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Wow, this was an amazing book if you like being emotionally crushed by the weight of generational trauma for over 900 pages. It is a mammoth of a book. We have eight lives to follow. The book is subtitled “for Brilka” and hers is the final life, the Eighth. Eight on its side eight is the symbol of infinity and the final life is left blank for the myriad of possibilities for Brilka. The Story is narrated by her aunt, Niza, the seventh life in the tale. This is the longest book I have read in a very long while. The story covers the history of Georgia through the 20th century up to the beginning of the 2000s, through the lives of five generations in one family, focusing mainly on the women and the difficulties they encountered during a very troubling time in history. A multi generational saga like Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, a Georgian-Soviet War and Peace.
The book begins with a chocolate maker, who has a secret recipe for hot chocolate, the chocolate entrances the consumer but brings with it a curse to those who partake. The first life we follow is Stasia, the chocolate maker’s third daughter, who falls for a lieutenant of the White Guard at the beginning of the 20th century. But like many of the romances in the book, this will not be an easy relationship as the Russian Revolution erupts and the couple are separated, a pattern oft repeated in the different generations.
Some of the principal players in the Soviet Era: Stalin , Beria and Khrushchev are not named explicitly in the book, Stalin is the Generalissimus, Beria is the Little Big Man and Khruschev, the Ukrainian Peasant.
This is a long book. I found the first four lives to be more engaging than 5 and 6 (Elene and Daria). There is a lot of heartache, as you can imagine, even when the Soviet period came to an end; the 1990s were a tough time in Georgia.
Nino Haratischvili has weaved a rich tapestry with the various threads of this story, it took me three weeks to get through, which is quick for me with a book of such length.
My rating : 5 out of 5