Soviet Milk

"It was also published not too long ago in Estonian and is still considered to be in the top 10, from what I understand. Right away, it was a big hit. People have been talking about it and are still writing reviews and articles about it. For readers from Western Europe, I think it’s a book that really sums up the Soviet experience. Especially regarding the latter half of the Soviet occupation. Moreover, I think the story—a mother/daughter relationship—is universal. From my perspective, it’s actually the most important aspect of the book. Essentially, the general arc of the story centers on a medical researcher and her daughter. For various reasons, after some time spent in Leningrad (where she was working), she is sent back to the countryside in Latvia. She lives there together with her daughter, who has a very difficult time understanding why her mother acts the way she does. The mother doesn’t feel that she has any motherly instincts, hence the title of the book. We observe them living together, through the 70s and 80s, as the mother has a very difficult time simply living life. You could say that she has some form of depression. Throughout the novel, this relationship between mother and daughter gets worked and reworked, from the daughter’s point of view—the perspective of a younger generation—as well as the mother’s. All the while their relationship unfolds against the backdrop of historical events in the Soviet Union. The mother is very anti-Communist; the daughter is raised in a milieu that considers Soviet power to be bad. From her own personal experience, however, attending school and growing up, she doesn’t see anything bad about it. Only later as she matures does she start to understand some of her mother’s beliefs, what her mother was saying about the regime. This dichotomy pervades the story. The perspectival shifts between mother and daughter, right down to the narrative voice, are brilliantly executed by Nora Ikstena. These two perspectives are so very different. We identify at first with the mother; sensing her voice coming through, we come to believe in her. Then the reader grows to realize that we’re really seeing everything through the daughter’s eyes. Ikstena’s writing is tremendously skillful. The characters of the grandparents we can very much recognise among older members of Latvian society today. If I go meet somebody’s parents (or older individuals generally) today, for example, these characters from Ikstena’s book come alive. On some level, you can probably see similar attitudes to this across the former Eastern bloc. From a more universal perspective, generations change everywhere, and each is affected differently by historical circumstance. In the former Soviet Union, however, there was a major historical break when the USSR fell apart. Many of my local friends—people who are now in their 30s, let’s say—talk about how their parents are afraid of new things. They were the parents who grew up ideologically pure; they were post-war kids. In the new environment, these are people that are very afraid to do anything out of line. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . There was tremendous conformism under the Soviets. You were just supposed to follow the party line and not do anything unorthodox, because if you did, the consequences could be dire. There’s a distinction between the immediate postwar generation and people who were born before World War II. They certainly endured hardship, but their attitude to authority—to the state—is very different. Interestingly, their grandchildren (people that grew up in the 1980’s, and certainly those born after 1990), have almost come full circle in their attitudes. They almost have their grandparents’ views on some level. Ikstena’s book echoes this in the way that the character of the daughter can relate more closely to her grandparents than to her own mother, definitely something that is very much a part of the fabric of contemporary Baltic society."