Esau’s Hands
- ISBN:
- 978-9941-458-75-0
- Category:
- Modern Georgian Prose
- Pages:
- 178
- Format:
- 14.8x21
- Cover:
- Soft
- Price:
- 8.95
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Dato Kardava has a unique method of painting his own characters. They, as a rule, constantly carry some comic features, being caricatures. It is almost as if the author is merciless towards them, but the mocking tone sounding out during their characterization can disappear at a whim, with the intonation of the narrative and the relationship towards the characters changing diametrically. This ambivalent quality, a change of the angles is not a superficial game thought up by the author. This is his position, vision, and aesthetic going out on an ethical tight-rope.
Biblical and religious themes and a religious motif are prominent in almost all the short stories – NOAH'S DOVES, ESAU'S HANDS and elsewhere. Except it is not possible to perceive this motif completely seriously. A reflection of the pseudo-religiosity of Georgian society has emerged somewhat in these texts. It is as if everyone is a believer wrestling with biblical and Gospel themes. Someone has a genuine hope in God and someone else less so, showing some religiosity, but everything here is frequently fake, insincere as in Georgian society.
Journalism is also a theme that pervades the entire book, possibly transforming into anti-journalism between the eyes and the hands. There’s the journalist’s codex, which is the codex of an anti-journalist. Here is one of his points from ESAU'S HANDS: “A bad journalist is sold once, a good one – every time.”
Dato Kardava’s ESAU'S HANDSs was the winner of the 2016 LITERA Award in the category The Year’s Best Prosaic Collection.