Word: ararat
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...environment, as in the Baltic states. Ever since the Soviet Union under Stalin began to industrialize in the 1920s, Moscow has built the republic into a leading chemical-production center. One result is chronic air pollution. "The air is so bad, you can no longer see Mount Ararat," complains a Yerevan resident, referring to the snow-peaked 16,945-ft. mountain some 30 miles away across the Turkish border...
Through dusty villages and neglected cities called Urgüp and Erzurum, Glaze-brook finally arrives at Kars in the "Land of Far Beyond." Near by, Noah's ark went aground on Mount Ararat, and the Eden of Islamic myth bloomed. Persian, Turk and Russian battled over Kars for centuries. More prosaically, we learn that, except for Norway, Turkey is the only NATO country to border the U.S.S.R...
...construction of the novel has not helped matters. Ararat is built on the ancient practice of poetic improvisation. Its key character, Rozanov, a Soviet poet and a scoundrel, has mastered the art of making up a story or a poem when presented with a subject by someone in his audience. The theme of Rozanov's current improvisation is-improvisations. He proceeds to spin out tales about other poets who then go on to invent tales of their own. The effect resembles a garishly colored Russian matryoshka: wooden dolls within wooden dolls...
Towering over Ararat is the mountain of the same name, a symbol of unattainable purity. The characters frequently invoke it, or plan visits to Soviet Armenia so they may glimpse it in the mists. The shadow it casts upon the characters is the memory of the Turkish massacre of Armenians in 1915. Indeed, one important figure is Everyman's executioner, who improvises a story of how he participated in this and other mass murders...
...invocation of Mount Ararat is meant to raise the eyes heavenward, Thomas' repeated mention of Russia's greatest poets from Pushkin to Pasternak is obviously intended to heighten the moral tone of this melodrama of murderers, scoundrels and sadistic sex. As Thomas well knows, poets have historically served as a symbol of redemption in Russia. But merely dropping their names will not redeem Ararat for readers who expected more from the author of The White Hotel. -By Patricia Blake