Imitation Of Calm

"Imitation of Peace" by Lika Chelidze is a very impressive mini-novel. The text impresses first of all that the author is not afraid to be serious in our very frivolous age. One of the most tragic signs of our time is that, for fear of getting wrapped up in the dusty dust of sentimentalism, we avoid writing seriously about serious feelings and try to talk about all this with sarcasm or not, at least with irony, as if we were telling the reader: Oh, no! In fact, we did not experience what we experienced at all! Where did we get the nerve to feel the edge of it in our written works?!

Lika Chelidze does the opposite and warns us from the beginning that she is writing the main book of her life, and the author of this book is not at all afraid of wrinkles, because even the only cat, who ran away to write the book, leaves it to the neighbor.

It is difficult for me to determine whether "Imitation of Serenity" is really the book of Lika Chelidze's life. It seems to me that this book only begins with the main motifs, which must then be processed in a really great work before giving it its final shape.

Moreover, it is difficult to define the genre of the book, because this outstanding work, which I referred to as a mini-novel at the beginning of this small opus, is actually a collection of small sketches and notes, wonderful novels and short stories, but when all of this is tied together by a clearly defined ideological and emotional backbone, the whole The text is perceived as an indestructible whole, and not only because the same theme, motif or thought moves from one entry to another.

In any case, with this book, Lika Chelidze already appears as a true master of artistic psychology, and often even in the most banal life feelings and situations, the writer manages to make us feel these sensations in a completely new way and show us the said situations.

And this happens because, as I mentioned above, he is neither afraid of feelings nor of the wrinkles caused by these feelings.

By the way, not being afraid of wrinkles, not being afraid of one's own wrinkles, reminds us of the brightest lady of another era and another field of art, another country - Anna Maniani, who also did not hide her wrinkles, because they were very expensive, they were worth her whole life.

And maybe this hint of the writer is not accidental either.

In this book by Lika Chelidze, there is clearly something characteristic of the critical realism of Manian or Italian cinema. I already know what: great love for reality and characters, people and the environment in general", - Giorgi Lobzhanidze