Word: ararat
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...ARARAT by D.M. Thomas Viking; 191 pages...
...collaboration, a translation if you like . . . plagiarism is a different matter," declares a character in Ararat. D.M. Thomas has set out to prove that dictum. In The White Hotel, his collaborative efforts were a critical and popular success. That novel began as an ingenious imitation of a case history by Freud, then moved to an account of the Nazi massacre of Jews at Babi Yar, originally written by a Russian novelist, Anatoli Kuznetsov. But what was an effective device in The White Hotel has become a conceit in Ararat. The density of literary allusion in Thomas' latest novel...
...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...
...subject of Ararat is art, for that peculiar pulse is nothing it not creativity is nothing if not the urge to live. D.M. THOMAS...