Book Review: An Armenian Sketchbook Full Of Endearing Vignettes

BOOK REVIEW: AN ARMENIAN SKETCHBOOK FULL OF ENDEARING VIGNETTES

The National, UAE
Aug 3 2013

Noori Passela
Aug 3, 2013

An Armenian Sketchbook
Vasily Grossman
Translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler
MacLehose Press

The year 1961 finds the Soviet writer and journalist Vasily Grossman
on a train to Yerevan, Armenia. Mentally and spiritually exhausted
from the KGB’s seizure of his novel Life and Fate, Grossman spends
two months editing a Russian translation of a long Armenian novel,
glad of the opportunity to travel to the country.

However, as seen through the series of vignettes which form the whole
of An Armenian Sketchbook, Grossman is a writer who takes detours
parallel to the work of translating a scene from one culture to
another. His first day in Yerevan is spent wandering about in dazed
panic through the many colourful courtyards that form the maze of
the city’s inner sanctum. As he gradually adjusts to the sights and
sensations of a simpler life, its effects linger on in the warmth
with which he later recalls them.

There is many a poignant tale to be told in Grossman’s brief sojourn.

Like the characters that fill its pages, An Armenian Sketchbook is
enigmatic and endearing.