Hamid Ismailov

A complicated novel, telling the intersecting but sometimes contradictory stories of a large group of characters in a small railway town north of Tashkent between about 1900 and 1980, interleaved with the story of an unnamed character just referred to as “the boy”. The stories are often ribald and usually involve at least a hint of magic realism, and the point of view is always that of a Muslim, Uzbek observer, looking with slight puzzlement at western civilisation and the Soviet show more project.

Ismailov says in an interview with the translator included as an afterword here that he wanted to contrast the regimented, hierarchical, Soviet way of looking at the world — obviously symbolised here by the railway — with the unprejudiced, fluid, Sufi-like gaze of the innocent boy. Ismailov takes no prisoners either in his social and political satire or in his brutally matter-of-fact descriptions of sex and violence, so this definitely isn’t for everyone, but it is a quite remarkable book, and often very funny indeed, even in places where you had rather it wasn’t… Certainly another one that invites a re-read to get the most out of it. show less

I came to this book having listened to a documentary about the Soviet nuclear testing site in Khazakhstan and the long lasting legacy of that.

The story is of young man of 27, Yerzhan, who looks to all the world like a 12 year old boy and his childhood on the steppe with a tiny and remote two family community. They live in close proximity to the Zone, the testing site (one character works there), the periodic 'earthquakes' terrify Yerzhan and the many references to a world war provide a sense show more of apocalypse. One day he and his schoolmates are taken on a tour of the facility by the father of his neighbour and love. On their return they stop at the Dead Lake where Yerzhan steps into the radioactive water. The effects are not immediately obvious, but he stops growing and becomes increasingly desperate as the children around grow bigger.

Aside the darkness and sense of doom that pervades the book, what is striking is the description of the steppe as a landscape and as a home, which adds to the other worldly feel of the story.

Ismailov handles an appalling topic with great skill and leaves you with a powerful impression within this short novella. show less

Hamid Ismailov has masterfully given us a story within a story about Uzbek history and culture. In this novel there is much that is self consciously transitory but one is left with a feeling of solidity of something left for the ages. The unavoidable poetry, especially that of Cho'lpon, adds depth and foundation to an already present richness. Another unique feature are the many Uzbek sayings: “The camel shakes its back, the load goes to the donkey”; “A lie can sometimes serve a man, show more but truth will serve him better”; “The mirror doesn't know what it serves: love, shame, or the poet.” Death and ruminations about it play a large part. The author goes to some trouble to point out that death is not much of a story without love. My thanks to Hamilton College, the Hockessin Library, and the interlibrary loan system for making this remarkable treasure available to me.

Quotes: (page 166) “Abdulla loved Cho'lpon's poetry more than anyone else's...'An unacquainted acquaintance' was phrase for it. In actual fact, when he wrote a prose piece, it too was a representation of this same 'known unknown' world. The known, the everyday, the petty and the trivial, once plunged in the light of the unknown--- and what was unknown, frightening and alien takes on a real existence and reverts to its real self.”

(page 237) “True, he was learning much he'd never known about the history of Uzbek khanates, but were such articles of any use for a novel he planned to call The Harem Girl? What could they have to do with Oyxon? On the other hand, how could he write about the nineteenth century and leave out the Great Game? Didn't he see himself as a national writer? If you're a national writer, and don't know the grindstones through which your nation's history has passed, and the consequences for its fate today, are you worth a tuppence?”

(page 265) “When Conoly left Kokand for Bukara, Oyxon was heartbroken. She was not consoled by noisy excursions to the countryside with the harem ladies to celebrate spring; she was not comforted by the gardens regal flowering. It was during this period that she found solace in an unexpected corner: from Uvaysiy, a woman old enough to be her grandmother. Until then Oyxon had not let her come close, for she considered Uvaysiy to be Nodira's deciple. But when she looked at her with clear eyes, she saw not a scheming rival but a woman who, like herself, lived a lonely and precarious life.”

(page 300)” 'So I've hit the nail on the head,' Fitrat smiled faintly.
'When you respond to a question with another question, that's a sign you're at a loss for an answer. That incomparably beautiful lady was betrayed on all sides. And isn't the same true of your incomparable literary talent? It's been betrayed; is there anyone left who wouldn't sell it down the river? ' he said, like a surgeon inserting a probe in someone's eye, and with repeated stabs of the knife, bringing out what had been concealed deep inside Abdulla.”

(page 355) “Now that Mahmud had abandoned his mother Nodira and fled Kokand, renouncing his crown and throne, he reached Shahrixon with his suite. From Shahrixon they were heading for Andijan, where, by getting reinforcements in the fortress, they could rouse the Kyrgyz against the Bukharans. But the citizens of Shahrixon were enrage that their Emir's wife Oyxon had been expelled from Kokand back to her native city, and when they found out that Mahmud had arrived in their city they swore that they would hand him over to Emir Nasrullo.” show less

The Dead Lake has restored my faith in the Peirene imprint after the grubby misogynist fantasy that was Reader for hire. Hamid Ismailov shows a world of radioactive fallout in Soviet era Kazakhstan. Yerzhan's childhood idyll is disrupted and then dismantled as the effects of atomic testing are felt by his family. Ismailov's portrait of three generations of the family includes the musical grandfather and his poetic songs of the steppe, the grandmothers whose folk tales explain everything of show more significance, to the son who is a worker on the atomic plant and is convinced their work is essential to overcoming the US."And once again his rebellion was put off until the next day. If this was the way of things in the world, then weren't his suffering, his imagination and threats, all his thoughts, like a flowing stream, like powdered snow, like a swirling blizzard and his life simply a short, sad song?" show less