Review: 'This is Not Civilization' by Robert Rosenberg

A former Peace Corp volunteer, Robert Rosenberg uses his sojourns in an Apache Indian Reservation in the US, in Kyrgyzstan and in Turkey to weave a treat of a cross cultural novel where even Americans are just one more people finding a meaningful address on this earth. However addresses come at the cost of permanency and a bond, if not to land, then perhaps to the people met and promises made. It is this bond that his debut novel This is Not Civilization explores: what do relationships mean in a world where it is increasingly easy to get up, get on a plane and move on.

Twenty three year old Jeff Hartig, college graduated son of white upper-middle class America is shattered by his father's adultery. As a distraction he decides to be useful to humanity and, straight after college, applies for the post of manager at a Teen Center in Red Cliffs Apache reservation, Arizona. However Jeff’s efforts—a computer laboratory, a functional library, a game room with music, Ping-Pong, foosball— are repeatedly vandalized and finally Jeff packs his bags.

Conflicted Apache teen Adam Dale, ‘the only student at the high school trailer with the attendance record to qualify’ for the job of Jeff’s assistant, is sorely disappointed with Jeff’s incumbent departure. Also he is mystified by Jeff’s non-committal lifestyle: how is Jeff able to break ties so easily, indeed to run away from a sense of responsibility?

Next the self centered Jeff is accepted by the Peace Corps and sent to the remote mountain village of Kyzyl Adyr Kirovka in post-Soviet Kyrgstan to teach English. Rosenberg deftly weaves a comical picture of the languid Kirovka folk going about their life as they know it while their country transitions from a communist economy to the opportunities of privatization. The gracious, party loving villagers submerge their new English teacher with generous hospitality- eat, vodka, eat, vodka then eat and vodka some more. However all the villagers secretly hope that Jeff will marry one of their daughters and whisk her away to the good i.e. financially secure American life.

Most hopeful to this end is the energetic Anerbek Tashtantaliev manager of the village’s main livelihood, a defunct cheese factory still financed by the ex-communist government because of a bureaucratic mix-up. Anarbek lives in fear of discovery, but soon he has greater problems when his daughter Nazira falls from grace on account of running away from the man who would be her husband via the ancient Kyrgyz tradition of bride-kidnapping. Rosenberg’s ability to seamlessly weave in cultural nuggets without exoticizing a culture or pronouncing judgments is one of the novel’s strong points. In fact it compels the reader to ponder what exactly it means to be civilized and who decides that--the locals or visitors, the native born or the immigrants, the domestic governments or those providing foreign aid?

Nazira is Rosenberg’s most realized creation. A thoroughly progressive Muslim woman, smart, resourceful and independent, she sets out to seduce Jeff as best as she can. But Jeff, a somewhat vapid character perhaps because he really doesn’t have much of an inner conflict save that of good intentions laced with apathy, moves when his Peace Corp gig ends feeling guilty for the impulsive one night stand with Nazira but with, as usual, no real strings attached.

Jeff travels to many countries finally landing in Turkey. In Istanbul he finds a job resettling refugees who are trying to get into the US, the home Jeff has no desire to return to. The irony does not escape Jeff and, even more poignant is his feeling that this job, between anchorless folk, has finally anchored him and given him purpose.

Jeff’s jollity is put to a test when his past knocks on his door and his home becomes a communal address. First enters Adam. University completed, Reservation left behind, he wants to see what the world has to offer, can he crash at Jeff’s? Next comes Anarbek who is being blackmailed in Kyrgstan to the tune of twelve thousand dollars or else his cheese factory fraud will be reported to the authorities. When her father does not return to the village in the prescribed time Nazira, her heart heavy with the secret she’s keeping from Jeff, arrives in Istanbul too.

Particularly enjoyable is Rosenberg’s depiction of big city Istanbul, a delectable mix of East and West, ancient and modern, city slick and village bumpkin, ‘the sense that this city lay at the center of the world.’ The prose is always vigorous and never gets bogged down with details for the sake of details or pretty sunsets in different countries like so many cross-cultural novels tend to do. True to form the novel does not end with a sunset over the Bosphorus, instead, just when it seems everyone is set, Istanbul is rocked by the devastating earthquake of 1999 and the novel spirals to its satisfying conclusion of what home and obligations ultimately mean for each character.

This is Not Civilization goes deeper than being merely a tale of similarities and dissimilarities between East and West and whether the twain shall ever meet. Instead it attempts to probe what happiness means and how, in all likelihoods, it means the same thing everywhere, or does it? Rosenberg says in an interview, “I find this amazing: how quickly the world has become connected, how straight forward it is for even relatively impoverished people to search out a new home. It no longer requires an epic journey across the sea, or a year's trek across a continent. I wanted to write a novel which reflected this reality, this flux and interconnectedness.”

What Rosenberg sets out to do he achieves above all with humor. The novel begins with one of the funniest opening I’ve read in a long time: ‘The idea of using porn films to encourage the dairy cows to breed was a poor one’; the earnest blooper is carried further when Anarbek supposes that perhaps the scheme failed because the videos featured sheep.