Saba moves back to Georgia in 2010, which is around the time I moved to Georgia. If a book is set in a certain place, especially a place I know well, I want it to be accurate. I got a feeling that it's written for foreign audience who don't know much about Georgia.

The true parts of the book were abused and twisted to make the book more dramatic and symbolic. Crazy things were happening in the book that I couldn't believe in. But it was also not crazy enough to make it a farce or a fairy-tale. There was too much graphic description of violence, killing and death against both humans and animals. The abundant usage of swear words wasn't always warranted. It was a weird mix of memories, nightmares, ghost voices, fairy-tales, a play etc. but the mystery part with the bread crumb trail, grafittis and secret language fell short of my expectations.

And, finally, it gave off a weird pro-Russian sentiment. How is it possible that Saba didn't meet a single Russian troop in South Ossetia and was shot at and captured by Georgians instead? ( )

Through the narrator, Vardiashvili tells a tale about the value of family and one’s homeland. After spending much of his life with his father and brother in London, Saba, the protagonist, leaves on a journey to find his father and brother, who had gone back to their homeland, Georgia. He soon finds out that Irakli, his father, and Sandro, his brother, have ceased to contact him because they are wanted by the police in Tbilisi, the capital of this worn-torn country.

The cab driver that Saba meets at the airport, Nodar, becomes his companion and friend throughout the book since he agrees to drive him to various places to search for relatives. There are lots of physical and emotional roadblocks. Animals escaping from a zoo was one of the first issues Saba experienced, and the animals’ trauma and discomfort are echoed in Saba’s desire to survive and the disruptions in his internal and external searches.

Saba’s passport is seized at the airport, and numerous events upon his arrival in Georgia foreshadow the dangers he will face. It becomes apparent that Sandro, Saba’s brother, has left graffiti clues for him throughout the disorderly and lawless country. So, he begins a scavenger hunt seemingly set up by his brother to help him locate his family members. Additionally, his father has left pages of a play to decipher. He is haunted by the people he knew as a child in the Soviet-occupied country and then during the Civil War.

The ghosts of his past acquaintances are guides to Saba’s search. The voices he hears provide insight into the Saba’s secrets and inner turmoil. Some of the attributes of the people gnawing at his soul are exaggerated in Saba’s mind, and some characters are not exactly what he imagines them to be. So, the author forces the reader to consider what memories tell us and how perceptions sometimes distort reality.

There are also multiple allusions to commonly known stories such as Noah’s Ark, Hansel and Gretel, and The Wizard of Oz. There’s also The Jungle Book, Romeo and Juliet, and so many more, and it almost became trite. The author also overuses commonly recognized expressions to move the story along
It’s too bad because I think Saba’s story of painful sensory memories and his desire to be reunited with his family members was a good story. It did not need the embellishment of so many seemingly learned and erudite references.

Vardiashvili explores many vital themes through Saba’s journey. In addition to devastation, grief, hope, friendship, and family, there are many references to motherhood and the deep voids in the spirit of a human being who has been separated from a mother. The detachment from mother and motherland is poignant in Saba’s struggles, thoughts, memories, and secrets. ( )

I wonder how many people who have left a country because of war, or for other reasons, have a lingering fear of what they were escaping and how long that might go on for. This feeling must be magnified if one person stays behind on the promise that money will be sent to get them out and that doesn't happen. The guilt on one side and the sense of betrayal on the other must be enormous and there will be people who return to try to resolve the issue. Hard by A Great Forest is a story that covers this ground with a father and his two sons leaving Georgia, like the author, and settling in Britain, trying to raise the money to get their mother out who stayed behind to allow them to go.

Eventually, Irakli the father, goes back to Georgia and then disappears meaning that the eldest son, Sandro follows him and then all communications with him stop. It then follows that Saba, the youngest son who is now in his late 20s, also goes out to find his father and brother. It is a true quest with many obstacles that have to be overcome such as finding the trail to follow to lead Saba to his brother and father, understanding the clues when he finds them, avoiding the local police, avoiding the zoo animals that have escaped during a large flood and avoiding being shot. Like all good quests, there are wise people that guide Saba on his journey: first there is Nodar who picks him up at the airport and offers his house as a place to stay and then his car and time to ferry Saba around Tbisili and then the country and over the border into Ossetia. There are also people he meets along the way and his dead family whose voices he hears and who offer him timely advice when decisions need to be made.

The clues for the trail that Sandro leaves are ones that only a brother could understand, born of time spent together, films watched and books read. The title of the book comes from the start of Hansel and Gretel and this is woven throughout the story as Saba follows a trail of crumbs into a large forest both literal and metaphorical. He does, however, come out the other side of the forest and decides to stay in the country and be useful - something, I imagine a lot of people who flee must have a dream of doing. In letting go of the chase for his father, Saba was able to let go of the voices of the dead, his old life and find a new purpose. That must be the dream of so many displaced people.

The escaped zoo animals bring a surreal element to the story. They might represented danger or the hunted, hid in dark places like forests and large parks and had to be faced. Saba did so on his own but there were plenty of police running around with tranquilizing guns, shooting the animals, getting it wrong and killing them and so I suppose they could also represent the people with the police as a state institutions that kept a repressed nation in its place. How dare the people escape in favour of something that isn't Russian communism.

There are plenty of Saba's dreams in the story that are the voices of the dead along with a play written by Irakli where Irakli becomes the central character, Valiko, on the run from his family both in the UK and back in Georgia.

The more I think about this book, the more I realise it is a Hansel and Gretel rewriting. In the fairy tale the mother dies and although there is a step-mother, the children have to rely upon each other for survival. This is the case in the book where the mother is left in Georgia, and does eventually die there, with the boys fending for themselves and all throughout the book Saba talking to Sandro in his head saying, 'See, I can do things on my own, including following the trail you left for me.'. There is no wicked step-mother in Hard by a Great Forest but there is a father who is unable to look after his sons because of his guilt. Like Hansel, Sandro leaves a trail for Saba but also like Hansel, is eventually unable to protect Saba who must stand on his own two feet. The power shifts in Grimm's tale from Hansel to Gretel and so it does in the book, with Saba coming out of the story with the knowledge that he can survive anything, and has, including abandonment and loss of love. ( )

‘Aan de rand van een groot bos...’, dat was hoe Eka het sprookje over Hans en Grietje altijd begon. Maar het is lang geleden dat haar twee zoons die woorden voor het laatst van haar hoorden. Sandor en Saba zijn namelijk samen met hun vader vanuit hun geboorteland Georgië naar Engeland gevlucht, terwijl Eka achterbleef in Tbilisi. Het boek van vroeger is gesloten en Eka is trouwens inmiddels overleden. Zij is enkel nog een herinnering in het verder wat zielloze volwassen leven van haar twee zoons.

Dat is de uitgangssituatie in ‘Aan de rand van een groot bos’, de debuutroman van Leo Vardiashvili. Net als zijn hoofdpersoon Saba is ook Vardiashvili als kind vanuit Georgië in Engeland terecht gekomen, overigens wel met zijn beide ouders. Hij studeerde Engelse literatuur in Londen. In zijn debuutroman heeft hij elementen uit zijn eigen leven verwerkt, zoals de herinnering aan de oorlog begin jaren ‘90, toen Georgië zich losmaakte van de Sovjet Unie, en de herinnering aan een bezoek aan zijn geboorteland na jarenlange afwezigheid.

Hoofdpersoon Saba keert na ongeveer 18 jaar afwezigheid ook terug naar zijn geboorteland. Hij doet dat om te zoeken naar zijn vader en broer, die tijdens een bezoek aan Georgië spoorloos verdwenen zijn. In het boek vertelt Saba in ik-vorm over zijn speurtocht, die trekken heeft van de tocht langs de broodkruimels van Hans en Grietje. Hij komt langs de plekken van zijn jeugd, die herinneringen wakker maken. Mooie herinneringen, maar ook verdrietige. Saba wordt op zijn tocht vergezeld door de stemmen van de overledenen, zoals zijn moeder en zijn oom, maar ook door een uitermate levend persoon: taxichauffeur Nodar. Nodar is een prachtig karakter: hij gaat kettingrokend, zuipend en vloekend door het leven en weet de wat dromerige Saba steeds uit heikele situaties te redden. Specifiek uit de handen van een politieman, die net als Saba op zoek is naar Irakli, Saba’s vader.

De schrijfstijl van het boek is toegankelijk. De elementen van een detective (het spoor van aanwijzingen dat naar Irakli leidt) maken dat je door wil blijven lezen en het boek bevat een goede mix tussen dramatiek en humor. Het gaat over serieuze thema’s, zoals oorlog, trauma en ontheemding, maar het wordt (bijna) nooit té zwaar door de lichtvoetige toon van het personage Nodar en de soms bijna absurdistische beschrijvingen van de Georgische bureaucratie. Ook krijg je door de beschrijvingen van Saba’s tocht een goed beeld van de stad Tbilisi en de geschiedenis van Georgië, zonder dat het belerend wordt. Het boek doet enigszins magisch realistisch aan, door de vele verwijzingen naar het sprookje van Hans en Grietje, door de stemmen van de overledenen en door alle wilde dieren die in Tbilisi opduiken tijdens Saba’s speurtocht. Dat laatste blijkt overigens gebaseerd op een waargebeurde situatie: na een overstroming in 2015 wisten wilde dieren uit de dierentuin te ontsnappen en liepen er daadwerkelijk een nijlpaard, een beer, wolven en tijgers door de straten van Tbilisi. Je verzint het niet!

Er zijn zeker ook zaken op het boek aan te merken. Zo vliegt het plot in de laatste 50 pagina’s behoorlijk uit de bocht en heeft Vardiashvili misschien iets teveel thema’s, verhalen en symboliek in het boek willen stoppen, waardoor het einde net niet helemaal afgerond aanvoelt. Toch is het boek door de originele opzet en schrijfstijl zeker een aanrader en maakt het nu al nieuwsgierig naar wat Vardiashvili nog meer voor ons in petto heeft. ( )

Members of a family leave the turmoil in the Republic of Georgia and emigrate to England. After the father and one son return, the other son, Saba, returns to find them. He follows clues left by his brother. Saba is accompanied by the taxi driver, Nodar. He lives at Nodar and wife's home for a while. The story keeps repeating the motif of the Hansel and Gretel story with its trail of breadcrumbs, and it is brought out, by having Saba and Nodar follow the clues. The title is supposedly the beginning of the fairy tale. Oftentimes, dead relatives' ghosts[?] speak to Saba and guide him.
Enjoyable and about a culture and recent history about which I knew very little. ( )