The Lost Gold
by Kaushik Yegnan is a brilliantly penned down general fiction with sub themes
like war days, human aspirations, history, family allegiance and legacy, and a
few more. As the one gets into this novella, which claims to be an hour’s
reading, cross-cultural backdrop begins amusing. The novella has a timeline
that stretches from 1920s to 2008. Such a lengthy time frame, and surprisingly
it gets covered in just 51 pages, probably the author knows how to put sweeps
and back stories credibly. To be more precise, flashback narrative technique
has been used to make the most of it.
Coming to the
story, it first revolves around a family named Kaufmanns, in Germany. Stephan
Mathias Kaufmann is a scientist and due to his good work, he is close to Fuhrer
Hitler. This is the time when the ground for WW-II was shaping up, especially
in Germany. Stephan has only one child Andrei, he is shy and aloof, spends most
of his time chasing butterflies in the backyard. His father wants him to follow
a path of glorious career through academics, a career like scientific research.
However, that didn’t happen. Why? May be because of Jesse Owens and Hitler?
The event of
1936 changed Andrei’s life drastically; he was so much captivated by the long
jump sports that gradually his orientation shifted to that game instead of
following his father’s commands or academics. That is one aspect of human
aspiration, not necessary that getting a fit into the lineage is the best
suited one. Here this child silently revolts against his own father to travel
on some other path.
The book is
short but the intensity of the ambience built around from time 1920s to 1940s
is remarkable. Especially in the year of 1940, what led to cancellation of
Olympics and how many lives got affected by it? This novella conveys that part
magnificently. The author has talked about unspoken anguish and the lost gold
medals. These themes have a lot to do with the Olympics events covered in the
book, especially the 1940 and 1980 ones. The journey and the allied sports
glory from Andrei Kaufmann to Andy Kaufmann was terrific.
The author’s
fast-paced narrative brings out the core of human psychic related to life goals
and aspirations. Not only this, but the blending of other aspects and themes
are also covered nicely, for instance the suppression of Jews, the rising of
Hitler in Germany’s household chores, aftermath effects of WW-II and
generational suffering about hidden pain and anguish. The best part of the
novel is when it revolves around war days, the story of that maid Bretta not
only going to make you uncomfortable but also break your heart in the absence
of compassion.
It seems that
the author must have done tremendous research to pen down a novella almost
tangential to the war days in Europe. He succeeded in putting credibility among
each character and overall setting. However, on a flip side, the author could
have stretched this novella to a size of a full novel, filled with spies and
love stories. In the end, it was his choice. Well, still it reads like a good
one.
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