A Man Was Going Down the Road

Set in Vani, the semi-legendary capital of Colchis (as western Georgia was called in antiquity), Otar Chiladze’s first novel of 1972 explores the Georgian ramifications of the myth of Jason, the Golden Fleece and Medea, weaving his own inventions with Greek myth and history. (Daedalus and Icarus, as well as King Minos play a part in the story, too.) At the same time, the novel explores very modern predicaments of the idealist who unwittingly destroys his family. The mythical Greek intervention in Colchis is subtly told by Chiladze as an allegory of Russia’s and the Soviet Union’s subversion and conquest of Georgia.