36 pages • 1-hour read
The Tsar of Love and Techno
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Side A, Story 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Side A, Story 2 Summary: “Granddaughters”
A collective group of women narrate “Granddaughters.” The story begins in 1937. The ballerina’s story from the picture in “The Leopard” provides context for the ballerina’s granddaughter Galina’s story. Galina is both beautiful and ambitious, uncommonly so for her sociopolitical context. She tells her father that she wants to be a dancer, just as her grandmother was. Her dancing career is successful, and eventually she becomes Miss Siberia, then even a film actress. As the plural narrators speak of her accomplishments, Galina’s life is by far the most interesting thing that the women experience vicariously. Her success is a shared validation for all Siberian women, despite the narrators’ gossip and resentment of her.
Kolya, Galina’s high school love interest, joins the army to evade prison after the court finds him guilty of both drug-dealing and murder. Galina marries the 13th-richest oligarch in Russia. While Kolya may be her one true love, the oligarch brings her social status and wealth. Eventually, however, Galina falls out of favor with the oligarch. When they separate, she loses everything except her daughter, and she spends her final days living an ordinary life. Kolya dies in Chechnya.
Side A, Story 2 Analysis
The initial impetus of Galina’s story serves as a story of female empowerment, as she climbs her way to the top through grit and ambition. However, when it matters most, she loses everything simply because she no longer has the support of a man. Furthermore, she gets caught in the political machinery of her societal context, which prompts her husband, the 13th wealthiest man in Russia, to cut her off, taking everything from her except for the daughter they share, for whom he has no interest.
After returning from her visit to Chechnya to see where Kolya died, Galina becomes critical of the government. Even in 2013, there are consequences for her actions; soon, all evidence of her fame dissipates, and Galina the actress devolves into Galina, the pretty neighborhood girl who the others like to gossip and whisper about. Her success, therefore, is linked to what a wealthy man can do for her, in this case her own husband. Her story is tragic, a flash in the pan that lasts only as long as she can hold a man’s interest in her. Her success does not lead her to empower other women in any way, but to simply enjoy her wealth and fame while it lasts. Galina’s attraction and obsession with Kolya, a violent “bad boy” type perpetuates the “damsel in distress” stereotype.
Marra’s choice to use a plural voice to tell this chapter emphasizes the improbability of anyone rising above mediocrity, especially without a unique set of circumstances. The collective narrator reinforces the notion of being ordinary or settling into the status quo. For this reason, Galina is larger than life itself, mythical in her ability to dream beyond the immediate reality before her eyes.
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