The Silence of Trees (38 page)
Read The Silence of Trees Online
Authors: Valya Dudycz Lupescu
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary, #Genre Fiction, #Historical, #Cultural Heritage, #Literary, #Women's Fiction, #Domestic Life, #Contemporary Fiction, #Family Life, #Historical Fiction, #European, #Literary Fiction, #Romance, #The Silence of Trees, #Valya Dudycz Lupescu, #kindle edition
The journey to complete this novel spanned into the next century and stretched across two continents. Along the way, friends and family have read many versions of The Silence of Trees, providing valuable edits and critique. I am grateful for each and every question and comment.
I want to thank the Ukrainian American elders who have over the years allowed me to listen to their stories of life before, during, and after WWII. I hope that I have honored them here. I also want to thank Abner Ganet for sharing his experiences as a Jewish American soldier involved in the D-Day Normandy landing and the liberation of Buchenwald.
In 2008, Amazon.com had its first Breakthrough Novel Award contest. As one of 836 Semifinalists, The Silence of Trees received more than 200 customer reviews from all over the world! I was touched by the support of friends and strangers. To all of you who read and reviewed my entry, you have my sincere gratitude. Thanks also to my fellow ABNA semifinalists, many of whom have become friends and supporters. I hope to someday have all their books on my bookshelf.
I would like to thank Marta D. Olynyk, who was my proofreader of all things Ukrainian; my amazing editor Laura Bridgewater; and my talented cover artist Madeline Carol Matz.
In The Silence of Trees, family is integral to the protagonist, Nadya. I thank my own extended family—grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. While the events and characters of this novel are fictional, they have been inspired by the love, humor, passion, and challenges I’ve witnessed in my own family.
I thank my parents, Walter and Oksana Dudycz, for always supporting my drive to write, and for being readers, editors, critics, chauffeurs, babysitters, and cheerleaders during the writing of this book. Thanks also to my sister, Nadya, whose eye for detail caught many inconsistencies and errors, and who has always remained one of my dearest friends and supporters. It is no coincidence that she shares the same name as the central character.
I am a mother, wife, friend, and writer. I would not be able to juggle all these things without the assistance of my family and friends, and most of all the unconditional support of my husband, Mark. In the last ten years, we have lived in three cities, two countries, and on two continents. We have had three children, three cats, and three gardens. We have traveled across Europe, started a literary magazine, and shared adventures. Through it all, Mark has supported me as I carve out time from our lives to write and edit. His faith, patience, and generosity have made it possible for me to finish this book and share it with you.
I also thank you, my readers, for allowing me to share this story with you. In this evolving world of social networking, I welcome a conversation with you on twitter (@Valya) or on my blog (
www.vdlupescu.com/journal
).
THE SILENCE OF TREES
A Reader’s Companion
THE STORY BEHIND THE SILENCE OF TREES
When I was a child, my parents took turns reading stories to me before bedtime. I’ve wanted to be a writer since that first moment sitting under a pink patchwork blanket with my little sister, my mother’s voice creating a new world in my mind’s eye. I knew then that words were magic, that stories could transform ordinary reality, if only for a few hours.
As I grew older, I discovered that I had at my disposal a wealth of new stories, tales unwritten in books. My grandparents would share stories with me from their childhood in Western Ukraine. After Ukrainian school on Saturdays, many of my visits would consist of fresh potato varenyky, rye bread and butter, and folk tales passed down for generations.
My novel is fiction, but I was inspired by their stories and the tales I heard from other Ukrainian American elders. While many were eager to share anecdotes from their youth and stories from home, it has only been in the last two decades that these elders have begun to speak out about their experiences during World War II. Fear has kept many of their voices silent for over half a century.
Only after Ukraine achieved independence on August 24, 1991, did some begin to feel safe enough to talk about their experiences. They began to open up the doors to the past; doors that remained tightly sealed for over fifty years. Their trend of self-revelation and reclaiming the past were my inspiration.
My novel is written from 70-year-old Nadya Lysenko’s perspective. Hers is a woman’s experience of war and sacrifice, a story of revelation and resolution. Nadya has secrets that she never shared with her husband or family. Hers is a past ridden with guilt and regret. Yet Nadya realizes that if she dies without disclosing the secrets of her youth, her memories will die with her. Only by sharing the stories of her family and friends can she allow them to live on in the hearts of her children and grandchildren. Nadya chooses to remain silent…but sometimes the Universe has a different plan.
I brought to this novel my love of mythology and appreciation of folklore. The Ukrainian people have a rich cultural heritage that serves as the backdrop for Nadya’s story. Thus it also became a story about myth—both cultural and personal. The mythic qualities create a sense of magic realism in the story, for Nadya’s daily reality is rich in old superstitions and traditions: She still tosses the first crumb of bread into the stove for the hearth spirits and knocks on woods to avoid tempting fate. In her world, dreams can come true, ghosts do whisper in the night, and a fortuneteller’s cards can predict the future.
The relationship of humanity with nature is also critical in the novel. It is not a supernatural experience; rather it is a hyper-natural reality. The Divine is present in the world, and everything is interconnected. Ancient Ukrainian people believed that the forces in the spiritual world affect human beings and their relationships. Even after Christianity was brought to Ukraine in the 10th century, the Old Ways still survived alongside the new religion. These traditions were filtered into the holidays and remained a part of everyday life. Many survived the immigration to America and are still a part of Ukrainian American culture.
To this day I don’t allow whistling in the house for fear of attracting malevolent spirits, and I light candles along with my prayers. I hope to show that there is wisdom and beauty in the old ways and in the old stories. We have much to learn from them and from the elders in our community who are the trustees of this wisdom.
I wrote this book to honor my grandmothers and all women who have lived through war and lost themselves in the struggle to survive. Too often they have been silenced, their stories unrecorded in the annals of history. It is my hope that this novel speaks with their voices, preserves their legacy, and reveals the power of stories—to remind, to heal, to connect, to teach, and to transform.
Valya Dudycz Lupescu, 2010
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1) Stories are an integral part of The Silence of Trees. What are some of the stories that Nadya recounts and what is their importance to the larger story?
2) Review the vorozhka’s prediction? Did it come true? Discuss the role and importance of dreams, signs, and omens in the book.
3) What are the important trees in the book? Why do you think the author chose to title her book, The Silence of Trees?
4) Discuss the dynamics of each of Nadya’s romantic relationships. How are they similar and different?
5) Female relationships figure prominently in The Silence of Trees. Discuss the dynamics of Nadya’s relationship with her Baba Hanusia, Mama Paraska, Ana, Katya, and Lesya.
6) In The Silence of Trees, we watch Nadya grow from adolescence to old age. Discuss how she changes and matures. What lessons does she learn as a young woman and as an older woman.
7) If you had to pick one word to describe her life from the time she left home until she receives the first empty envelope, what word would you choose? How does Nadya’s life change after she receives the envelope?
8) How might Nadya’s life have been different if she had fled alone without Stephan after visiting the vorozhka? What if she had stayed in the village?
9) Is it important that Nadya is a peasant and cleaning lady, not a teacher or professional woman? How does her status shape her life and experience of the world? With what result?
10) Is the story told in chronological order? Why do you think the author chose to write it in this way?
11) What does Nadya care most deeply about in her life? How does this shape her character and world view?
12) What is the significance of the various spirits who appear to Nadya in the story?
13) What is the story’s central conflict? Is it between characters, a character and society, a character and nature? Is it internal—an emotional struggle within the character? Does the conflict create tension, even suspense, to hold your interest?
14) Can you identify any symbols in the book—people, actions or objects that stand for something greater than themselves?
15) Which character do you most identify with and why?
16) Discuss the significance of Nadya’s acts of letting go of the past. How might you have acted differently?
17) Each of the three sections begins with an epigraph. Discuss their significance.
18) Who did you think sent the first letter? Were you surprised to find out that it was from Nadya’s sister? What other letters are important in the story?
19) When they are talking on the telephone, Halya tells Nadya that Stephan told her that "he never forgot the smell of the raspberries." What do you think he meant?
20) If you were going to have another character from The Silence of Trees tell us the story, whom would you choose? How might the story be different?
©
Photo by Kyle Cassidy
VALYA DUDYCZ LUPESCU
is a writer and the founding editor of Conclave: A Journal of Character. Born and raised in Chicago, she received her degree in English at DePaul University and earned her MFA in Writing as part of the inaugural class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where she began working on The Silence of Trees). Her novel,
The Silence of Trees
, was selected as a Semifinalist in the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. She occasionally teaches workshops around Chicago and online, and helps to facilitate a monthly gathering of writers and artists. For the last seven years, she and her husband, along with their three children, have been dividing their time between the United States and Germany. They currently reside in Chicago. Visit her website at: http://
www.vdlupescu.com
and follow her on twitter @Valya
Table of Contents
Table of Contents