(11/04/22)
I have been thinking for some time about what that unusual feeling is that sticks with me after reading this little book. And despite the fact that, at first glance, childhood memories do not seem very likely in a story about an old woman and a radioactive village, it is exactly that. Now maybe I know why.
I came across this book in antiquariat during a short trip. As soon as this small thing fell into my hand, my fingers refused to let it go. I remember that day in Nitra and I have this book attached to it like a little talisman. I also remember reading it on the train. I read most of it on the way home, while the warm spring rays warmed me through the glass, and the rest on my way away from it. I spent the last minutes of the journey looking out the window at the flowing landscape and dealing with fading feelings. For example, about what home actually is and where mine is, why don't I have it as clearly defined as the characters in the book. And that maybe I envy them a little bit.
In that small volume, there was not only a simple story in a non-traditional setting with pleasant humor, but also life truths presented with the ease of old life and interesting companions – both living and dead. However, the most important thing was Baba Duna herself. It's surprising that such a small book could contain such a large woman – both in body and character – but it managed perfectly.
She was the walking archetype of the old wise woman, the "baba" archetype, whose heavy legs full of bulging veins, overflowing with the wisdom of life, stand firmly on the ground. On the land that she loves, even though it is being eaten away by radiation, same as her old bones, a land from which she can always grow what she needs. Baba who can create a warm home anywhere, and who will offer chicken soup even to her enemy. Strong, tough, sometimes brutally honest in her words and a bit intimidating, but also with a clear sense of morality and a good heart that can cover one whole small village. Such baba.
And despite the fact that my "baba", with whom I spent much of my childhood and created perhaps the most magical and beautiful memories, was much gentler and smaller, and perhaps at first glance she did not resemble Baba Duna at all, and perhaps not even at the second one, she had the same essence and I felt it, and this book reminded me of it all. I remembered boiled eggs and black tea in bed, my toadstool nightgown, her magical garden, the fields where we walked and caught grasshoppers or picked sunflowers for the winter for the birds. I thought of her, the one who went through a fate so difficult that it would have broken even a horse, and yet she often smiled in the face of the suffering and cruelty of life and stood even after it all as firmly on her feet as Baba Duna.
I felt respect and admiration and humility for both of them, for all of them. For that fictional Baba Duna, who was the embodiment of the essence hidden in those real babas, including mine. And that's why, despite the fact that the book took place in a somewhat surreal environment and its plot did not concern me in any way, it was not close to me in any way, it still smelled like home. Because in between it was mainly about the everyday things, about relationships, about family, about what is close to us, about the home that we create, about the little things that we should appreciate, about the approach to life and its horrors and beauties. It was such a small, somewhat dystopian idyll, that I wanted to live there despite the fact that radioactivity would eat away my insides. What of it, if I could drink herbal tea, listen to Baba Duna and soak my feet in warm water. If I could be somewhere that feels like home despite everything. This is exactly what the book shows – that a home can be created anywhere and from any small amount. It's just about us.
In conclusion, I just want to shout: MORE OLD BABAS AS MAIN HEROINES!
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