Customer Reviews

Stories I Stole from Georgia

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Former Time magazine writer Steavenson hits upon a nice variation to the armchair travel genre with this wonderful little book on the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Rather than trying to systematically detail the small country's tangled web of ethnicities and chaotic recent history, she recounts her time there through twenty chapters/stories. These loosely connected and loosely chronological stories provide a remarkably nuanced portrait of a country where nothing works, government seems largely irrelevant, and the people are remarkable. Weaving in many of her own friendships and a relationship with a photojournalist, she covers rigged elections, ethnic tensions, the nearby war in Chechnya, and mainly daily life with remarkable sensitivity. The nice thing is that she doesn't do so with the usual world-weariness of the foreign corespondent, but with a depth of feeling that never falls into sentimentalism or condescension It's a curiously individual work in that there's no real reason for her to be there, there is no larger theme she hangs her stories on, and no gimmicks. Just honest stories about a country where a strange civil war and two secessionist wars over the last decade have utterly destroyed the economy and left the country with little hope. A definite must read for anyone interested in the Caucuses or the fate of post-Soviet republics.

Stories I Stole is a difficult work to pin down in terms of tone-neither completely a work of journalism, nor of memoir, though it certainly leans to the latter. As a whole, the book is rather poorly written, both in terms of style and of grammar-I found myself searching for a way to make sense out of several poorly conceived sentences.
The book has the tone of a blog-chatty, confessional, and narcissistic, with literary flourishes that appear out of nowhere and seem largely out of place. What makes this book frustrating is that when the author isn't making light of the novelty of being a Westerner in the wild, wild east, and when she isn't talking about her motley group of journalist or other ex-pat comrades (that is, when she takes the too-rare moment to discuss Georgia and actual Georgians) I found the book hard to put down.
For those who wish to learn something in-depth about Georgia, this is not the book to read. Steavenson makes little effort to contextualize events such as the Russian war with Chechnya happening just across the border or Georgia's long, complicated history. The blasé manner in which she offhandedly summarizes the state of the country repeatedly begins to grate on the nerves of a reader with higher expectations from creative non-fiction such as this. Furthermore, the book reeks of a privileged, oblivious and ultimately uninterested perspective. It's doubtful Steavenson stole very many stories, for the main story she presents us with here is her own, and while amusing at times, it's not terribly interesting.

This was an interesting, and at times exciting, book on the recent history of the Georgia. We had a guest from Georgia stay with us right after I finished reading the book and she verified just about everything in it. It's written in the same world-weary, ironic style as other travel writers like Paul Theroux. If you like that kind of dry, dark wit, you'll like this book. If you like your travel writing a la Conde Nast, you won't make it past the first chapter. So many of the tales start with a night of heavy drinking and smoking that it was not long before I began to feel my head throb and my throat get raw vicariously.

I would have given the book five stars if the author had left out the two-and-a half chapters about her boyfriend. I found them distracting from what was otherwise a great book.

This impressive debut works on too many levels to winnow down to a brief review. Ms. Steavenson reminds me a bit of Isaac Bashevis Singer as she brings us into worlds we generally know only through newspaper and television reports. Her attention to detail and her encapsulations of characters and situations and the bigger picture are masterful, particularly at such a relatively young age. She knows what to leave out, so that what's powerful remains. Unlike some reviewers below, I thought the elements she included about her personal life were arresting and completely integrated. Extremely high recommendation for a work that also has the bonus features of a decent map, a glossary of ethnic groups, and background reading for those who want to pursue related works.

This is a highly readable and unpretentious collection of stories about the author's travels in the Caucases region, mainly in Georgia. The author generally seems to like the people and the region, yet she is not so naive as to suggest easy solutions to the numerous political and economic problems that afflict the region. At the same time, she is not nearly so bleak in her assessment of humanity as other Western journalists who write on conflict-ridden areas, such as Robert Kaplan. Basically, Steavensen relates her experiences in the region without passing overt judgment on the subjects in her stories or using her experiences as the basis for grand metaphors or shaky generalizations. The only reason I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5 is that some readers might be offput by the author's inclusion of her own romantic relationship within several of the stories. This didn't bother me, however, and even if it had, it would still have been outweighed by the numerous insights contained within this unique book.

I felt like I was right there with her seeing what she saw, drinking all that alcohol, and having adventures in Georgia! this book gives you an idea of how Georgian people really are.

I think too many people were impressed with the quality of the prose and jumped to give this book a 5 without really considering the content.

Although Steavenson is obviously a creative and observant writer, I would not recommend this book as the "travelogue" or "introduction to Georgia" that it is often vaunted as. Travelers hoping to visit Georgia will find more information on the effects of the 70-year soviet Russian regime and an unnerving lack of attention towards the other millennia or so of Caucasian social and cultural development. During her 2 years in Georgia, Steavenson also chose to study Russian (admittedly a good move as a journalist due to the greater prevalence of Russian speakers in Europe as a whole) rather than Georgian, and while Russian vocabulary surfaces every few pages, the only Georgian word she really seemed to adopt was "depressia," which she applies more times than any other reference to Georgian in the entire book.
I also doubt that travelers would find "Stories I Stole" helpful, as Steavenson is consistently vague about locations she visited, rarely being more specific than a district or province; places of interest seem to take a backseat to her personal life and her gripes, which range from the verbose "endless post-soviet limbo facing a grey crumbling, concrete future," "everybody was tired and cold and it would never change," "without much imagination...wallowing in tradition and wine," to the blunt "s---hole" and "f---ed up"; Steavenson's rosy conclusion is that "there is nothing that can be done about it."
Although she occasionally admits "yes, well there are some nice parts," Steavenson mainly concerns herself with cynical remarks regarding Transcaucasia's doom to "devolution" and speaks sarcastically about hopes for peace. Several chapters don't even take place in Georgia, which she "fled" for Istanbul, Cairo, and Baku (Azerbaijan)--cities which she describes with a much kinder tone, even exclaiming "here was civilization".
While reading descriptions of her colorful local acquaintances, I wondered several times if, in her quest to "steal" interesting stories, Steavenson didn't intentionally scrape the drunkest and most immoral strata of society; when not too wasted to move, the majority of her friends seemed to spend their time fighting, paying off officials, cursing their lives, and bumming money from each other. I know several Georgians living in Tbilisi today, and while not entirely "western," I have never known any of them to spend their days in cold, lightless rooms chainsmoking as they throw back bottles of contraband vodka while polishing their submachine guns. It is good to keep in mind that Steavenson wrote describing circumstances in the Caucasus between 1998 and 2000, so readers should be aware of increasing irrelevance in many of the situations, especially since the Rose Revolution reforms.
I think Steavenson's book is excellently demonstrative of the tradition/modern clash most Americans find unnerving when they travel to developing regions, as well as the rampant level of openly-acknowledged corruption that westerners tend to be sheltered from. In the back of the book is a very helpful brief history/ethnographical study of Eurasia's people and regions (I recommend reading this first, as it sheds some light on cultural/social nuances that non-natives are not aware of) and an extensive bibliography of books about Caucasia for further reading.

This is an absolutely delightful book, both for people who have been to the Caucasus and to those who simply want to read an enchanting fusion of attentive observation and personal reflection. In some ways I think this book even should find its way onto reading lists of university courses on this region, because it is so rich in rendering the texture of life in Georgia, its metaphysical quality.

The former Soviet Union can be a profound shock. The typical western mindset is to improve, to think of solutions, to think "if only they started to...". This makes much writing about the personal experiences in the former Soviet Union (and, in particular, the Caucasus) into a report from a narrow frontline of friction between incompatible perspectives. Wendell Steavenson is much more sophisticated, suspending the typical perspective, allowing her a fuller, more comprehensive account.

You will definitely enjoy the book.

Knowing virtually nothing of the Caucasus I felt a little overwhelmed at first; but Steavenson quickly won me over with her absorbing writing and storytelling. I felt like I was right there with her. She has an incredible insight into human nature. I can't wait to read it over again, and expect to like it even better the second time around.

I admire Wendell Steavenson for this effort. Tbilisi intrigued her - it was a pin on her map and the germ of her idea (go some place unique; collect some killer stories; write a compelling travelogue). Many have thoughts like that...Ms. Steavenson carried it out. She paints a balanced, compelling pastiche of life in Georgia as it struggles out of its post-Soviet torpor. The only shame is that Ms. Steavonson isn't around to cover the Rose Revolution in which Eduard Shevardnadze is displaced by Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement. That was 2003 and Steavenson had her work published in 2002. Missed it by that much.

"Stories I Stole" is like a mash-up of two other works I've read: Matthew Brzezniski's "Casino Moscow" and Tony Hawks' outstanding "Playing the Moldovans at Tennis." If you liked either of those works, you'll fall for Ms. Steavenson's stories.