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"It is not so uncommon for those near the end of their lives to run their mind's hand over the contours of those lives."
HUNGER, Elise Blackwell's first novel, begins with this sentence, elegant in its simple statement. And from there an anonymous scientist, the narrator, endeavors on his personal recollection of one of the most horrific periods in history.
The narrator lived through the "hunger winter" that began in 1941 in Leningrad. For 900 days, he witnessed the city fall around him and the deaths of the city folk at the hands of Nazis. Following a lifetime of exotic travel that took him to Mexico, Afghanistan and other welcoming places in search of rare seed and plant specimens, he now finds himself trapped with his colleagues protecting the botanical institute they've worked so hard to build. A pact is made --- the scientists will not eat their collections, no matter how desperate for food they may become; they will preserve their store for future generations, even if they perish in their attempts. Only our narrator cannot truly accept this agreement. Directed by his appetites, he watches his colleagues barter their bodies and their few material possessions for scraps, for tree bark to make soup, for a single potato. Ultimately they die, as he indulges in the institute's seed supply behind their frail backs.
Among his colleagues is Alena, his wife, a woman of great principle. He also watches her dwindle away to nothing, while he feeds his appetite. He tries to rationalize his secret meals by saying he must do anything to survive at any cost. But his explanations are selfish; he is an indulgent man whose every choice in life has been dictated by his wants, his desires. In recounting his memories we learn that he collected women the way he collected seeds --- for their variety, their beauty, even their danger --- and with little regard for his wife, whom he says he adores. He claims that with each affair, with each poor decision, regret was always instant, but his regret is less for the guilt of what he did and more for having "awakened the horrible hunger" again.
A brief book, Blackwell's writing is economical, replicating the very deprivation her book depicts. Her prose is spare, short passages and short memories. But to not remember might render the power to finally do the narrator in: "I told myself that pain was the price of life; its absence was the step into death."
In the end the narrator, like his long lost colleagues, saves seeds too. In a jar he has "reproduced each mouthful of food I stole during the winter of hunger … I wonder if such a meager portion could have kept my Alena alive." Does he regret his choice, or hers?
The shelves are full of excellent books, fiction and non-fiction, about the travesties of World War II and the Holocaust. While the setting of HUNGER is unique, it is an all-too-recognizably-human story about the choice between one's own life and what one might leave for the next generation (in this case, the institute's collections). A true humanitarian would put the good of others before the good of the self --- but not Blackwell's narrator. He lacks redeeming qualities, and it is that lack that makes his personal story such an original and oddly fascinating read.
--- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara
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