On one hand, The Story of the King of One is narrated in Irakli Charkviani’s novel – a real story in regard to how a Georgian rock star was born as a king at 43 years old and on the other hand there is a description of Rumi’s – a terrorist from Kabul – final ordeals as he is sitting in the cabin of an airplane before hitting the bomb switch.
From the modern works of world literature it is possible for A PEACEFUL SWIM to have a comparison to Haruki Murakami’s novel KAFKA ON THE SHORE in which the odd chapters tell us about the story of one person and the even chapters narrate about a second one. But the fates of both these people draw closer to each other and combine together at some point. The lives of the King and Rumi develop parallel to each other, as if their fate is chained together and is the expression of the dual nature of one person. One is a principle of construction, the other – of destruction.
The life and consciousness of Irakli Charkviani was probably marked most of all by the tragic history of the “Airplane Boys”, which occurred in 1983. A PEACEFUL SWIM is a novel written via the stream of consciousness principle, where reality periodically comes up to the surface like mines.