Culture > September 19, 2003

When History Catches Up

By Eleanor J. Bader

It’s a corollary to the Horatio Alger myth: Americans not only believe rags-to-riches ascendance is possible, they believe they can set aside their origins and remake themselves into whomever and whatever they desire. Nancy Kricorian’s second novel, Dreams of Bread and Fire, examines this theme through the eyes of Ani Silver, a 22-year-old, upwardly-mobile student of literary theory, film criticism and semiotics.

In crafting a lyrical and complex coming-of-age story, Kricorian uses class status and ethnic identity—how children born into immigrant families determine their place within dual cultures—to lay a foundation on which she erects multiple plotlines. Not surprisingly, identity formation is central. Throughout Ani’s childhood, her grandmother warned: “God inscribed your fate on your brow in vanishing ink while you were in your mother’s womb. You cannot escape what is written on your forehead.”

Heavy stuff to drop on an adolescent; we cannot help but empathize with Ani’s desire to escape from her drab, largely working-class hometown in Massachusetts. Born to an Armenian-American mother and Jewish father, her world has been filled with Armenian ritual for 17 years, since she and her mother moved into her maternal grandparents’ home following the death of her father, David. Devoid of contact with David’s family—the Silvers acted as if their son had died when he married a Christian—Ani has no knowledge of Judaica. But that’s O.K. Given her druthers, Ani would rather morph into a well-coifed, materially privileged WASP.

During college, her desires led her to carouse with monied peers. One beau won her heart. Despite his ongoing efforts to mold her into someone else, Ani failed to make the grade and was cast aside, devastated. Now in Paris for a year of graduate study, she hopes to acquire mannerisms that will enhance her credibility as a scholar, literary wit and socialite. Unfortunately, her time in the City of Light is marred by a job taking care of the daughter of an American banker and his emotionally abused wife. While this complicates her assimilation plan, Ani needs the money it provides. On the flip side, the position gives her a spectacular address, added exposure to the well-heeled and pampered, and a chance to play the part of an intellectual sophisticate.

This persona is soon tested, however, when Ani runs into a childhood friend, Van Ardavanian. It’s been years since the two have seen one another, and Van tells Ani that he lives in Paris and works with Armenian refugees. Catch-up leads to a relationship and before they know it, the pair are head-over-heels in something approximating love. Still, Ani is leery. Van is often silent, withholding, and is gone for long periods. Then, a chance peek into his backpack reveals something that Ani finds shocking—a passport with Van’s picture, but another name. She learns that Van is part of a violent anti-Turkish underground.

Although Ani knows that her grandparents fled Armenia after the 1915 genocide, they never spoke about what happened to them, and Ani has never inquired. Suddenly eager to understand Van, Ani delves into history and learns about the slaughter and displacement of millions of Armenians—the first genocide of the 20th century. For Ani, the revelations are cataclysmic, causing her to question what it means to be part of a despised culture. Her Jewish roots also come into focus, and for the first time, Ani ponders the coalescence of forces that created her. The product of two reviled peoples, Ani begins to unravel her origins.

Kricorian does not tell us whether Ani fully accepts this, or whether she comes to endorse Van’s armed struggle. The author has enough faith in her readers’ intelligence to let them imagine how Ani will grapple with history’s pull. What the novel does make clear is that the great tragedies of history have a way of catching up with all of us. Wise, poignant, and by turns sober and amusing, Dreams of Bread and Fire is an engaging, compassionate and important novel.

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• Reader Comments

  Why would Ani wish to morph into a monied WASP?  Is she unaware of the power and weath that Jews have in the US?

  Perhaps if Nancy Kricorian wanted to do a coming of age novel and demonstrate the struggles of an immigrant to suceed in the US she should have used a person whose family came here from Mexico.

  Many of the people who immigrate to the US from other countries are the people of wealth and education and I just don’t buy Ani’s story.  Its too much like some kind of PR. 

  It’s a little hard to find sympathy for the history of suffering of her people at the same time the whole world watches Israel on the world stage.

  In reality Ani would seek to impose her ethnic ways on our culture rather than trying to change herself in order to fit in.

  When most people in the US struggle to realize the American dream its a little difficult to sympathize with the angst of people like Ani.

  I think I’ll read Al Franken instead.

  Posted by Ginger Snap on Sep 22, 2003 at 1:29 AM

  I’m surprised that Ani wouldn’t be sharp enough to expliot her ethnic roots. Playing the Old Money Wasp Sophistocate requiers a good deal of money and the skills to fake social conections you don’t have. If Ani was all that clever she’d have played her Jewish/Armenian roots for all their worth and gotten posh invites and lush social opportunities by playing the exotic outsider. It worked for Disreali, it could work for Ani. 

  Posted by Thomas Devine on Sep 28, 2003 at 1:19 PM

  This book fulfills literary fictions current thread of cartoonish fiction. A fiction that basis its roots on a polymorphous ethnic/racial identity. Make the character half this and that and the character and all the drawings of him or her there after sound like a fleshed out cartoon. Please…

  Posted by Sam on Oct 30, 2003 at 12:38 PM

  “Is she unaware of the power and weath that Jews have in the US?”

  Compared to the monied WASPs, I am unaware too.  Please elucidate will you Adolf?
  

  Posted by Nus on Oct 30, 2003 at 4:50 PM

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