‘The Rumbling’ (2017)

The novel ‘The Rumbling’ by Inga Ābele tells about 1949 in Riga, Sēlija and Latgale. The River Daugava, the fate of the rumbling people and species. Andrievs Radvils’ horse is spared not one bit from tasting the bitter cup of suffering, so why would anyone spare him? The resignated thought of the main character lingers through the entire novel and will remain in the mind of the reader long after the book is finished.

The work seems to imitate the classic historical novel, yet it sinks in with the rhythm of the human heart. History as fatality, human life – as a mystery, which is described more percisely by the rumble of the River Daugava, the sound of the horseshoes at the crossroads of historical events, rather than the epiphany of anyone in particular. This is a sharp look of the observer at the dazzlingly beautiful world, where every day is to be unravelled as a unique one as you dash through it, while looking for the reins hidden in the carriage of all the cause and effect that makes life. The level of personification and empathy overlays lawns of egocentricity in the pursuit of existential racecourse of eternity.

‘In the novel, just like in a magnificent lace, the fate of Latvia and its people, the painting techniques of Padegs and Irbīte, the force of nature in the River Daugava and race horses are intertwined. A pedantically naive depiction of household scenes and a fantastic amount of historical facts. Life as a game with the highest bets. The winners and the losers, the betrayers and the betrayed, to be or not to be – a game of an era with people’s fates at stake.’ (Valērijs Bolokoņs, patron of the book series ‘We. Latvia. XX Century.’).

The book was published in the series ‘We. Latvia. XX Century.’ within the framework of the SCCF’s target programme ‘National Identity’.