstations mentioned in entry 31 took place in the summer of 1987. The meetings at Arkadija park mentioned in entry 37 were in 1988. The Baltic chain mentioned in entry 41 took place in August of 1989. The events of February and March mentioned in entry 44 can be dated in 1990. So what would appear to be the account of a single year is, in fact, a period of five years compacted into one. Throughout that period, however, months mentioned fall in sequence, strenthening the illusion that it is all one calendar year. That, I think, is a legitimate literary device which detracts nothing from the narrative.
It gets confusing, however, when the May 4th declaration of independence is placed after that period, in May of 1992 - a date explicitely mentioned in the text (entry 61). But that historically happened in May of 1990. That could be a misprint, but then it falls out of the chronology, out of the order of the story. It is conceivable that the author is noticing, in 1992, an anniversary of the 1990 event, but it seems unlikely based on her remarks. I suspect this is an example of the editor taking liberties with the order of events.
Sometimes reconstructing the author's age at a particular point in the story is difficult. In the very first entry, she mentions being a teenager. In entry 6, she refers back to a past event when she was "9 or 10." So far so good. But in entry 7 she mentions Andropov as the current Soviet leader, placing this part of the story before March of 1984. Later, we learn that she was one year old in 1978, meaning she was born in 1976 or 1977. So the first entries are not the experiences of a teenager after all, but of an elementary-school-aged girl, possibly as young as six. The editor's introduction makes it clear that the earlier passages were written at least in part after the fact. That might explain the "fuzziness" of chronology and age in the first part of the book.
Again, I do not think this editorial license detracts from the story. I would think, however, that revealing the journal dates to the reader would not have detracted either. Most people would read over them anyway. Those paying attention to the dates would see the narrator growing up along the way, in pace.
I would highly recommend the book to anybody interested in teenage pyschology, non-mainstream religion, Soviet and post-Soviet society, or life in Riga. I have already started pushing it on my spouse and friends.
mhatlie - 16. Sep, 18:18 Topic: Baltic studies http://hatlie.twoday.net/stories/4264395/
