Afghanistan, Kuwait, the Caucasus, Farya
The Devil’s Tears were released for the first time in 2015, and I am holding the second, revised edition of the text in my hands. A few years after the premiere, Jakub Małecki wrote a story that immediately reminded me of the genesis of this fat knig. The hero of Horizon returns from the mission, suffering from PTSD. At first, he is completely overwhelmed with it, and finally begins to write a story about desert magic and its warfare applications. I do not know if entering the metaphor had a similarly therapeutic meaning for Kozak, but she certainly started writing while stationed in Afghanistan, so she did not let her fairy tale wait for Polish housing estates and winters.
I allow myself this time turmoil, I am intertwining 2015, 2020 (two editions of Tears ) and 2018 ( Horizon ) a little to prepare you for the structure of Kozak’s book. We have two parallel narratives in it, happening more or less at the same time or slightly shifted in relation to each other. They show the war as we know from the news about the Middle East or the Caucasus from two different perspectives: the authorities and the terrorists. As befits a decent fairy tale, we have a prince, a shepherd boy, brave warriors, spies and beautiful princesses. Almost non-fiction elements creep into the novel : the rulers are supported by mercenaries and consultants selling modern weapons and teaching warriors the latest combat techniques. Now watch out – it’s all science fictionpretending to be a fantasy , like in the Lord of the Ice Garden . Farja, where the battles take place, is on an alien planet, and the technological achievements are sent as part of trade with Earth.
Desert and sea of rocks
On Earth, the human planet of Saint-Exupéry, he told tales of menacing Berbers who brought the sands to life with their presence. In the 90s, our country lived with reports from Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, which fascinated us since the time of our brotherhood with Russia, strongly involved in the conflict there (if you have the opportunity, watch the animation of Anka Damian Czarodziejska Góra, telling the biography of Jacek Winkler, a Polish oppositionist, and then the fighter). I borrowed the title of my review from Grzegorz Ciechowski, who sang about the Caucasus, carried by emotions similar to those of Winkler. The devil’s tearsthey use motifs known to us from all these conflicts, like the words of beloved childhood fairy tales. The romanticism of the fight for freedom and the involvement of strangers who care about some resource. Often pus or poppies …
The Earthlings, the true Aliens in Farja, care about the title tears, a drug that makes a person gentle, willing to help others, peaceful and content in every way. Yes, wars occur only outside our planet, but this is only the background of Kozak’s story, which focuses on the campaign of a young prince trying to conquer his neighbors and thus end the long-standing stalemate in relations between his kingdom and his neighbor. You know, everyone calls everyone here a vassal, but they’ve never seen any tribute, and worse, the strained ties between countries make it difficult to use the routes necessary for smooth trade with the Aliens.
The young prince will painstakingly cover the kilometers separating him from the enemy’s strongholds, learning and maturing. Will he become a hero or a responsible ruler? Will he get fame and love? He will ask himself this question more than once, but it will always turn out that even in fairy tales the answer will not be simple or obvious. At the same time, a shepherd who knows horses very well, but completely oblivious to who he is, will grow up to be a terrorist, and a famous one at that. He will be shelling the bases of the royal army, planning a diversion and assassinations. They will write songs about him.
On both sides of the mirror
Magdalena Koza wrote The Devil’s Tears in a great style, ideally suited to military science fiction pretending to be fantasy . He weaves foreign-sounding proper names and phrases into the dialogues, giving the text the flavor of reportage and fairy tales at the same time. It allows the characters to joke and then fall into pathos, which they will sometimes be ashamed of. It describes military operations in detail, but never loses the attention of the recipient, even a reader who is completely uninterested in military technology. For me, the most important were consistent, realistic heroes. I was also diligently searching for descriptions of Farja’s tradition or society that appeared from time to time.
You already know more or less what the Kozak magnum opus offers . What’s not in it? There are hardly any women, traditionally war is a male thing. Farja is a conservative country, but we look at it from the perspective of warriors, not civilians, so the everyday life of this society is a distant background to the entire history. There will be two interesting supporting characters, but you will have to wait a while for them. There is also no broad, galactic perspective, you will hear about Earth only sometimes, from the mouths of Aliens themselves.
Moreover, Tears are a fairy tale about two faces of war, both considered right and noble by a given party to the conflict. The Cossack will not allow you to choose whose successes you will be more happy about, who to worry about – a prince or a terrorist. And when he teaches you to love them, a question will appear in the back of your head – are all these heroic deeds, or rather all these deaths necessary and justified? Is it possible to somehow stop the escalation of the conflict? Go back to everyday life? The author will not necessarily answer these questions, but it will almost certainly make you reflect.
Kozak plays with dualism, confusing leads to the very end and creating a touching, unexpected ending. As in a fairy tale, good and bad must find their place in morale. You just have to make sure which is which.
