Monday, May 7, 2012

The Time: Night - Chaos and Loneliness


When reading The Time: Night, both themes of loneliness and chaos stood out to me and I feel that these characteristics are related. The novel goes in waves. When Anna’s family is together there is an overwhelming sense of chaos. Everybody is fighting, the apartment is too crowded, and there are not enough resources for each individual. This chaos leads Anna’s children to leave her nest. Even when Anna is alone her attention, at least in the narrative, still focuses on her family. Although Anna insults her children and openly shows her contempt for them, she still holds that familial bond and cares for them, letting them come back home when needed. The story continues in this pattern, and thus I feel that even though at the end of the novel Anna is alone, I did not find this hopeless. I feel that given what was presented in the narrative that the reader can somewhat expect Anna to be eventually reunited with her children and grandchildren.

I also feel that Andrei is in this continuous loop of loneliness and chaos. His past criminal behavior leads him to the chaos of the soviet system. The chaos among his personal life when he returns from jail leads him to drink – loneliness.  Everyone has his or her way of coping with the Soviet System. Andrei drinks, Anna insults and speaks her mind.

Although this book is somewhat depressing and chaotic itself (the non chronological narrative adds to this) I feel there still is some crude humor that in some sense acts as relief.

8 comments:

  1. I think it's really interesting that you read the novel with some hope there at the end. For me, I felt as though Anna's daughter at the end had finally made a decision to break off for good. Thinking about the novel going in waves, it felt like she had finally had enough of that and ended the cycle. Your reading is much nicer, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had seen it that way.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with Cory that Alyona at the end decides to break off for good. Anna's motives may have been selfish rather than to hold the familal bond: what is left for her to do in life if they all (the family) leave for good? I also saw the novel as very dark, and cannot say I enjoyed its "aftertaste."

    ReplyDelete
  3. While I agree with Petar that I didn't find that much particularly hopefull in The Time: Night, I did appreciate the tone. I really felt like I grasped what it would be like in the kind of desperation the whole family feels at times... and while it is taking place at a particularly tumultous time in Russian history, you get the feeling that it is describing a kind of poverty-driven desperation that could be present in many places at many different times.

    ReplyDelete
  4. In my opinion the tone of the novel is what makes the novel. Maybe I read it too optimistically. but all in all I felt that I got a sense of what life was like.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Like Cary, I had a pretty bleak view of things at the end of the book. I was worried that Alyona hadn't left for good and would return, and the cycle of abuse and anger and crazy would continue indefinitely.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Like Addie, I assumed that the daughter would eventually come back, but I wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. Anna's reaction to finding the apartment empty demonstrates exactly the cycle you're talking about, Addie. Though she sort of wishes to find them gone, she's sad when she realizes they actually left. I wonder how much of her reaction is related to the previous scene with her mother?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I agree with everyone here who considers the end to be bleak and not very hopeful. It felt as if there was really no escape from the chaos and turmoil going on in the novel, and maybe that can be seen as the position of a matriarch in Russian society at the time. If the family is chaotic, there really isn't much hopefulness.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Perhaps the end of the story is hopeful in the fact that continuing the abusive relationship would have ended up destroying any hope they had left of being a family. Alyona's leaving might allow her to salvage some sort of future, if not for their relationships in reality, at least for their perceptions of each other.

    ReplyDelete