Forgottenness

 

Forgottenness / Tanja Maljartschuk
trans. from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins
NY: Liveright, 2024, c2016.
272 p.

Last year I read Tanja Maljartschuk's Biography of a Chance Miracle, and enjoyed it. At that time I heard that a translation of Forgottenness was coming soon, and I preordered a copy so I'd be able to read it immediately. I'm so glad I did, this was a wonderful read. 

It's an examination of time and identity, told by a woman who is trying to understand her own past (and anxious illnesses) by studying the Ukrainian past by way of Viacheslav Lypynskyi. He was Polish but chose to be Ukrainian and worked for the Ukrainian cause throughout his life (1882-1931). His eventful life was counterpointed by his own constant illnesses, and the narrator sees some resonance between the two of them. 

The book weaves back and forth by chapter, first her voice, then Lypynskyi's story. The range of discussion covers social, familial and political elements of Ukraine across the late 19th and early 20th century. As Lypynskyi was an intellectual, there are also multiple artists, journalists, writers, and politicians who he encounters in his activities. You can skim the names or you can stop and look them up - you will learn a lot about the intricacies of Ukrainian intellectual/political life of the time either way. It really gives a strong vision of the roiling issues that have shaped a lot of Ukrainian politics and history, and I was fascinated by it all. 

But among the more straightforward historical storytelling, and the contemporary narrator who is struggling with illness, romantic relationships, and creative output all at once, there is the writing itself to consider. This book is beautiful; flowing, contemplative, quotable, the writing stands out for me. There are questions of time, memory, identity, and leaving a mark on the world, all brought up in ways that tie so many of the themes together across both eras. This question of time and the evanescence of human life is brought up directly a few times in the book; near the beginning there is this quote that I've marked: 

    I suddenly began to think about time as the thing that unites an endless rosary of senseless events; and also about the fact that only in the sequence of these events is there meaning; and that it's not God, not love, not beauty, not the greatness of intellect that determines this world, but only time -- the flow of time and the glimmering of human life within it.

    Human life is its sustenance. Time consumes everything living by the ton, like a gigantic blue whale consumes microscopic plankton, milling and chewing it into a homogenous mass, so that one life disappears without a trace, giving another, the next life, a chance. Yet it wasn't the disappearance that grieved me the most, but the tracelessness of it. I thought to myself: I've already got one foot there, out in complete forgottenness. 

I was really affected by this book, by the ideas of the past, and history, and time. I also found the overview of Ukrainian history absorbing, with the characters vibrant and memorable. This book won a couple of European book awards, and I can see why. It's thoughtful, unique and folds two distinct lives into one compelling story.