A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

For many years Khassan works on a book on the history of Russia that totals over 3,000 pages. But as the political situation continues to change in Russia, Khassan never finds a publisher who will publish it as-is. One publisher will only accept the first 200 pages as a small book on Russia’s early history. Another editor “stressed that the book didn’t need to be more concise—if anything it should be longer, the editor said, so reviewers would dismiss its shortcomings as the price of ambition” (78). Khassan spends years rewriting his manuscript to appease whatever editor is willing to take a look at it. Right before Ramzan leaves for the trip that results in his capture by the Feds, Ramzan notices on Khassan’s desk “the typewritten carcass of his manuscript bled red ink” (242). This description emphasizes how Khassan’s manuscript represents the people of Russia. As the years go by, this project becomes a symbol for Russia’s unstable government, which seems to be constantly changing with little progress.

Ramzan obtains a job smuggling weapons for the rebel forces. One day Dokka asks Ramzan for a weapon for himself, and Ramzan sets aside a Makarov pistol. Later, after Ramzan becomes an informant for the Feds, the Feds reveal that a colonel was shot with a Makarov pistol that, based on the serial number, belonged to Ramzan’s bundle. Even though the Makarov pistol has been missing for some time, and Ramzan doesn’t know what happened to it, he tells the Feds the pistol belonged to Akhmed, causing Akhmed to be captured.

Later on in the novel, it is revealed that Dokka gave the pistol to Natasha for protection after she stayed at his house. At a checkpoint, the colonel attempted to sexually assault Natasha, and she shot him with the Makarov pistol. Even though nobody ever finds out exactly what happened to Natasha, the Makarov pistol becomes an unfortunate item connecting many characters in the novel.

After Ramzan becomes an informant for the Feds, everyone in the village refuses to speak to him or his father Khassan. Khassan also refuses to speak to Ramzan, horrified by his son’s choice to betray members of their village. As a result, Khassan spends his days speaking to and caring for the stray dogs in the village:

In summer he bathed the dogs. If one fell sick he cared for it. At the village edge, he knelt and they gathered to him, leaping, licking his cheeks, leaning their paws on his back and panting in his ears, diseased, unwashed, his, his, his. (281)

Khassan was never able to be with the woman he loved, Akhmed’s mother Mirza, and after Ramzan begins working with the Feds, Khassan can’t speak to his son either. Throughout the novel, Khassan turns to the stray dogs when he has no one else to speak to. The dogs become Khassan’s closest family and, as a result, a symbol of his loneliness.