LOVE IN THE RUINS: DEATH AND REBIRTH IN THE SHADOW OF GENOCIDE.
The Weekly Standard
September 10, 2012 Monday
by Diane Scharper, The Weekly Standard
Vol. 17 No. 48
As Chris Bohjalian tells it, the years between 1915 and 1923 were the
most nightmarish eight years of Armenian history. Yet the horrific
events of that time are generally not included in history courses,
and are not so well known outside the Armenian community. No longer.
Bohjalian describes what happened to the Armenians in grisly detail
in this compelling novel.
Deftly mixing fact and fiction, he tells the story of the massacre
of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians through a tale that spans
generations and continents, its characters linked together by a
series of photographs.The plot concerns a family secret, and as the
secret unravels, it sheds light on the genocide, which began in April
1915 when the Ottoman Turks decided to exterminate their Armenian
neighbors. Writers, physicians, professors, businessmen, scientists,
religious leaders all were arrested, jailed, deported, or killed.
Armenians (who have been Christians for nearly two millennia) were
ordered to convert to Islam, and ordinary citizens, including women
and children, were taken from their homes and marched often naked
into the desert where they were raped, gathered in deportation camps,
and starved. Some were tied to trees and shot; mothers watched as
their sons and daughters were murdered, and vice versa.
Focusing on the years 1915-16, Bohjalian relates his story primarily
through the eyes of Laura Petrosian and her grandparents, Armen and
Elizabeth. Other characters offer perspectives as well, including a
Turkish physician who tries to save wounded Armenians, a no-nonsense
German nun who runs an orphanage for Armenian children, an Armenian
woman whose physician husband has been murdered, and an 8-year-old
girl who has witnessed the decapitation of her mother and sister. Two
German soldiers, anxious to document the massacre, illegally photograph
the carnage around them.
But the death and destruction are balanced by the love between the
two protagonists. Armen Petrosian is a displaced Armenian whose wife
and infant daughter have been lost and are presumed dead. Elizabeth
Endicott is a young American who, with her father, has come to
Aleppo, Syria, where they will stay at the American consulate and help
displaced survivors. A recent Mount Holyoke graduate, Elizabeth hails
from an upper-middle-class Boston family and has led a sheltered life.
She comes to Aleppo prepared only by a brief course in Armenian
language and an equally brief course in nursing. Armen and Elizabeth
are attracted to one another early on, but are soon separated. He
travels to Egypt, where he enlists in the fight against the Turks;
she stays behind in Aleppo to volunteer in a hospital. They begin
to correspond, and most of the story occurs as Armen and Elizabeth
separately experience the horrors of the genocide.Years later after
the two had gone to America, married, had children and grandchildren,
and died their granddaughter Laura, a novelist who specializes in
light fiction, finds their letters and sees their photographs in a
museum. Inspired by her forebears’ courage, and believing that the
story of the massacres needs to be told, she decides to write and
publish the family saga.
This is the novel Bohjalian has written. The fictional Laura provides
context and unity to what could easily be an unwieldy story, but
also serves as a stand-in for Bohjalian himself, a grandchild of
Armenian immigrants who uses family memories as well as photographs and
historical documents to tell the story. Bohjalian’s evocative language
enhances the illusion of reality. In one passage, Armen remembers
walking with Elizabeth to the bazaar: [T]hey were so close that he had
been able to inhale the rose-scented powder she had sprinkled on her
skin beneath her clothes. Once, when she smiled, words had failed him
completely. And while the reappearance of one minor character seems
somewhat contrived, Bohjalian’s exquisite prose more than makes up
for any flaws. He weaves the story like threads in a rug, each thread
adding color and shadow to a scene. Each scene builds into a larger
picture, and each picture adds texture to the numerous story lines.
Indeed, so filled is it with the suspense of life and death that The
Sandcastle Girls is difficult to categorize. The story is fiction,
but is true. It’s history, but it’s also art.
Diane Scharper teaches English at Towson University and is the author,
most recently, of Reading Lips and Other Ways to Overcome a Disability.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/love-ruins_651356.html