Baho’s meditation on time and the way it is presented in the novel really stood out to me. I first noticed when I began reading, that time is mentioned at many points in the opening pages and so I began to highlight each sentence that contained the word.
“Times have changed (2).”
“How times are tough (3).”
“They did not run from time; they knew it was always near them (3).”
“Time had carried him off (4).”
“Time had been unjust to her (4).”
“The war severed time from humanity in the Hariho way of life. It showed that time does change (5).”
“in reality, life is a trilogy. A trilogy of humanity, time, and place (5).”
After looking at all of these passages as a whole, I saw time as more than just a moment. I saw time almost as a character in the novel as a figure or a spirit. Maybe each line is describing the character of time. Time is tough. Time has changed. Time carried her husband away from her. Time was unjust to the old woman. Time was severed from humanity. Time is apart of the trilogy of life itself. Time is more than just a moment in space.
This idea of the author taking something as simple as time and creating a whole character out of it exemplifies the idea of how art is portrayed in the novel. It creates a whole scene from a small moment. The whole novel is filled with moments and stories that are expanded and made into something that is much more than it was originally. The author adds more emotion and feeling to each idea he creates. He takes time and gives it rough characteristics of being unjust and taking away from people, but then he adds the fact that nobody is running from it. Time is the evil monster that everyone accepts and faces instead of living in fear of. They know that time will change the way of life and time will take their loved ones and themselves eventually and time will be unkind, but they also know that there is no way of stopping time from doing what it does. And although time has brought these people sorrow and hard times, it has also brought them their happiest moments that they will always cherish. They do not run from time because maybe they know that while they are running from the bad times, they might miss out on the good times as well. Time can be evil, but there is also beauty in it.
Literary Genres in Translation 