Those Fifth Century Churches

The Balakian book on the Armenian genocide had me considering that country.  I’ve been close.  We traveled to Georgia and we traveled on to Azerbaijan, a few summers back.   And when we crossed into Azeri territory on the train they looked us over and asked us one and all if we’d been to Armenia.  And surely we all took notice this year when their simmering cold ward exploded sadly with live ammunition and more territory lost of Armenia. 

Balakian does a wonderful job of humanizing the shock of near anhililation which is grandparents generation somehow managed to survive.  I like reading books by poets to who attempt to write non fiction, over and above journalists who choose to do so.

 

Born in Sommerville Mass, in 1911, to a Scottish American mother and an Armenian father who was a chemistry professor up the hill in Medford at Tufts, Alan Hovhaness would likely have had a rather different upbringing in his father’s home in Armenia, right before World War I.  Hovenhass became a composer who in his thirties began to focus on music of his Armenian heritage.  I listened to “Wind Music, Vol 3” today and thought of those fifth century churches there in Georgia and Armenia. 

Back home I’m not enjoying the Philip Gourevitch.  A journalists account of uncovering the tragedy of the Tutsi massacre in Rawanda.  He’s not a poet.  The accounts are searing but they aren’t connecte in a way that builds narrative.  Grating as he regularly reminds the reader that he is dispassionate.  I don’t feel Like I’ve met anyone particularly memorable, unlike, say Balakian’s father or grandmother in the tale of Armenian genocide, which to be fair I didn’t like at first either.

Monday, 03/15/21