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Ilham Aziz‘s story "Elvira": from a domestic story to a human drama - Elnara Akimova

23-02-2023 [ 13:24 ] [ read:26 ]
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Ilham Aziz's story "Elvira" tells about a short-term love affair that happened as a result of a certain coincidence. Returning from a foreign city to his native land, Ilgar's interest in the woman he saw on the train, his approach to her with irresistible passion, stems from the adventure he had planned in his mind before getting on the train, and his desire to add color to his life. His expectations and desires from this relationship are minimal: a little joy, instant happiness. The author works on a man's inner life, visual images and emotional descriptions in a large-scale, highly aesthetic, sensitive perspective, manages to organically reconcile the emotions of his hero with his character through elegant facial expressions and gestures.

Although the story is written as an ordinary household text, its sub-theme does not make itself invisible. At some breaking points, the domestic story turns into a human drama, there are hints of the life tragedies of people condemned to their fate:

"Under the dying lights, men, women, and children looked sad. For a moment, it seemed to me that the people who were repressed at that time were returning. 60 years ago, those who were loaded into freight cars and went to death in Siberia, hungry and thirsty, were now returning half-asleep, family by family."

Or "The train was moving fast, the lands of Russia were scrolling through the window. It was as if some supreme being was flipping through Russia like a book, looking for the lines on which the happy destinies of people like us were written, but he couldn't find them at all, and we were encouraged by looking at the pictures on the pages, tied our hearts to this red-blue country, we were deceived and unhappy".

Repression, Siberia, Russian lands, the red-blue country, even symbolically, the ball that divides the blood-colored red with blue stripes on all sides, which always appears as an obstacle to the hero in the story, etc. The author works with symbols. Perhaps this is also a thought-provoking point that every time the hero falls into a sweet dream and wishes for something, the ball thrown by a child named Islam hits him in the face and shatters his thoughts.

One of the interesting visual tricks used by the author is this ball image. The writer does not treat it as a mere subject or object. On the contrary, it subjectivizes it, depending on the attitude of the heroes, the situation, the role and image of the ball changes, it changes to a different tone, and it is mainly understood as a metaphor for the act of resistance, obstacle. The fact that the child's name is Islam makes it necessary to pay attention to its symbolism. Although it is not indicated in the story, as an image that always appears in a conservative status, this name-symbol reaches its inner meaning thanks to the meanings that open up the semantics of the symbol.

The image of Islam in the text is mainly characterized by the ball detail. By turning the ball into a tool at the moments when he approaches the hero's desire step by step, the author makes the text multi-planned, gives it a wide scale, and also gives it a symbolic capacity. The image of the ball appears throughout the text, and in necessary situations, the hero seems to regulate his emotions by interfering with his dreams, emotions, and the situation, and this situation is repeated several times in the story as a refrain. Although these moments create mild humor in the reader, they also give him the opportunity to analyze the situation and understand the obstacle:

"But the train was going, and I was sitting opposite the most beautiful woman in this carriage, smiling with the relief of my happiness and the opening of my luck, when a rubber ball hit my face, my eyes saw red and blue everywhere, small balls passed in front of my eyes";

"Just as Islam hit the ball, everything on the small table fell to the ground";

"Sand was sweating and dripping water from the heat of my body. This warm aura was destroyed by the wet ball that passed over me."

The author uses these tricks in several episodes. That is, if the characters are in the same scale in reality, the scale changes when the ball intervenes in the situation.

As a writer, Ilham Aziz's ability to observe is high. This competence plays an important role in the plastic expressiveness of the visual text. The author does not forget the other dimensions of the mise, adhering to the perfect image created by the composition of the attractive female texture. For example, the detail of sweating, which expresses the inner state of the hero, becomes a special emphasis of his excitement, depression, anxiety, and shyness. Every nuance in the text is in an aesthetic wave, every movement is not only a physical but also an emotional act:

"One of Elvira's eyes was looking at me passionately, one eye was pointing at Islam and apologizing";

"The Caspian welcomed us calmly, looked away and turned its face away. Elvira's beauty suddenly merged with the Caspian, the waters sparkled."

If we pay attention, the moments of the hero's love-making with a woman are also presented with fluid, diffuse, imperceptible softness, underline aesthetic angles:

"That night, Elvira whispered Tatar songs in my ear until morning, whispered confused words, laughed for no reason, took deep breaths, and ruffled my hair. That night, everything softened, wherever I touched it, it flowed, falling into the shape I wanted."

In the story, it can be said that dialogue was used less. The hero's experiences in his behavior, actions, intonation, restrained incitement of his inner emotions.

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