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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЖОТВЕНЬ 2009 21 Yaroslaw’s Treasurer by Myroslav Petriw. Toronto: Blue Butterfly Books, 2009. Novel. 293 pages. Maps, glossary, interview with author; for more information visit www.butterflybooks.ca. We’ve all heard the admonition about not judging a book by its cover, but reviewing a book is not always as straightforward as reading for pleasure or learning , and sometimes entails a cover - to - cover assessment. Indeed, in the case of Yaroslaw’s Treasurer , the cover s (front and back), h a ve quite a bit to say about the pages between an d set the stage for adventures to come. The back cover, for example, provides a one - paragraph summary of the book and brief plugs that invite prospective readers to explore a novel that blends fact and fict ion and throws an innocent abroad into a “dangerous quest for Europe’s greatest treasure.” One comment advises readers to “think Hollywood action - adventure film Romancing the Stone with a young Indiana Jones thrown in.” All of this is rather compelling and evokes a visceral “It’s about time!” Here at last is a novel about Ukraine — in English — that is not about long - dead heroes o r about the glories and /or woes o f Ukraine’s distant past. It is fresh and new and long overdue, and for this alone, well worth readi ng. The front cover is more subtly compelling . The eye is drawn first to the bold orange letters of the book ’s title and then to the muted scene behind — a photograph of a rather bleak and dismal view of what looks to be an unpaved street or alley flanked b y gloomy houses and other structures that have seen better days. Beyond these is a lone telephone pole, its drooping wires interlaced with the branches of several leafless trees. In the foreground is a puddle of water dappled with what at first glance seem s to be amorphous yellow splotches. A closer look reveals that these are, in fact, a reflection of something beyond the camera’s lens — the golden domes of a church, or more precisely (as the front matter of the book explains) of the Mykhailivsky Monastery i n Kyiv. And it is this subtle interplay of images that foreshadows what lies between the covers — a novel that pits events grounded in antiquity with those of contemporary Ukraine and carries the reader through a series of murky puddles in which one soon dis covers glimpses of something that shines and glimmers and illuminates. Yaroslaw’s Treasure begins with a pro - logue: “Kyiv, Ukraine, December, 1240 A.D.” Set aside the fact that what we now call Ukraine was then called Rus’ and you are drawn into a chapter that re - creates t he last stand of the city’s defenders against the Mongol Horde of Batu Khan. In the tradition of all good historical novels, there are references to real historical personages — Prince Danylo of Halych, Monk Nestor, Yaroslaw the Wise — even D azhboh gets honorable mention. The fourteen pages move swiftly; the city is lost, the defenders perish, but a great treasurer is saved for posterity, and there are strong hints that it will re surface in the pages t hat follow . What mars this o therwise well - crafted introductory chapter is the author’s use of Ukrainian words where English equivalents might have been more reader friendly. W e find topir (battle axe), porok (catapult), and similar terms, most explained in the text and further explained in the gl ossary at the end of the book, but the explanations and the need to flip from page 5 to page 274 are annoying. There are related problems with the names of historical sites: “The sound of thunder had come from the Zoloti Vorota behind him. There was fire a nd smoke by the Golden Gate” (p. 10). Readers unfamiliar with Ukrainian may well deduce that two separate entities are being d iscussed here. Even more distracting is the anachronistic “Pane Sotnyk,” a military title that was not in use during the 13th cent ury. This trend continues in later chapters, which are peppered with “cholera” and “Metropoli - tan,” both of which mean something to those of us raised in diaspora communities but are likely to leave other readers perplexed. In Part I, the book fast forwar ds in time and place to Canada in 2002 . Here we meet the novel’s hero, Yaroslaw, who is sailing with his father off the coast of Vancouver. The sailboat is named Tryzub ; a blue and yellow flag flutters in the wind, and the diaspora reader smiles at the fam iliarity of growing up with similar images that epitomize life as an ethnic Ukrainian. Our young protagonist ’s musings flesh out this concept with a description that resonate s and sparks instant empathy between Yarko and the diaspora reader : He stood ther e [on the deck of the sailboat] feeling waves of anger and guilt . . . memories of the force - feeding of Ukrainian school, Ukrainian soccer, Ukrainian boy scouts, and Ukrainian church . . . language courses, which
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