Homesick in own homeland
By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow |
October 21, 2012, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
FOR a first-time novelist, the path of least resistance is semi-autobiography: a coming-of-age story, perhaps, set in the author's hometown or college dorm. Natalie Bakopoulos, a young Michigander, has rejected this route. Her debut, "The Green Shore," opens in Athens in 1967, the year a military junta seized power in Greece. Not only has she ventured to a distant time and place; she's also assigned herself the task of rendering life under a ruthless dictatorship. She gets points, that is to say, for difficulty.
The novel follows one family over seven years. Each member negotiates a balance between conscience and caution, private life and political protest. Sophie, a pretty, headstrong student, posts subversive flyers until, stalked by the police, she flees to Paris. Her younger sister, Anna, starts out a timid ingenue but becomes a brash activist. Their apolitical brother seems offended chiefly by the junta's dress code. "I just can't believe they've banned miniskirts," he complains. "What good is that?"
In the older generation, the widowed doctor Eleni and her famous poet brother, Mihalis, suffer from a kind of activism fatigue; each participated in left-wing movements during earlier crises. But finally, neither can stomach surrender. Eleni establishes an underground clinic to treat the government's torture victims, while Mihalis is prone to reckless public outbursts.
Though the regime haunts every page, "The Green Shore" is less a political novel than a family portrait. In writing about dissidents, Bakopoulos explores their psychology more than their methods or results. In Anna's case, a broken heart spurs her to channel her anger and ardor into meetings and sit-ins.
Bakopoulos can swiftly establish a personality or an atmosphere. At a police checkpoint, Bakopoulos conveys the casual insolence of the authorities after an officer searches Eleni's car: "By way of dismissing her, he banged on the trunk as if slapping" her rump.
Unfortunately, such lines are the exception. For every crisply evocative sentence, there's a clunker. Between those poles, the writing is serviceable but often plagued by imprecision or redundancy.
Good prose is only one element of a good novel. But it's a precondition to others: to developing characters, to bringing a fictional world to life and to keeping the reader engrossed. Too often, the weaknesses in Bakopoulos' style undermine her gifts.
Bakopoulos is ambitious, sympathetically attentive to her characters and frequently perceptive. When she combines those virtues with her strongest writing, her promise as a novelist shows. And "The Green Shore" captures a mood: the bitter sorrow of seeing a nation hijacked. As Bakopoulos shows, it's possible to be homesick for a country even when living within its borders.
The novel follows one family over seven years. Each member negotiates a balance between conscience and caution, private life and political protest. Sophie, a pretty, headstrong student, posts subversive flyers until, stalked by the police, she flees to Paris. Her younger sister, Anna, starts out a timid ingenue but becomes a brash activist. Their apolitical brother seems offended chiefly by the junta's dress code. "I just can't believe they've banned miniskirts," he complains. "What good is that?"
In the older generation, the widowed doctor Eleni and her famous poet brother, Mihalis, suffer from a kind of activism fatigue; each participated in left-wing movements during earlier crises. But finally, neither can stomach surrender. Eleni establishes an underground clinic to treat the government's torture victims, while Mihalis is prone to reckless public outbursts.
Though the regime haunts every page, "The Green Shore" is less a political novel than a family portrait. In writing about dissidents, Bakopoulos explores their psychology more than their methods or results. In Anna's case, a broken heart spurs her to channel her anger and ardor into meetings and sit-ins.
Bakopoulos can swiftly establish a personality or an atmosphere. At a police checkpoint, Bakopoulos conveys the casual insolence of the authorities after an officer searches Eleni's car: "By way of dismissing her, he banged on the trunk as if slapping" her rump.
Unfortunately, such lines are the exception. For every crisply evocative sentence, there's a clunker. Between those poles, the writing is serviceable but often plagued by imprecision or redundancy.
Good prose is only one element of a good novel. But it's a precondition to others: to developing characters, to bringing a fictional world to life and to keeping the reader engrossed. Too often, the weaknesses in Bakopoulos' style undermine her gifts.
Bakopoulos is ambitious, sympathetically attentive to her characters and frequently perceptive. When she combines those virtues with her strongest writing, her promise as a novelist shows. And "The Green Shore" captures a mood: the bitter sorrow of seeing a nation hijacked. As Bakopoulos shows, it's possible to be homesick for a country even when living within its borders.
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