The Tale of Aypi in Around the World in 80 Books

Oct 23, 2021 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: z-challenge-readtheworld21, z-read-gelesen-2021, a-reviewed, author-man, genre-litfic, transl-turkmen, world-turkmenistan, c_quest-readtheworld

I did not enjoy reading this book. Two reasons: I was bored, and I was appalled at the unreconstructed patriarchal normativity herein.

The story of a murdered woman's ghost is intertwined with the story of a community of Turkmen fisher people on the shores of the Caspian Sea who are being evicted from their homes by the government. Promising? Yes. Or I thought so. But it is so clunkily told, with uninspiring sentences, two-dimensional characters, very little in the way of texture or material deta I did not enjoy reading this book. Two reasons: I was bored, and I was appalled at the unreconstructed patriarchal normativity herein.

The story of a murdered woman's ghost is intertwined with the story of a community of Turkmen fisher people on the shores of the Caspian Sea who are being evicted from their homes by the government. Promising? Yes. Or I thought so. But it is so clunkily told, with uninspiring sentences, two-dimensional characters, very little in the way of texture or material detail. I am still not 100% sure where exactly the village was located, what the houses look like, what it is like to go fishing. A lot was made of fishing and the loss of an old way of life but I got barely any sense of what it is like for life to revolve around fishing. This is so much better handled in Heðin Brú's The Old Man and His Sons where there is pathos, nuance and vivid description of the struggle against the sea. None of that in this book. Much of the dialogue reads like a treatise, not a novel, with clunky ideological positions asserted.

And then the patriarchy and the relentless binary-obsessed allohetero-normativity. The women are interested in finery and jewellery. They are there to have sex with the men or be wives. There is much talk of the battle of the sexes, and the ghost woman is angry at having been disrespected by the men -- but her anger extends to a lament about 'why shouldn't I look at jewellery', not to any systemic critique. At one point, the ghost does express anger at misogyny but her anger just serves to reinstate a binary norm:

"You dare to judge women? You, the source of wisdom?! You, who seen an unattached woman and stalk after her without a thought of your household, wife or children? Predators! ... Remember, if men are the bulwark of nations, women are the bulwark of life!" (p.94)

This is such tedious sentiment. I felt as if I were reading a novel from the 1950s but this was written in 2012 and the author was then younger than I am now. So there's no excuse. The crime of men seems to come down to cheating on women and not providing for their wives and children. So the women are all seen in relation to some man: angry at being cheated, anxious for or angry at a husband, prey to seduction from a man. And the 'bulwark of nations, bulwark of life' is such a tired old chestnut: men are politics, women are nature, yawn. Nor is there ever any self-reflection on this, or any character who breaks that mould. And 'battle of the sexes'? I thought that notion had died out with the 1930s.

Here's a most irritating passage:

'Now Aypi understood that gullibility had precipitated her tragic end. A woman's credulity, mixed with male pride, was a sure recipe for misfortune ... A woman's magic lies in her beauty. Why shouldn't those weak in body use what weapons they had? What else did the all-powerful God and nature intend for women to do in this competition?' (p.106)

I don't even know where to start, sigh. Suffice it to note that throughout women's beauty is invariably mentioned but men's physical appearance: never. Not a single handsome young man in this entire story.

The one OK chapter describes a wedding. And there were one or two paragraphs of fine storm description in the final chapter. But mostly I struggled and counted the pages to the end.

The prose is clunky (I thought), and it is also very badly translated plus patchy proofreading on behalf of Glagoslav Publications ("he said in a plaintiff voice" -- the worst offender). The translator is W.M. Coulson. I applaud Glagoslav Publications for supporting Slavic literature but proofreading, please. The one thing that kept me going was the pleasant cover, a nice design by an uncredited artist (the credits say 'book created by Max Mendor -- is he the designer?) and creamy, thick smooth paper.

Read for end.notes' and anovelfamily's #readtheworld21 challenge, October 2021 prompt: Central Asia and the Caucasus. The novel is set in Turkmenistan, by a Turkmen author. ...more

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Feb 12, 2023 Anna Ruth FL rated it liked it

Shelves: turkmenistan-grc

Took me awhile to get into it, but I ended up enjoying it. A village on the Caspian Sea is identified as being the perfect place for a revenue generating spa so the residents are banned from fishing and forced to leave their homes for the capital. One fisherman defies the ban and is brought in for questioning. Meanwhile, the ghost of a murdered woman observes the village and decides to avenge her death.

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Jan 28, 2024 Bogdan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: russian-breeze

Interesting alternation between a chapter which continues the main story of the inhabitants which needs to be relocated and a chapter with Aypi ghost which visits the village and compares it with her times.

Also I noticed the struggle of the human versus nature or against authorities, both being implacable forces.

Other than that, the novel is not very remarkable.

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Jul 20, 2017 Kristin marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: turkmenistan

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Apr 30, 2018 TR Ryan rated it really liked it

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