Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past
by Peter Balakian
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Book Summary Information
Author: Peter BalakianEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-05-04
ISBN: 0767902548
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Book Reviews of Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past
Book Review: "AFTER LONG SILENCE"
Summary: 5 Stars
'Speech after long silence; it is right...'-William Butler Yeats
I have had this line from Yeats' poem in my mind as I've been reflecting on the contents of this book by Peter Balakian written in 1997. (This book was rated one of the best books of 1997 by the LA Times, Publisher's weekly and Library Journal.) I've read about Armenian history as I made many acquaintances of Armenians in the Boston area where I lived. I've put off reading this book because I thought the information would not be new since I've read The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Balakian's 2003 book The Burning Tigris, and Bat Ye'Or's book Islam and Dhimmitude. However, I loved this book even though some of the same information is found in The Burning Tigris. This book is different however. The Burning Tigris is history, The Black Dog of Fate is personal history of great relevance for today. It's a memoir of not only Balakian's life, but also his family's life during his lifetime and their past before he was born. The book is divided into 6 sections. The first three are devoted to his grandmother, his mother, his father. The last 3 cover his gradual understanding of his ancestors' trials and tribulations, their ancient history. Armenia was the first nation to embrace christianity as their official religion in the third century. An editor of Josephus notes that an early church father and mystic, Moses Chorensis, wrote that a tribe of jews designated Bagratidae migrated to Armenia during the time of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, the time of the destruction of Solomon's temple in 586 B.C. Although his family never talked about the genocide, he became curious by the very circumstances of his family. He never knew his grandfathers. He later comes to realize that his grandfathers suffered the common fate of many Armenian men during the Great War (WWI). The turkish gendarmes in charge of "protecting" the Armenians during their forced march routinely shot Armenian men in the back of the head killing them instantly. Other Armenian men attempted to disguise themselves as women to foil the Turks' bloody target practice. When his father suggested to him that he do a school report on Armenia, he chose to write about Turkey because he could not find any information about Armenia.
His fondest memories were of his grandmother telling him stories which began with the Armenian "djamangeen gar oo chagar", in English, there was and there wasn't. One of her stories was an Armenian parable about a poor woman and her black dog offering to God probably modeled after Christ's parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. Her stories are similar to any immigrant to America from their old, peasant countries. Peter Balakian was a second generation American; his parents were adamant that their children live as Americans, yet their Armenian culture is distinctive and is not totally erased by embracing the American one. Many Americans should be able to relate to this in some way since nearly all of our ancestors were immigrants at some time.
Peter Balakian is an English Professor at Colgate University, his aunt at Columbia University, both of whom also write poetry. Being able to write about history and making it interesting is not an easy task; I was impressed by his writing in The Burning Tigris, he kept my attention the whole time. I highly recommend this book and I highly recommend this book for book clubs in that the subject matter is very relevant to today, Armenia's history instructive in so many ways.
'Speech after long silence; it is right...'. The Armenian genocide happened almost 100 years ago, his grandmother one of the survivors. He comes to realize that for her to have spoken openly about it was probably much to much painful for her. He finds out later from his aunts that following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, her psyche was set into a tailspin. She suffered a nervous breakdown. That act of terrorism too much like the violence that she lived through. Strangely, the Turkish government today cannot come to terms with the truth about events of 1915 and goes so far as to influence governments and Ivy League Universities by contradicting the massive documentary evidence that exists confirming the atrocities and claiming that there is another side of the story that needs to be told. However, there is not much to discuss when you see mounds of bodies, women and innocent children, with an armed man capped with a blood-red pillbox hat standing right by. Strange that they cannot speak the truth, one hundred years later.
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