Review: Party Headquarters by Georgi Tenev, translated by Angela Rodel

Party Headquarters by Georgi Tenev, translated by Angela Rodel (Open Letter, 124 pages, February 9)


Party Headquarters is the latest in a string of post-Soviet-Union literature that has passed through my hands lately, revealing yet another piece of the puzzle that is life in modern Eastern Europe.

This particular novel, set in Bulgaria and Germany, explores the legacy of deceit and greed that has continued even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  While reading this, I found myself thinking about how it connects to my own life (having been born just a few years before the Chernobyl disaster). When, for instance, the unnamed narrator of PH wonders how politicians could have kept the news of Chernobyl secret from people across the region, allowing them to unwittingly poison themselves, all to guard the top party leaders from censure, I think about what one of my Ukrainian friends told me once. She said she was told not to ever stay in the sun too long, even while wearing sunscreen, because the radiation from Chernobyl vastly increased her risk for skin cancer. She and her family had left Ukraine just a few years after the disaster.

Review: The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov

The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel (Open Letter, 270 pages)

Gospodinov's latest creation is so kaleidoscopic, so brilliantly varied and nearly out-of-control, that I don't even know where to begin.

Maybe I should start with the Minotaur. You know, that half-bull-half-human from Greek myth that was condemned to wander around in a labyrinth until he was killed by Theseus? Yes, that Minotaur. Gospodinov takes this story and teases out several of its key themes, including abandonment, loneliness, and confusion over identity. With these tools, he tries to analyze the events of his own life, as well as his father's and grandfather's. At one point, Gospodinov tells the story of when his grandfather was "accidentally" abandoned at a mill- times were difficult in Bulgaria during WWI, and his family was starving. When one of the grandfather's sisters realized that they were missing little Georgi, his mother hesitated, considering all of the mouths she needed to feed. Ultimately, the sister ran back to get him, but the Georgi who narrates Physics of Sorrow imagines what it must have felt like during those few hours to feel completely alone and abandoned by one's family.