Maia Jaliashvili # 3
Master of Narrative- Otar Chkheidze
Abstract: Otar Chkheidze, in his huge and great artistic world tells about various life and different people, special style, quietly, assiduously, in detail, slowly, with rhythmic phrases, as oldest tale-teller, with perfected taste of each word. Writer in all its aspects portrays the diversity of life, death and life, kindness and evil, love and hate, honour and immorality, lost courage and soul rises, feeling of regret, forgiveness, loneliness, friendship. The writer's narrative is full of all kinds of sound and color, taste and smell of the world.
The whole of the twentieth and beginning the twenty-first century is
reflected in its twenty-two novel, stories, plays, essays and publicistic
letters. The writer diligently followed the life and expresses rhythm and
breathing of epoch with incomparable mastership. His novels: “The Mist”,
“The Bridge of Tiny”, “The Spring”, ”The Dam”, “The Sinners”, “The Fog”,
“The Shoal”, “Kvernaky”, “The Forest Reserve”, “The Ghosts”, “Revelation”,
“The Rise- slope”,
”Venetian Candelabra”, “My Shelter”, “Mountain Ridge”, “Asention day”, “The
Artistic Revolution”, “White Bear”, “The Year 2001”, “The Triangle of
Bermudan”, “The Obedient”, “The Lasershow” _ demonstrates the writer's
boundless imagination and creative energy. He is the artistic chronicler of
the twentieth century.
Key words: Georgian, Literature, Otar Chkheidze, Narrative
Otar Chkheidze, a distinguished writer of our time, in his huge and great artistic world the writer tells about various life and different people, tells in a special style, quietly, assiduously, in detail, slowly, with rhythmic phrases, as oldest tale-teller, with perfected taste of each word. Writer in all its aspects portrays the diversity of life, death and life, kindness and evil, love and hate, honour and immorality, lose courage and soul rises, feeling of regret, forgiveness, loneliness, friendship. The writer's narrative is full of all kinds of sound and color, taste and smell of the world.
The whole of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century is reflected in its twenty-two novels, stories, plays, essays and publicistic letters. The writer diligently followed the life and expresses Rhythm and breathing of epoch with incomparable mastership. His novels: “The Mist”, “The Bridge of Tiny”, “The Spring”, “The dam”, “The Sinners”, “The fog”, “The Shoal”, “Kvernaky”, “The Forest Reserve”, “The Ghosts”, “Revelation”, “The Rise- slope”, “Venetian Candelabra”, “My Shelter”, “Mountain Ridge”, “Asention day”, “The Artistic Revolution”, “White Bear”, “The Year 2001”, “The Triangle of Bermudan”, “The Obedient”, “The Lasershow” _ demonstrates the writer's boundless imagination and creative energy. He is the artistic chronicler of the twentieth century.
His works reflect not only the Georgian man and the tragic fate of the Georgian nation, but also the history of mankind. We must note in particular his original style. This is his individual, very different, Impressive style of narrative. We can say that this style is at the same time a lyrical, a philosophical and an intellectual style. In Georgia almost every reader knows the Chkheidze' original, impressionable style.
Otar Chkheidze was living in the era of a totalitarian regime, when the communist ideology forcing artists, When the writers performed the regime's command.
Otar Chkheidze had not betrayed his artistic beliefs and wrote about what his own heart, mind and conscience dictated. This was a great test for the writer, which he successfully passed and created grand novels reflecting the spirit of time. He did not have a compromise, which had many modern writers. He reflected disobedient, the free spirit of Georgia in his artistic world. His unusual artistic language based on traditional experience of the nation literature, in particular, old Georgian historical and artistic texts, Bible translations, National myths, legends and folklore in general.
The word is a mystical phenomenon for writer, so he reflects its important nuances. He presents the philosophical - religious aspects of the Georgian word. The word is a symbol for him, the symbol that is the essence of the material. The writer asks to words for help in the beginning of the novel “The Obedient”. The Word is with us. The Word, give help to us. Holy word that evil can not touch, The word of font, The word of God!” (Chkheidze 2003: 4). It looks like the beginning of John's Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God (John's Gospel, 1:1).
The writer believed, when the word was of God, country was no in need... When the price of the word was lost, God found it difficult as well” (Chkheidze 2003: 4). The writer thought it was important for the country's three most important support, which is formed Ilia Chavchavadze “Three Divine treasure we have from ancestors: Lands, Language and Religion. If we can not take care of them, what men will be, how to give an answer to the posterity`` (Chavchavadze 1985: 17).
He is the spiritual successor of realistic school of Ilia Chavchavadze and Javakhishvili. However, at the same time, his realistic method is absolutely different from the traditional. It is enriched with new nuances. This concerns, in particular, his novels, which the writer created 90-th of the twentieth century. Exceptional clarity revealed contemporary era in this novels. Here is depicted a real, contemporary persons, as the personages. It is known that, for example, after reading his novel “The Artistic Revolution”, many people were angered on the writer. They did not like themselves, which as the mirror, shown in the novel.
The idea of freedom was the main for writer. That is why his works are full of spirit of freedom, “Nation is dead, if not fighting for freedom, - he wrote in the novel “The mist” Chkheidze 2003: In this wonderful, symbolic artistic world of the novel for the first time was reflected the theme, which was banned in the Soviet era. This was the theme of rebellion in 1924, headed by the legendary personality Kakuca Cholokhashvili. This revolt has been suppressed in the blood by the Red Terror. Writer in his work always has blamed Soviet regime. That is why his books had not printing for some times. Rostom Chkheidze had demonstrated the writer's life and works wonderfully in his book, titled ''Children of August'', In which introduction we read, that Otar Chkheidze's artistic world, with all its diversity, is an important guide to understand the tragedy of the twentieth century. Also, for the search for better ways to Georgia to be a real free state” (Chkheidze 2008: 7). We should also emphasize that, this is not a literary biography in the usual sense of the term. It is, rather, an exhaustive history of Otar Chkheidze's mind, an encyclopedic account of the author as major novelist and thinker, essayist and editor.
Time is the main character in Otar Chkheidze's artistic works. The total time is divided in its various novel and short story or play. Some of his character freely moves from one novel to another, Thus, In this way, divided time unites. His novels are some kinds of dialogues with the time. His artistic work has a system that is designed precisely. We must note that the writer was the Western literary specialist and taught foreign literature in different university. He knew what was going on contemporary foreign literature. That's why he knew and by the way his style of expressing described post-modern tendencies.As Barthes said "To write is a glorious but bold activity; the writer is an "artist" (Barthes 1957: 50). His artistic works reflect interesting literary searches. He uses traditional methods of narrative and at the same time, does not avoid innovations. It is especially important to note, that the writer often uses irony and this way his tragedy of life become more easily detected. The main thing is, that human life, his morals is the central theme of his works. Here we want to remember William Faulkner' s words, that he said, when he was given the Nobel Prize. These words echo to Otar Chkheidze's view. “Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail” (Faulkner 2010: 1).
Generations are changing, but the nation's immortal soul is eternal. The writer draws different revealling of the soul. Artistic space in his works, basically does not change. This Artistic space is Georgia. Although his personages are traveling in different countries, but the main thing is that historically defined space in which the immortal spirit of Georgia is moving. Writer has reflected the pain of lost territories in his last novels. So the writer reflected not only the spiritual - moral space, but the issue of protection and revival of material space.
The Writer is designed for precisely composition. Artistic system components are masterfully related to one another in his novels. That is why readers find a lot interesting thing in his works in terms of idea or narrative. Otar Chkheidze created mythological-poetical world, which always reminds people to its divine origin. People should not forget that kindness is eternal, evil is too short. This, of course, is the biblical teaching of wisdom. “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: because his mercy endureth for ever”(Psalms 2010: 1). The writer preached that the most important value is human, people. That is why the reader will learn the great wisdom of life from his artistic works.
Bibliography:
Barthes 2000: Barthes, R. Mythologies. London, Vintage 2000.
Chavchavadze 1985 : Chavchavadze, I. Works, 1985
Chkheidze 2003: Chkheidze, O. “The Obedient”, 2003
Chkheidze 2008: Chkheidze, R. ''Children of August'', Tbilisi, 2008
Faulkner 2009: William Faulkner's speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1950, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.htm
Psalms 2010: Psalms, Chapter 118, http://www.biblicalproportions.com/modules/ol_bible/King_James_Bible/Psalms/118/
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