MARCH 14 2020 LISTENER 51
There’s an awful – the word is meant lit-
erally – lot of information to process in To
the Lake and the weight of detail about the
morass of Balkan politics is best digested
in small portions.
But Kassabova wears the depth of her
research and knowledge lightly with a
tight, deftly spun narrative.
Here, as in Border, she puts herself
through the mill, driving or walking out
into lonely areas that pulsate with oppres-
sion. Also, as in Border, there’s one trek
that shreds her self-control.
Chapters with titles such as One Thou-
sand Seven Hundred Years (the prison
sentence Hoxha liked to bestow upon dis-
sidents), Mountain of Bones and The Howl
indicate the tone of Kassabova’s probing
of this unfortunate region’s past and the
cumulative effect of that on its people.
But the book also has many moments of
joy and pleasure, including a reunion with
her twin aunts in Ohrid city, the beauty of
a landscape of white cliffs and dark glades
and the rewards of a long climb to look
out over an “immense and transcendent”
view stretching east and west.
Unfortunately, in a rare time of peace,
the region now shares the global curren-
cies of drug-smuggling, prostitution and
money-laundering.
Does Kassabova achieve her personal
aspiration of avoiding “sleepwalking back
into the abyss” imprisoning her female
ancestors?
The final chapter, How to Heal the
Insane and Melancholy, sees her bath-
ing in Lake Ohrid for the last time with a
feeling that something
within her has stilled.
Whether she has
lanced The Pain is, for
now, a private matter. l
TO THE LAKE: A Balkan
Journey of War and
Peace, by Kapka
Kassabova (Granta,
$39.99)
by DAVID HILLF
aithful hound Tassen tells the
story of his adored owner’s
bereavement, growing frailty,
loneliness and resilience. It’s a
concept so cute, you may wish to
projectile vomit.
Don’t despair. Norwegian writer Hans-
Olav Thyvold’s novel is several motifs
better than that. When Major Thorkild-
sen dies. Mrs T starts hitting the “dragon
water”, while Tassen hits the choc treats.
Then his mistress begins carrying a
revolver in her purse ...
So, it’s more than saccharine from the
start and its mood
sharpens further when
the nasty children –
aka Puppy and Bitch- start pressuring their
mum to move out of
her house so they can
move in.
The underdogs
(sorry) fight back. It
leads to good, gutsy
displays of the defiance, stoicism and
cunning stratagems of old age, coun-
terpointed by an acknowledgement of
growing vulnerability. It’s all done by plot
rather than prosing, which is always wise.
The book is leavened by pawky
humour: the garbage man confronts Mrs
T with her booze bottles and bags of dog
droppings, whereupon she confronts
him with a complimentary coffee and
cinnamon roll; there’s the TV “reality”
show Dr Pill with its anguished callers: “I
think I’ve had sex, and I’d really like to be
sure of it.”
Tassen resigns himself to being dog-sat
by diesel-scented Jack the Neighbour and
ends up high on pot at a party. He’s sure a
local librarian is on heat.
More weightily, mistress and mutt
become engrossed, via the library, in
Roald Amundsen’s South Pole trek – with
dogs, of course. You may find the space
given to ruthless Roald (about whom
Thyvold has written a book) getting on
for excessive, but it does include some
nuggets: the explorer slaughtering nearly
200 dogs; the penguin predilection for
necrophilia.
There’s inevitable
anthropomorphising,
but Tassen is mostly
and convincingly
canine. He can scent
the foul smell of a
dying body, resents
disdainful afghan
hounds and swagger-
ing rottweilers and
experiments exhaustively to confirm that
“Always the same, always the same, your
bum’s behind you, wherever you aim”.
In moments of depression, he considers
shooting himself, but knows it’s tricky
without an opposable thumb.
A new order appears at the end: one
that means more loss, a half-comprehen-
sion and a final page that could bring
joy or betrayal. But you sense and hope
Tassen will survive. Good dog. l
GOOD DOGS DON’T MAKE IT TO THE SOUTH
POLE, by Hans-Olav Thyvold (Allen & Unwin,
$32.99)A canny
canine tale
Meditations on death,
ageing, loneliness
polar exploration and
perverted penguins,
as told by a good dog.
He experiments to
confirm that “Always
the same, always
the same, yourbum’s behind you,
wherever you aim”.Chapters with titles such
as Mountain of Bones
and The Howl indicate
the tone of Kassabova’s
probing of this
unfortunate region’s past.