Three Apples Fell From the Sky

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 Three Apples Fell From the Sky, by Narine Abgaryan

This novel is advertised as a Russian best-seller, but that seems to mean that it was a big hit in Russia, not that it is a Russian novel, because it isn't.  Narine Abgaryan is Armenian, and her story is set in Armenia, completely suffused with an Armenian atmosphere (I conclude, never having been there myself).  

Anatolia has spent her life in Maran, a tiny village clinging to the side of a great mountain.  These days, Maran is inhabited only by the old; after the disasters of past decades (an earthquake that swallowed part of the village, the war, the famine that killed so many), what few young people who were left had to go.  Anatolia and her neighbors live as they have always done, but they are the last, and now Anatolia is dying.

At least, she believes herself to be dying, and gets everything ready so that her best friend will find her properly.  As she lays down and prepares for death, something very different happens; Vasily the blacksmith comes in and proposes that they get married.  Anatolia is shocked, but accepts in order to get rid of him as fast as possible; after all, she's busy dying and doesn't want to explain.  When she wakes up alive, she figures she might as well go through with it.  So Anatolia and Vasily set up house together, and the result is a cascade of joys large and small that end in a rebirth of the village.

The novel isn't that straightforward, though.  It's filled with reminiscences and stories of the past mixed in with the present, so that we get to know Maran extremely well.  We experience the famine, the mysterious illness and visions of Vasily's youngest brother,, the earthquake and the cooperative project that saves the village from further disaster.  And while a novel about an Armenian village doesn't sound heart-warming, it really is.  Almost everyone in they story is just nice.  They're good people and and work hard, and I enjoyed their stories and want them to be happy.


Comments

  1. Dora WilliamFebruary 11, 2022 at 10:07 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. JeanneFebruary 12, 2022 at 12:43 PM

    Sounds like a good book for the deeps of February.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BronaFebruary 22, 2022 at 3:28 PM

    I suspect that Putin would say that Russia has a 'spiritual' connection to Armenia and therefore, it's really Russian land after all, given the current state of affairs in the Ukraine. But I digress.

    This sounds rather lovely and will dig it out of my TBR.

    ReplyDelete

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