This week I read a column by Fleur Jongepier in the newspaper. The headline was ‘I watch Netflix, but in the end I prefer to read a good book’. That statement excited me. Very few people watch Netflix against their will. There are a lot of people who watch Netflix of their own free will, but think they should actually read a book. People like Jongepier, with, I quote ‘a gut that says: you better read that family epic’.
I would rebuke my gut if he used such ugly Anglicism, but the message is clear. Jongepier plays the devil’s advocate for a while, argues that there are also good series and bad books, that a series can just as well be a carrier of knowledge, empathy and other virtues, all true; but still, she concludes, ‘when the familiar Netflix sound – da-doom – announces the involuntary start of the next episode (…) I secretly prefer to be in Haratischwili’s ruins of the Soviet Union.’
‘John, nobody is forcing you, right?’ I moaned. Then go read, if you really prefer. Or just accept that Netflix and reading can coexist very well.
The mighty family epic that Jongepier is trying to pull away from Netflix concerns The Eighth Life (for Brilka) (2014) by Nino Haratischwili. It’s a hunk of a book, nearly 1,300 pages in fine print, in the tradition of Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Couperus, and Trygve’s “And Eternally Sing the Woods” Gulbranssen.
The Georgian-German Haratischwili (Tbilisi, 1983) describes six generations of the Georgian family Jasji, in that turbulent 20th century, in which fate, as we know, did not go unnoticed.
Murders, rapes, atrocities, suicides, loves (“Her extraordinarily handsome face, her clear skin, her big eyes the color of a lake in the fall, her beautiful blond hair and her big, tall, luscious frame”) and wars, everything woven as in the proverbial tapestry. “Even though this carpet has been wrapped up somewhere for years and served as moth food, it must now be revived and tell us its stories.”
A bit kitschy, though. Also that granny visited by ghosts, and that recurring mysterious family recipe for dangerously addictive chocolate milk; you hear echoes of Isabel Allende, a reverberation of a kitchen maid-Marquez too; but I certainly mean that positively, because Haratschwili is, as long as she does not fall into mantras (“I owe these lines mainly to you, Brilka, because you deserve the eighth life. Because they say that the number eight stands for eternity, for the returning river’, et cetera) really entertaining writer.
‘For us, the Soviet Union meant: the eternal summer camps, the pioneer scarves (…), the Mishka-in-the-North chocolate fudge, the tarragon lemonade at Lagidze (…), the yellow Krja-Krja children’s shampoo, the shaving cream Start of our grandfather (…), the body lotion Hygiene, the perfume Red Moscow that smelled of old age and gave you a headache (that’s right, SW), the odorless household soap that was actually called Household Soap. They were the blue-white, triangular cartons of kefir (…), they were the yellow Zhigulis, the black Volgas and the white Ladas. It was the cheese spread, the friendship, and the little Wanka Stanka that looked like a failed, hollow plastic Matryoshka. It was the delicious Leningrad ice cream, those firm squares wrapped in gold paper.’
This list goes on, I’m not making this up, for more than 15 pages. I like that, maybe because I knew the Soviet Union closely, but for many it might be too long. In a movie scene you can combine that excess in one sublime, visual minute.
Nearly 1,300 pages, in fine print. Say Netflix, what are you waiting for?