I found the premise behind the book to be confusing and was not a particular fan of the time differences.

Forgottenness is gorgeous. And: completely mysterious. And: very moving.

The publisher's description tells you what it's supposedly about:

"An exceedingly anxious narrator grapples with a host of conditions, from obsessive-compulsive disorder to a creeping sense of agoraphobia. As her symptoms deepen, she finds unexpected solace researching Viacheslav Lypynskyi (1882–1931), a social and political activist of Polish descent who played a pivotal role in the struggle for Ukrainian independence―and who nursed his own comorbidities. In this long-deceased ideologue the narrator finally finds companionship, mining her country’s history in pursuit of a better grasp over her own."

All right. These words, ostensibly describing what this novel is "about," are like a picture frame. Inside the frame is a work of art. The frame gives the story definition and dimension, but what is inside this frame is entirely unique and indescribable. As I read, a stream of sense impressions that bombarded me with image and movement and purposefulness. No matter how randomly arranged the happenings seemed to be, as I read along, as I read, I felt closer to understanding ... a lot of important things. Like: what connects us humans. And: what makes us care about the things we care about.

I can only imagine that Zenia Tompkins is a genius of translation because the language is so beautiful. I kept just feeling joy, over and over again, and the language, the words.

I received a copy of this book from Net Galley and the opinions expressed are my own. Reading Slavic literature seems to always telescope time and have similar themes of lost love, lost freedom, repression and yearning. A sad book in the light of the current situation in Ukraine and a reminder of their struggle that dates back hundreds of years.

I really loved the premise of this, and I really really wanted to like this (especially given current events), but this just didn't work for me. It felt disjointed, and I feel like the message was lost between too many distractions from the story.

My thanks to NetGalley and Liveright Press for this ARC, which I received for my free and unbiased review of Tanja Maljartschuk’s novel Forgottenness, translated from Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins.

This book follows a protagonist with OCD, alcoholism, and agoraphobia. She becomes obsessed with researching an historical figure and political activist for Ukrainian independence, who also suffered from hypochondria. Throught, this book reminded me of Doestoevsky’s Notes from the Underground with its equally alienated antihero seeking answers in a world with no absolute good or evil. The protagonist also evoke Italian Renaissance author who was a hypochondriac and wrote extensively about his medical problems and self diagnoses.

Unfortunately, for all that the author might be well meaning in her approach to making claims about Ukrainian freedom, that message is lost in the slog of psychoses. I found myself bored by page 25 and wanted to DNF by page 50. Even so, I finished. The two stars are for what attempts to be an important project commenting on the author’s country and its right of self determination free of Russian warfare. Just not pleasure reading, nor does it effectively make its point as it risks losing so many readers in the welter of the protagonists mental health musings and rambling. The primary theme is fear of being lost in time, but that itself is lost in melancholy and bleakness.

This book tells the stories of two lives, one of an ostensibly successful writer who slowly succumbs to anxiety and agoraphobia, and a Ukrainian political activist from the past, whose life story she finds solace in as she scrambles to prevent her nation's history from being forgotten forever. The major theme is a fear of being lost to time, which described as a big blue whale that swallows everything mercilessly and moves on uncaring. This imagery evokes a sense of hopelessness as the author fights against the erasure of Ukrainian history, and the reader fully feels the sense of desperation that the main character has in preserving what she can of their history. Although the plot moves slowly, the prose is beautifully written as the author invites you to take bathe in a sea of melancholy, reflecting upon our own losses to the big blue whale.