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NOVEL PORTRAYS ARMENIAN FAMILY IN NAZI-OCCUPIED PARIS
http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2012/12/06/novel-portrays-armenian-family-in-nazi-occupied-paris/
ARTS | DECEMBER 6, 2012 10:09 AM
All the Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
2013. 288 pp. $24. ISBN-978-0-547-93994-0
By Daphne Abeel
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
Novelist Nancy Kricorian has chosen a somewhat unusual setting for
her newest novel. Her story focuses on the plight of the Pegorian
family and their Armenian community - all refugees from the Armenian
Genocide - who have sought a better and safer life in Paris. But
history and violence catch up with them again as they struggle to
survive the Nazi invasion and occupation of France during World War II.
Kricorian, a fluid writer, has researched the background for her story
with great care and bases her plot on those Armenians who joined
the French Communist Resistance, inspired by Missak Manouchian,
an Armenian poet, who was ultimately killed with 22 members of his
group by the Germans in 1944. To document her fiction, Kricorian
traveled to Paris several times and interviewed Armenians who had
lived through the Occupation. She was even able to contact one of
the few surviving members of the Manouchian group.
Her protagonist is a teenaged girl, Maral Pegorian, the daughter of a
shoemaker, and his wife, Azniv, the latter struggling to contribute
to the family income with her sewing. The rest of the household is
composed of Maral's aunt, Shakeh, and Maral's somewhat older brother,
Missak, who soon involves himself in Resistance activities with his
activist friend, Zaven Kacherian.
Kricorian vividly paints the circumstances of Paris at the time,
especially the constant struggle to obtain food. The family exists
to a large degree on a diet of turnips and rutabagas, supplemented
occasionally by other vegetables or perhaps a chicken. The streets
are flooded with German soldiers and officers who attempt to opportune
Maral and her friends.
An important strand in the novel's plot is the developing romance
between Maral and Zaven, as he becomes more and more deeply involved
in the activities of the Resistance. He and Maral's brother, Missak,
take many risks, joining demonstrations, scribbling anti-Nazi graffiti
on walls and distributing pamphlets.
The Genocide surfaces, in some respects, by its absence. It is present
in Maral's father's tight-lipped silence about the past and in her
Aunt Shakeh's depression. Another strand of plot involves the help
the Pegorians extend to a Jewish family, the Lipskis, who have a
3-year-old daughter. When the Lipskis are swept up by the Nazis and
sent to a concentration camp, the Pegorians manage to save the child
and to smuggle her, with the help of Resistance members, out of Paris
to live with an aunt in the country.
An aspect of Armenia's involvement in the war is represented by the
character of Andon Shirvanian, an Armenian, persuaded by General Dro
to join the German army in order to escape death by starvation in
a Soviet POW camp. Handsome and eager to connect with the Armenian
community in Paris, he is drawn into Maral's circle with some
surprising consequences.
There are tragedies for both the Pegorian and Kacherian families.
However, Kricorian skillfully weaves the strands of the story to
downplay, to a large extent, the tragic circumstances that affect many
of the characters. It must be said she never digs very deep, but she
keeps the story moving in such a way that the reader cannot fail to
be engrossed in spite of some clumsy deus ex machina plot twists.
The real Missak Manouchian appears in these pages only peripherally
and, basically, off stage. Instead, Kricorian has created two fictional
Armenian families whose stories present a credible portrait of life
for this immigrant Armenian community as it strives for survival in
the midst of war and occupation.
After graduation from Dartmouth College, Kricorian lived in Paris and
subsequently earned an MFA in writing from Columbia University. She
is the author of two previous novels, Zabelle and Dreams of Bread
and Fire. She makes her home in New York.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2012/12/06/novel-portrays-armenian-family-in-nazi-occupied-paris/
ARTS | DECEMBER 6, 2012 10:09 AM
All the Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
2013. 288 pp. $24. ISBN-978-0-547-93994-0
By Daphne Abeel
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
Novelist Nancy Kricorian has chosen a somewhat unusual setting for
her newest novel. Her story focuses on the plight of the Pegorian
family and their Armenian community - all refugees from the Armenian
Genocide - who have sought a better and safer life in Paris. But
history and violence catch up with them again as they struggle to
survive the Nazi invasion and occupation of France during World War II.
Kricorian, a fluid writer, has researched the background for her story
with great care and bases her plot on those Armenians who joined
the French Communist Resistance, inspired by Missak Manouchian,
an Armenian poet, who was ultimately killed with 22 members of his
group by the Germans in 1944. To document her fiction, Kricorian
traveled to Paris several times and interviewed Armenians who had
lived through the Occupation. She was even able to contact one of
the few surviving members of the Manouchian group.
Her protagonist is a teenaged girl, Maral Pegorian, the daughter of a
shoemaker, and his wife, Azniv, the latter struggling to contribute
to the family income with her sewing. The rest of the household is
composed of Maral's aunt, Shakeh, and Maral's somewhat older brother,
Missak, who soon involves himself in Resistance activities with his
activist friend, Zaven Kacherian.
Kricorian vividly paints the circumstances of Paris at the time,
especially the constant struggle to obtain food. The family exists
to a large degree on a diet of turnips and rutabagas, supplemented
occasionally by other vegetables or perhaps a chicken. The streets
are flooded with German soldiers and officers who attempt to opportune
Maral and her friends.
An important strand in the novel's plot is the developing romance
between Maral and Zaven, as he becomes more and more deeply involved
in the activities of the Resistance. He and Maral's brother, Missak,
take many risks, joining demonstrations, scribbling anti-Nazi graffiti
on walls and distributing pamphlets.
The Genocide surfaces, in some respects, by its absence. It is present
in Maral's father's tight-lipped silence about the past and in her
Aunt Shakeh's depression. Another strand of plot involves the help
the Pegorians extend to a Jewish family, the Lipskis, who have a
3-year-old daughter. When the Lipskis are swept up by the Nazis and
sent to a concentration camp, the Pegorians manage to save the child
and to smuggle her, with the help of Resistance members, out of Paris
to live with an aunt in the country.
An aspect of Armenia's involvement in the war is represented by the
character of Andon Shirvanian, an Armenian, persuaded by General Dro
to join the German army in order to escape death by starvation in
a Soviet POW camp. Handsome and eager to connect with the Armenian
community in Paris, he is drawn into Maral's circle with some
surprising consequences.
There are tragedies for both the Pegorian and Kacherian families.
However, Kricorian skillfully weaves the strands of the story to
downplay, to a large extent, the tragic circumstances that affect many
of the characters. It must be said she never digs very deep, but she
keeps the story moving in such a way that the reader cannot fail to
be engrossed in spite of some clumsy deus ex machina plot twists.
The real Missak Manouchian appears in these pages only peripherally
and, basically, off stage. Instead, Kricorian has created two fictional
Armenian families whose stories present a credible portrait of life
for this immigrant Armenian community as it strives for survival in
the midst of war and occupation.
After graduation from Dartmouth College, Kricorian lived in Paris and
subsequently earned an MFA in writing from Columbia University. She
is the author of two previous novels, Zabelle and Dreams of Bread
and Fire. She makes her home in New York.
From: A. Papazian