Aram Mrjoian’s ‘Waterline’: Redefining Armenian identity
Image Description: Illustration of the character Mari from “Waterline.” Her face and hair are in the shape of post-genocide Armenia’s outline on the map. She is looking into the distance. In the background, there is a sun setting on the horizon against a red sky. The colors of the background correspond to the colors of both the cover of “Waterline” and the Armenian flag.
A novel by Aram Mrjoian, “Waterline,” caught my eye when I noticed the pops of red, blue and orange on its cover amid the section of related titles to “All the Ways We Lied.” I wondered if these colors were an intentional reference to the Armenian flag or just a coincidence, until I read the name of the author. It was then shelved under my “want to read” list saved as a delicacy to treat myself at the end of my fall quarter.
My entry into contemporary fiction written by Armenian authors was a recent development. I was used to my ethnic identity being invisible in the media I consumed. A throwaway line about an “Armenian deli” in “iCarly” and a reference to an “Armenian stereotype” in “Community” were enough to rouse excitement in me at the mere notion of being acknowledged. “All the Ways We Lied,” by Aida Zilelian, marked my first encounter with an English-language novel that contained obvious Armenian names, like Lucine and Kohar, and consistent, casual references to our cuisine and language. Prior to this, all my reading about my identity pertained to narratives regarding the Armenian Genocide, limited to novels similar to “My Name is Aram” and “Goodbye, Antoura.”
The Armenian Genocide and the Kardashian family are the two ways I can situate my identity in modern memory. The Armenian Genocide — a recognized day when schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District are given a day off, a bolded term in a history textbook, and a topic of debate — is one of the ways one could be first introduced to the ethnicity. The other is a reference to the “-ian” in the Kardashian name, a fun fact that is mentioned about some members of the family. The Armenian identity is one that is still debated, a solid answer never given regarding what box on a census the identity belongs to or whether it should still exist, especially with Artsakh’s ethnic cleansing occurring just a few years ago.
In Aram Mrjoian’s “Waterline,” the two concepts operate to frame the unfolding crisis of the Kurkjian family. In an interview with the Chicago Review of Books, Mrjoian explained that he “set out to write this book with a firm goal of less than 10% of the word count being about the Armenian Genocide…‘I didn’t want it to be a historical trauma narrative.’” The book focuses on how the the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of survivors respond to the suicide of a beloved member of their family in 2018. The Kurkjians’ genocide story, an epic of their great-grandfather Gregor swimming out from Musa Dagh toward allied ships for survival, is tragically echoed when his great grand-daughter swims in the lake and is consumed by its waters.
The Western cultural image of the Kardashians frame the attention paid Mari’s suicide on how others outside of the family situate it. Prior to Mari’s suicide, revenge porn of her had been posted online. The callous ways in which others try to define Mari in the novel are through hollow cultural references to Kim Kardashian. High school boys “thought it was like the video of Kim Kardashian or something,” and online discourse regurgitated sentiments like, “Oh, she was in on it all along and trying to do what Kim Kardashian did, but it backfired.” Mari is not realized as human, but rather as an imitation of an archetype.
The narrative grapples with the effects of using these tools to position Armenian identity in modern contexts. The burden of the past is one that haunts many, with descendants of survivors having “to bear the onus of having to tell the same story so many times throughout” in order to “pass on the weight so that the import of their people’s history was not erased,” as the novel’s Edgar, grandson of Gregor and uncle to Mari, narrates.
While the narrative acknowledges the significance of recognizing the pain that has trickled down for generations and erased many, the narrative discourages exclusively using the past as the way to define Armenian identity.
“That was a mistake of my generation. It’s okay to learn from the past, to believe it is important to remember the past, to never forget the past, to let the past help you interpret the present, et cetera, without it solely defining you. There are many ways to fight.”
The resulting fetishization of Armenian identity, shaped by how the Kardashians position it within Western pop culture, is demonstrated in the novel through others’ reactions to Mari’s death. The comments on how “Armenian girls are freaks” and the way revenge porn of Mari is rendered as an autonomous attempt of replication, frame “fetishization as a privilege.” Her death is not enough for her to escape sexualization, the video consistently referenced by others in the novel as a site of arousal rather than a heinous act committed by the one who posted it.
The ramifications of this fetishization still affect her family. Her cousins in school, Joseph and Talin, are forced to hear comments that perpetuate her sexualization. Talin and Ani encounter men who have preconceived notions regarding their sexuality due to their appearance and association with Mari. Tragedy is reduced to simulacra.
The narrative challenges the ways in which Armenian identity has been defined, either solely through the past or through shallow references to Western pop culture, where that identity remains recognizable only through a celebrity family’s last name. Through its defiance, the narrative proposes a way forward, an opportunity to forge a new legacy that extends beyond the need for the Armenian identity to attach itself to the past or to the Western world.
