Leo Vardiashvili explores Georgia’s magic and mystery

In my drafts folder there languishes an email to The Spectator pitching a letter from a then-forthcoming trip to Georgia. That was, alas, the spring of 2020. So when I saw Leo Vardiashvili’s debut novel — Hard by a Great Forest — billed as “a winding pursuit through the magic and mystery of returning to a lost Caucasian homeland,” I leapt at the vicarious travel opportunity.

Fleeing the disintegrating post-Soviet republic in the early 1990s, Irakli Donauri and his sons (though not his wife) arrive in London — Tottenham, specifically — where they are surprised to find “no top hats, no smog and no afternoon tea.” The boys grow up; two decades pass; their mother never joins them. Then one day, overwhelmed by homesickness, Irakli returns to Georgia — and promptly disappears. He instructs his sons not to follow him, which they naturally ignore, and thus begins the youngest, Saba’s, heroic-type quest, feeling his way back into a partially remembered country “like a blind man walking into a knife factory.”

Wearing his lucky Pink Floyd T-shirt, and nourished by “breadcrumbs” (the book’s title nods to “Hansel and Gretel” of course) as well as restorative soup, Saba progresses from the manic streets of Tbilisi — wild animals at large, thanks to a flood at the zoo — to the northern mountain fastnesses, through a landscape of burnt-out churches, blood-red rivers and dark, deadly forests.

A family story in an unfamiliar setting, the journey affords us glimpses of Georgian history, swearing, wine, eyebrows and mordant humor. Aided by Nodar, whose decrepit taxi can’t do reverse, Saba navigates shady policemen, half-animated sculptures, roaming soldiery, hammer-wielding priests and his own memories (some more “landmines” than “grace notes”) to follow clues left in graffiti, magazines, radio broadcasts, unsent Christmas cards and even a playscript, incorporating mystery meta-elements from Sherlock Holmes to Scooby-Doo. The result is an intriguing treasure hunt, self-consciously picaresque and peppered with references to magic, myths and miracles.

It’s bad luck, Georgians say, not to finish a fairytale — and by and large Vardiashvili keeps his plates spinning fast enough to stop you questioning their modern-day credibility. But Vardiashvili’s novel does feel just a little too strung out, and while I was happy to interpret certain convenient appearances and Chekhovian weaponry as nods to storytelling, a fair few jaunts through Georgia’s scenery seemed less about the destination than historical sidebars, and the dialogue frequently felt more Tottenham than Tbilisi.

“Did you want to see empty shops and bread queues?” sneers one of Saba’s interlocutors. Well, not as such. Still, perhaps I should just go and check the place out for myself.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.