The children of Cain

They were teenagers, back in ’79; now they are in their late 40s. They had a good life, they are well dressed, well mannered, well read, they are rather wealthy – it seems they’ve got it made. Why do they go back to the beach, then? What do they expect to find? Spending the prolonged weekend is just an excuse, of course; Kainourgio used to be a small, picturesque fisherman’s village, but has turned into another hopelessly crowded tourists’ resort. Since during these three same days the village is hosting a European screenwriting seminar, let’s put it in terms of a b-movie: they have to go back, like a killer who can’t help returning to the scene of the crime. The years of prosperity that went by were just a screen that covered up their motives, for as long as it needed for the victim to slip into oblivion… Six people who once were close friends go back to the village where they used to spend their summers as teenagers. The place has turned into a seaside-Babel, only, instead of a tower, with a restored, castrated windmill, which, strangely enough, now belongs to one of them. The obvious changes in the scenery provoke a cross-examination with the other –much more crucial, although invisible- changes in their inner world.   The heroes of this novel belong to the “generation of change” – “change” being the slogan of the socialists in the early ’80s. Throughout those 30 years the country has changed dramatically; the same goes for its people. But what really happened inGreece during the quiet years, the years of growth and prosperity? And how the Greeks were affected by what happened? The novel refers to an invisible, silent war – a war, nevertheless, that took place during this period and led inevitably into the current crisis. Like in every war, there were victims and collateral damages and losses… Moral values and aesthetic and the fabric of society being the most prominent among the casualties of this war…   A chorus of young European screenwriters is there, watching the drama along with their American tutors, just to emphasize the contradictions, while commenting on the story-telling at the same time.   The children of Cain is an attempt to depict the face of modernGreece, behind the mask of the usual travel agency posters’ clichés.   A literary requiem for the generation of consumers that led Greece to its current state of crisis (excerpt from Vangelis Hadjivassileiou’s review in To Vima tis Kyriakis) …When they arrive at the island the five friends are financially established, but, morally, they are empty and existentially exhausted (whether they realize it or not), because they are typical products of the lies and corruption in which the Greek society was soaked, while she believed she was marching towards the triumph of her European upgrade. The fake glamour of this triumph has covered all the symptoms that were foretelling the current catastrophe: political and corporate depredation, governmental nepotism, unthinkable waste of public revenues, but also the atrocities of tourist development, the capitalistic savagery, the rise –by all means- of individualism. Sofia, Petros, Antigone, Sakis, Irene and Christos are the children of Cain. The traces of biblical Cain’s descendants’ were erased because of the Flood, and the same goes for the protagonists in Panayotopoulos’ novel – they are about to fade out, breathless, just before their era reaches its limits. Panayotopoulos’ novel is a dense anatomy of the crisis, although the word is never mentioned. Maybe because the novel isn’t written for the crisis (nevertheless, it hits the bull’s eye), maybe because naming things isn’t necessary, maybe because literature doesn’t need to serve the topical –and when she doesn’t, she unearths diamonds. In “The Children of Cain” the writer sets up a seemingly loose narration, with multiple characters speaking in a rather verbal idiom, but behind the scene he organizes a complex literary game. The text ironically comments on itself and the procedure of its making, resorting to a variety of techniques: multiple points of view that constantly shift the heart of truth until it eventually becomes inaccessible, cinematic frames, transcription of the action into the screenwriting language, theatrical scenes, chess puzzles, lists of names (of famous drownings), a novel within the novel, elements of detective novel parody, ancient Greek swearwords, common Latin quotes, etc. With these tools in his hands, Panayotopoulos produces an explosive Black Comedy, with a deliberate slow-burning pace in order to infuse –as deep as possible- its bitter message on the one hand and on the other hand to avoid any loud result.

Vangelis Hadjivassileiou

To Vima tis Kyriakis

16.10.2011

The Children of Cain in the Greek Press: