The most unexpected modern Armenian novel has become a favorite one for book bloggers (video)

According to Mari Melikyan, Susanna Harutyunyan's "The Last Horse of Andranik" is a juicy, enchanted wall, written in the rural language, but also keeping the modern breath. "In this intellectual and formidable language, there is everything that defines Armenian: both heroism and big heart, and betrayal and treachery, burning sun and vast fields, animals are loved and delicious at the same time".

The events in the novel take place from 1918 to 2020, covering important historical developments starting from the assassination of the Silikian brothers, Siberia, and the world wars to Covid-19 and the 44-day war; "In the meantime, Andranik Pasha's horse passes by people and houses with its invisible gait, pauses for a moment, then continues its proportional course, both becoming an object and turning into an intangible symbol. It follows the heroes who try to reach out and touch the tail of the redhead, not realizing that they will never, ever reach that horse, that there will always be an impassable distance between them and the horse, and that the meeting will be postponed, again”.

The book blogger's attention is attracted by the many characters and few heroes of the novel. According to the author, "Everyone lives for a short mythological time in the novel, on some borderline between eternity and death, never losing hope, but also not knowing what to hope for, what to believe in, a destroyed homeland, broken love or fragmented values? Maybe for the baptismal font that Khoren and Atam's father Molla saved from the church and turned into a water bowl for animals? Pragmatism, denial, or desymbolization of faith?”

Susanna Harutyunyan's novel is so colorful, delicious, and full of events that the author of the article compares it to Armenian hospitality, when the writer, like a truly hospitable host, does not pay attention to the reader's desire to "eat". "Completely Armenian. Try this, and now taste this, you haven’t eaten this one anywhere definitely... The story is made of pieces, because the lives of the heroes are also opened piece by piece, being created at the moment of living, sometimes arbitrarily, sometimes with thought reality. And every morsel leaves behind a blissful memory of taste and smell, and the food is digested gradually while flipping through the book”.

Susanna Harutyunyan's language has also received special attention, the author calls it appetizing, sensitive, and rural, but intellectual. The writer's detailed and merciless reference to human vices and ugly social phenomena is also obvious.

"Without sparing our nerves, the author shows all the hideous vices. You need strong nerves and a state of mind to be able to endure those monstrous descriptions, violence, terrible manifestations of sexism, and anti-human values. The Soviet Union was destroyed, but the half-finished and uninhabited structures inside us, where nature is soulless and living conditions are unfavorable, were not destroyed.

Andranik's horse will haunt us with its existence for a very long time, we will wait for the horse with the infinite patience of those waiting for Godo or Little Mher, losing meaning and reason in time, acquiring new ones, changing and transforming, building and destroying, and always being afraid of the wolves that live around us”.