The Aviator

I think every woman has come across at least once in a life time with the preconception that men are always better than women in some domains, that women are weak and that their place is at home with the children.

The same problem seems to have Sürey Vanay, a woman who struggles to make a carrier as an aviator, who is in love with the heights and who dreams about flying higher and higher until she gets to mount Histo. 

The book, written by Sandra Coroian, appeared in 2017 at Quantum Publishers. In it’s 141 pages, it expresses so many feelings and so many experiences, it brings such an impact on your soul that you don’t know how to react. 

I admit that I was never prepared to read such a book. Fantasy was not quite my type, and Sci Fi was even less. But somehow Quantum Publishers always manages to surprise me. To make me think again about all my possibilities.

After Gamah, their grandfather, has died, Süre and her brother Sergei seem to live in peace, both of them becoming successful aviators. They only have each other and try to enjoy each and every moment they have. But the happiness won’t take long, as Sergei suddenly disappears while in a mission. Süre feels alone, abandoned and finds no use in her life, until she receives the most important mission of her carrier, to deliver a message to an address she has never heard of. But after departing to fulfil it, she finds that things are not so clear as they should be. She gets lost in a parallel universe, full of war, hate and uncertainty. She meets Ohm, a man who seems to be her guide into this experience that she doesn’t understand and doesn’t want to be in. She tries to wake up thinking that she is dreaming, but apparently everything is real. The war is real, the world she got into is real. And from a mission for delivering a message transforms into a mission of survival and, maybe, finding her brother. But will she understand the real purpose why she was sent here?

I see this book as one of discovery. The discovery of self, of feelings, emotions and courage. Süre never wanted her grandfather to die, or her brother to disappear.  She only wanted to be a simple aviator who gets herself remarked in front of her superiors and her colleagues. But her destiny seems to have prepared something else for her. 

During the story, another misterios character appears. Balakian, a man who is caught between the hatred of a woman and the atrocities of the war. A man who has nothing to lose and only wants to stop the war. The two of them start a journey of rescuing. But when she gets into the village that was supposed to be her’s nothing is left. Nothing she remembered was there. Not the people nor the houses or trees or anything like. She is into some kind of struggle between understanding what is happening to her and deciding to tell Balakian. She is afraid that he might think she is mad. And although she has the courage to enter a war and fight and shoot a gun, she does not have to courage to face a man she started to have feelings for. She cannot decide if she wants to fight against her feelings for a man presumably insane or to accept them for the kind, gentle and mysterious one. 

The two characters are so much alike, yet so different. She has no idea what she got herself into. She is used to a quiet, boring life, while he lives in a war, struggling for his life. When she first see him, she sees him as an irresponsible fool who tries to commit suicide, and he thinks she is lost in space and she is somehow crazy. In a way, both of them were right. Balakian adventures himself into a fight for peace that he could never win, and on the other hand Süre really is out of space, she has no clue where she is at and what has happened to her and her life, nor who the man in front of her is. Meanwhile, images of her brother keep coming out and she doesn’t know how to face them. Are their real, is her brother still alive, will she ever see him again? So many questions and so little answers. 

But why was it necessary such a journey? Why could not Süre find her way in her village, forgotten by the world with nothing interesting to happen? Maybe because she wouldn’t have found the truth and, most important, she wouldn’t have found herself. This experience made her stronger, made her discover what she is really capable of. While young, she was kind of scared of life, of living, loving and acceptance. But with meeting Balakian she found the strength in herself that she never had thought she would find. She discovered how strong her feelings can be and how pleasant love can be. She had to realise that the love is waiting just at the back of her door, and she must only see it. 

I saw this book as a metaphor of our own lives. We all live in a parallel universe one way or another. We all at some point see only what we want to see and live in our own world, without caring or noticing the ones around us. We live in our own bird cage without realising that we are not actually free, not until we release our feelings and let ourselves go. And freedom is the one we should all be proud with. 

© picnicontheshelf, November 16, 2018