Review of the book “Amadoka” Sofia Andrukhovych
In Sofia Andrukhovych’s cross-generational ‘anti-epic’, vignettes from several distinct periods of Ukrainian history are intertwined to craft a story that spans that country’s past of hardship, war, and tragedy. The plot enthralls from the very beginning, inviting the reader into a world where secrets abound, self-pity is the order of the day, and the truth must be hidden, at all costs, in order to stay alive. Love, that most classic of human emotions is eager to face any test, but often, too fragile to be spared.
Each of Andrukhovych’s characters is unique, with the lines between right and wrong, good and bad, constantly blurred. There are no cut-and-dry heroes or villains in this story, with even murderers redeeming themselves through self-sacrifice and saving the lives of others.
As one example, the Holocaust in Ukraine during the Second World War forms one of the book’s central threads. In recounting this period, the reader is introduced to Pinhas and Ulyana, two unlikely friends, one Jewish and wealthy, the other, Ukrainian and poor. The relationship between their two families, initially through employment, is turned on its head as German armies march into Buchach. Through the trials and tribulations of the period both families are veritably extinguished, with only scattered fragments of each remaining.
These remnants, like a kaleidoscope, oscillate unexpectedly and unpredictably between epochs. The Nazi terror is followed upon by the Stalinist one, with further lives snuffed out of existence or changed irrevocably, tragedy and despair seeping from one generation to the next. Whatever happens (or happened), the lives of the main characters, at least in the present, press on in nearly surreal fashion. There are some moments when the reader can guess what will happen next, but I advise against doing so: you’ll only be disappointed. The plot twists and turns, and narrators change frequently, converging only when all of the protagonists finally come together and all ‘truths’ are laid bare.
This occurs in a manner similar to Greek myths of old. Bohdan, one of the main characters in the present, is introduced to the reader as someone without any knowledge of who he is, a wounded warrior from Mariupol, suffering from total amnesia and a severe facial wound, convalescing in a hospital in Kyiv. Romana, an archivist and Bohdan’s ostensible wife, recognizes him despite his bandages, tending to him faithfully, filling in all of the gaps in his memory, telling him of who he was, his history, and about their relationship. She posts pictures on Instagram and social media with Bohdan, writing together about what they did, creating a reality that both are participating in and comfortable with, until at the end, they appear on a nationally syndicated talk show.
The reader is left with many questions, particularly about Romana. Andrukhovych has subsequently insisted that clues about who Romana is (or isn’t) are scattered throughout the book, however, they’re difficult to find and even harder to piece together. Maybe she is, as Andrukhovych alluded to in at least one interview, not a person at all. Perhaps, she is the spirit of history that has escaped from the archives, leaping off weathered pages and documents in a last-ditch effort to connect Ukraine’s east and west, its past and present? Or is Romana the physical manifestation of a novel as the Latin roots of her name suggest? And if so, is she a book, or a character from it? Can the spirit of this novel become independent of its characters, breaking away from them?
As Andrukovych tellingly writes, “Everyone who receives power involuntarily feels omnipotent…superior to all others who fantasize about freedom. But what do we know about the dependencies of those who are themselves omnipotent?” Indeed, this notion, very similar to that of the Damoclean Sword, seems to meander throughout the work. Pinhas’s father Avel is transformed nearly instantaneously from a wealthy landowner into a non-person as Nazi rule is instated in the environs of the Ternopil region. Another fictional character albeit with firm historical roots, Viktor Petrov/Domontovych/Ber voluntarily submits to powerlessness in order to survive. Even in the present, the faulty underpinnings of Romana’s omnipotence vis-à-vis her husband Bohdan are laid bare for the world to see at the book’s conclusion.
One of the many messages transmitted through this work is that forgetting can both save and doom, in equal measure. In Pinhas’s case, forgetting fulfills the role of the latter, whereas for Bohdan, it provides him with redemption. As such, the author seems to be questioning the importance of memory, or at the very least, highlighting its impartiality.
Are we the sum product of inherited generational memories? If so, how much of the burden for the past should or must we bear? What if this burden is too heavy, restricting our movements in the future, dragging us ever deeper into morass and desperation? Can we invent memory, using it to paper over the cracks and holes in our collective consciousness? An answer of sorts to all of these fundamental questions is provided: “They called to mind everything that they believed in. When those who are rich in both wisdom and sadness multiply their knowledge, they also multiply their sorrow.”
