A Review of Narine Abgaryan’s 'To Go On Living'

by Alexander Pyles

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In order to understand Narine Abgaryan’s To Go On Living, one must first understand the context in which Armenia exists. A former Soviet state, it has had plenty of regional conflicts since becoming its own independent country, but what becomes lost in the discussion of nation-states and border spats are the people living their lives every day. Abgaryan seeks to capture those moments in this collection of interlocking short stories.

Told in brief narratives, these 31 stories exemplify the shared space from which they originate. Taken from Abgaryan’s home village of Berd, they overlap, interlock, and nest in one another as the reader progresses through the book. Sometimes the timelines of the stories move forward, other times they circle back to decades earlier as each villager is given a voice to describe their life, relationships, and ultimately greatest sorrow. Woven similar to that of a կարպետ (karpet), each story becomes a part of the greater object that is the story of Berd. 

Yet, what remains central in each of these stories is how each person experiences and reacts to the tragedies that befall them. Looming over each story is the decades-long regional conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The specifics and results are never defined or said, but the watershed of the war fills every page. Everything from that side of Berd is more heavily shelled to how some residents expand their kitchens to avoid tempting the snipers that harass the lesser shelled side. The stark picture of life in Berd begins to materialize, but it is not that obvious…at first.

Abgaryan’s message through each story is to highlight the resilience of the human spirit (in most cases) despite the daily threat of violence or sudden tragedy. What undermines this, although some could call it the book’s strength, is the ever returning of life’s moments; a wedding, an afternoon tea, the banal moments of work or chores that one does throughout a day. 

Maybe an issue of translation or the narrator’s style, but the pithy endings of some of the stories contain an over-sentimentalized message bordering on moralistic, such as, “After all, our conscience speaks to us in the voices of the departed. Just tune out the external noise, and you will hear them.” Or this: “All people have their own truths. Mariam’s is as simple as it gets: no matter how badly your soul aches and no matter how much your heart weeps, you must maintain order in the one tiny sliver of the world that has been entrusted to you. After all, that’s all you can do for its salvation.” Taken in context, they tie the stories up with clean knots before beginning the next pattern, if we are to take the karpet metaphor further, but it struts the message of each story out under a spotlight.

War, conflict, and loss are horrific actions, and while some of these occur off the page, the reader is further removed by the loss of the character’s thoughts or processing through them. The stories move too quickly as Abgaryan wishes to trace each villager’s life to tie it to the next one and weave in the themes of perseverance and hope. The appeals to how life could be versus what it is for the inhabitants of Berd are here and there, with forced mentions of the government’s clear lack of care and action for them.

In many ways, the characters, no matter if they are simply an undertaker or a weaver of karpets, the people of Berd fulfill roles of the village and cannot seem to escape their roles no matter how much they are disrupted. It creates an experience that feels wholesome and safe despite the present danger of bullets and bombs. The lull in the collection is only disturbed briefly at the hint of burned bodies, the whisper of loss, and sometimes the booming of shelling.

It feels awkward to ask for “more” from over two dozen stories, especially one involving such grief and hardship, but the reader doesn't feel satisfied or sad coming to the end of the collection. The reader merely is after reading and whether by intention or accident, Abgaryan undermines any further feelings that could have otherwise been felt. 

The narrator, throughout the collection, sets the reader at a distance. The reader goes to their homes and are welcomed in, but we do not linger there long, nor are we told about the character’s deepest desires or fears. This speaks to the lack of planning for a future. Yes, there are weddings and Church holidays, but the characters are locked in the past due to the conflict and the trauma caused by it. The attempts by Abgaryan to engage with modest moments of healing or catharsis for the inhabitants of Berd, while admirable, fall short.

This is not to say To Go On Living can’t be heartfelt or intimate when it needs to be, if only it occurred more often throughout. As with any collection, the stories can be uneven in their telling and content, but some are simply stronger and more engaging than others, such as “Baghardj”, “Gulpa”, and “Guilt.” The incorporation of Armenian culture brings the work a varied flavor that helps educate on the customs of Berd and the deeper levels that we are simply somewhere else. The author’s history in the village comes through the strongest in the smallest of details. One would only ask for more or look to Abgaryan’s extensive corpus for more. 

The collection hopes that when viewed, the finished karpet of interlocking narratives becomes a full object, one they can stretch out on and trace each person’s life from beginning to end. This has been achieved, but for what purpose other than to present Berd as a long-suffering populace that chooses to stay, chooses the hardship, and chooses to continue bearing all that it can? Maybe that is the lesson that Abgaryan wants to push to readers; the point is to persevere. The point is that life goes on, despite everything, and that may be exactly what we need to do.