I believe this will be my last Women In Translation Month
book review for 2015, with only three more days left in the month, the
Melbourne Writers Festival calling and a “to be read” pile that is growing
faster than weeds in a newly planted spring garden (and you know as you pluck
one weed it means two more grow in its place don’t you?), it would appear as
though I’ll be randomly selecting my titles without the “female filter” in
place. It’s been a great month with some wonderful discoveries and even though
I’ve been involved for two years now, I am still amazed at the minimal
representation by world renowned authors. The more I dig, the more I learn.
Today’s book is published by Open Letter, as was the very
impressive “Lies, First Person” by Gail Hareven which I reviewed a few days
ago. Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary
translation press, and as you may know the University is the home of the three
percent website, which includes databases of translated works, reviews, news ,
and home to the Best Translated Book Award.
Amanda Michalopolou’s “Why I Killed My Best Friend” opens
with a nine-year-old narrator telling us of her move from Nigeria back to their
homeland of Greece, leaving behind her father:
Aunt Amalia looks like one of
those actresses who plays the role of the old maid in Greek movies. But she’s a
very modern old maid: she goes to the movies alone, takes off one shoe in the
middle of the street to scratch her foot with her heel, whistles old songs like
“Let Your Hair Down” or “In The Morning You’ll Wake Me with Kisses.” When she
was young she got an idea in her head: she wanted to marry Constantine, who
back then was prince and later became king. She didn’t want anyone else. When
Constantine married Anna-Maria –who’s from Denmark, where they call her
Anna-Marie – Aunt Amalia told my parents that she was giving up on marriage:
she dug a hole in her head and buried all the bouquets and wedding dresses.
Whenever anything bad happens, she digs a hole in her head and shoves it in
there. Now she’s telling me to do exactly the same.
Well in all honesty our story opens with a short piece by a
thirty-five year old narrator, Marie, but it is not until Chapter Three that
this character becomes formed, it is the same narrator as the nine year old
narrator and we alternate chapters between the two versions of our story
teller. Until such time as they merge.
At school Marie meets a girl, Anna, from Paris, who quickly
becomes her best friend. She is the daughter of revolutionary parents and
whilst spending a lot of time at Anna’s house Marie learns of the Greek
struggle, and attends protests with Anna’s mother Antigone.
The alternating Marie (the 35 year old) is now a
“professional” protester, she works part time in a school or other odd jobs,
and it is through her school work that she meets this precocious child, the
daughter of Anna. We then flash straight back to Marie as a nine-year-old.
These sections giving us the foundations of their friendship, the cement that
binds them together.
Once we forward back to current times we find Marie is now
living with a gay man Kayo, who she secretly desires, he is also a
protester/activist and they travel the world together to “restore social
desire”, she is also estranged from Anna:
“They presented it to us
immaculate, marble, smelling of disinfectant, like and airport bathroom. Cold
white fluorescent lighting. Private security guards. The Athens Metro is a
moving walkway that transports us home after hours of low-paying, back-breaking
work. It feels like the inside of a bank, exudes an air of industriousness and
order. Music and food are prohibited. Human activity of any sort is avoided. In
Europe people at least make themselves at home in their metro, they sing, they
sleep in it's warmth – after all, no European government care enough to actually
solve the problem of homelessness. We take it a step further: we hide our
homeless, we kick them out of the station at Omonia. They mar the Europeanized
image of prosperity we’re hoping might attract the business of multinational
corporations. Sweep the dirt under the rug! Was the new metro designed for
people so exhausted they’ve become zombies? Is this the new Athens we’re so
proud of? This imitation of Brussels? Say no to this asphyxiating state
‘security’! Say no to the Olympic spirit being promoted by multinational
corporations! So no to the paternalistic aesthetic regulation of our city’s
working class”! Bring your guitars and your sandwiches. Come help us give the
Athens Metro the color and life we all deserve.”
Whilst the prime tale is that of friendship and overbearing
relationships, it is also a study of the Greek crisis from a local’s point of
view, originally published in 2003 a year before the Olympics in Athens, it is
an expose of what the working class and the activists think of these events.
Our story moves back and forth from a young Marie to the
current older Marie. Her best friend Anna is an overpowering youth, always
dismissive of Marie’s ideas, her drawings (Marie wants to be an artist),
relationships, she even becomes jealous when Marie has breakfast with Anna’s
father “He’s my dad”. These experiences coming to the fore as they experience
growing up, boys and their own independence.
The parallels to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series and the
similar feel to “My Brilliant Friend”, detailing Lila and Elena’s relationship
as children is very obvious. We also have the Greek political climate instead
of the political times in Naples.
I lock the door of my room and
regress to a time when I thirsted for black. Only now, instead of using black
paper, I draw in black on a white background. Black, and ochre too. I sketch
the prehistoric animals in the Lascaux caves, as I remember them from the books
I pored over at the library. Horses, bison, cows, deer. I practice doing feet
and tails for a while, then start to draw little creatures in miniature. Tiny animals entering
enormous caves. Or gigantic animals trying to squeeze through the mouths of
microscopic caves. The mismatches proportions transport me straight into the realm
of fairytale, offering me that particular comfort of children’s drawings. As a
child, you’re presented with a rigid world of predetermined sizes and power
relations. You lie down on the floor with a piece of paper and deconstruct it
all – you draw blue roots on the trees, people with no fingers, see-through
bellies with babies inside; you bestow life and take it away again with your
colored pencils. With faith and rage you change the world.
I haven’t mentioned too much here about the overbearing dominance
of Anna over Marie and their estrangement, nor the title, you will have to read
this yourself to see what “Why I Killed My Best Friend” means, is it literal?
An insight into the political scene in Greece in the late
nineties and early 2000’s as told through the eyes of a woman who struggles
with relationships and has always been dominated, there are a few hidden gems
(the story of Marie’s missing finger is one) and the characters are real and
you can easily associate with their plight. As a political novel as well, what
better way to end than one of the many manifestos peppered throughout:
In the name of progress,
modernization and the Olympic ideal, the average Greek citizen has been led to
believe that the swift Europeanization of his daily life, in the service of
rabid profit-seeking, is the only way to proceed.
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