Sofin Oksanen
STALIN´S QUEUES
Stalin’s cow is a goat! The Danish title of the debut novel «Stalins Køer», by Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen, is fantastic. It both means “Stalins’ cows”, but also “Stalin’s queues” – those famous queues in front of the socialist stores, to which Oksanen makes frequent references. Those queues where did not matter what was sold, because anything was sold, everybody needed it. Otherwise, «Stalin’s cow is a goat» is the sentence that actually refers to the essence of the novel: the depersonalization and disimulation of him/herself.
As in Purge (the book with which Oxanen won in 2010 the Nordic Council Prize for Literature), «Stalin’s Cows» episodically describes the lives of three generations of Estonian women. The grandmother – survivor of the Stalinist nightmare from ’40s-’50s, the mother – who, being raised in the full soviet era, succeeded to marry and escape in the neighboring, «enemy and capitalist country», Finland and finally the daughter – half western, half eastern, lost somewhere in between two worlds. Three generations of women who became traumatized by changes that more or less they could not control. Women who lost their individual freedom, but by dissimulation they did sharpen their self-preservation instinct. And loss of freedom seemed to evolve hereditary from the obligation, to the option.
In «Stalin’s Cows» grandmother, Sofia, became kholhosnic and stahanovist because she had no choice. Mother, Katriina, had a choice and married a Finn, and became more Finnish than the Finn. Daughter, Anna, had apparently no choice since her mother forced her to hide their origin, because only like that she could avoid the «whore» label, which all Estonian and Russian women in Finland bore. And Anna ate, ate, ate and vomited, lied, and stole and hid from herself in a shrinking 50 kilograms body. The self-retrieval is the chance only for Anna, and it occurs with the return «home», return to the roots…
Oksanen is a gifted writer with a great force of evocation. She is honest, sometimes rough honest, brutal, and melancholic. Her prose ranges from the upper lyrical and naturalistic poetry to the most grotesque nostalgia. «Stalin’s Cows» is worth reading, though the «Purge» is the top.
The main character was flawed, sure, but that was the whole point, wasn’t it? And I found myself relating to her in a few places. Probably not a good thing, that… Actually, DEFINITELY not a good thing, that. Not about the food, but about all the other crap she was dealing with inside her poor own head. I mean, I too have my excuses to be a bit effed up, but don’t we all?
I did not really understand why the history segments were here. I could understand the story of the main character’s mum, but not really all that about the grandmother. It was interesting, sure, but it did not really bring much to the story, in my opinion. I guess it is just Oksanen’s thing, adding a World War or two into most stories she writes.
Baby Jane was the exception to this «rule» (and I have not read Norma… yet). It is sort of nice, but it gets a bit boring after a while. Or rather it becomes something you expect, and then go all «told you so!» when you get to the wars and that somehow partly ruins the experience. Or at least it does for me, being a bit crappy at immersing myself in books anyway. I love reading but I don’t really feel books. I might relate to characters, but I rarely feel angry/sad/happy/whatever because of something that happened in a book.
Interesting read, but somehow I had my hopes too high. That happens to me way too often nowadays, I guess. Maybe I should just read books I have no expectations of (as if I’d have any, there is always a reason why I buy a book anyway…).
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