It is now the 10th January and I am taking my leave of Serbia, having spent my time in the personable company of Aleksander Zograf (a pseudonym of Sasa Rakezic); a comic strip writer from the industrial town of Pančevo, about 12km from Belgrade.
It was interesting to read this book immediately following the 'Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo', just to get a different perspective on the tragic events that were happening in this area at the end of the millenium.
As with Paula Huntley's book, this book takes the form of a journal - spanning the years from 1993, during the inital Balkans conflicts, through to the UN bombing of Serbia at the end of the decade and ending with the death of Slobodan Milošević in 2006. The key difference here is that - Aleksander being a cartoonist - much of this account is made up of comic strip / graphic novel format (with a strong visual influence from US cartoonist Robert Crumb), with the middle section being a compilation of sporadic emails that he sent to his international friends during the 'crisis in Serbia'.
The visual aspect is an interesting one, as is the perspective of this individual who is well placed to represent the 'ordinary man in the street' in Serbia during this conflict. After the demonisation of Serbs in the previous book - this brings a needed balance (Paula Huntley herself admits to having no contact herself whilst in Kosovo, with the Serbs who remained there under KFOR protection).
Indeed Zograf himself - certainly no supporter of the regime that he finds himself under - takes a laudably balanced approach to the conflict: equally concerned for the innocent victims of the UN bombings in Belgrade as for the Kosovan Albanians suffering at the hands of Serbian paramilitaries. He even finds time to sympathise with the UN pilots who are bombing his home-town ("It must be a really hard job...I guess every land, viewed from the air, looks beautiful, and the pilots have to drop bombs, right on the towns and people below, and risk their lives for some reason that is more or less abtract to them...In a way, they are the victims of this war, just like those tiny little people down on earth.")
What really comes across here is the sheer frustration of an ordinary individual who just wants to go about a normal life, and who cannot understand the madness unfolding around him; in the form of Serbian propaganda and aggression in Kosovo, seemingly random UN bombings of his home town and Belgrade, and the slow disintegration of the social structure within which he has lived.
That said, Zograf - whilst no doubt psychologically traumatised by the circumstances he finds himself in - is somewhat removed from the full horrors endured on both sides of the conflict. The bombs that drop on his hometown shake his building and invade his dreams but he is never directly impacted upon by an explosion at close range (his one injury incurred during the narrative is a broken arm - a result of falling off his bike), and he is able to travel abroad to the US and Italy at times during this time period.
That is not to trivialise what must have been a terrible experience, and certainly one which I could never comprehend, it is just to say that the true value of this work is to show that - for many people during times of conflict - life simply has to go as normally as possible. Also, this approach (and I am getting ahead of myself a little here) made the graphic, immediate, descriptions of the horrors of the Balkans conflict featured in the next leg of my journey ('Sarajevo Marlboro') all the more shocking and visceral.
To sum up then, this book is highly recommended in that it gives a view of an ordinary Serbian - rather than the Serbian extremists - and reminds us that all sides suffered terrible innocent casualties during this conflict. I would also recommend that you least read an overview of the context of this conflict before reading this, and the previous book, as it really will add value to these legs of the world trip. Indeed the next few ports of call on my journey are all former Yugoslavian states which were badly affected by the conflicts of the 1990s.
And so, I move on from Serbia to Sarajevo, the capital of neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is back onto the 'Beograd Centar' commuter rail line into Belgrade and from there I make my way across the city to the Lasta Bus Station (I walk as I have some time to spare - the one bus from there to Sarajevo does not leave until 4.00pm).
I embark on my journey in a pleasantly clean and comfortable Lasta bus which stops frequently over the next hour until our last port of call in Serbia, a picturesque-looking village named Jarak. From there it is direct for several hours (I resist the urge to snooze in order to enjoy the amazing scenery), until I am deposited in Sarajevo's main bus station at 10.45pm.
Thus begins my next leg of the round the world journey... 'Sarajevo Marlboro' - a collection of short stories by Miljenko Jergović, written in 1994 (in the midst of the 1992-1995 'Bosnian War') - and thus giving a perspective of life in the epicentre of this violent period.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Friday, 1 January 2010
Kosovo and some reflections on my journey so far....
And so, as the year draws to a close, I take my leave of Kosovo; the last book of 2009 on my ongoing 'round the world' trip...
Before I discuss my Kosovan sojourn, this seems like a good time to reflect upon my journey so far, which started way back in May of this year. The concept of travelling around the world through literature was one which I had been toying with for some time, and a six-month period of unemployment (now gladly resolved) gave me that opportunity... I was also fortunate that I was able to use the Internet to plan, plot and share my thoughts on my visits - and indeed without the use of the Internet as a resource to identify key works, I would not have been able to get close of my aim of visiting all official (and several unofficial) states in the world.
I had originally only planned to identify my trips three or four countries ahead, but tracking down representative works of each country has been such a fascinating exercise that I have only another 15 or so countries on my itinerary to track books down for! Of course, I am aware that this journey may take some years and that more relevant books may appear for certain countries, so I shall be constantly reviewing my choices... and any suggestions are more than welcome! The help and assistance that I have had from authors, academics and readers from across the globe has been overwhelming, and I am truly grateful for all those who have taken the time to contact me, respond to my emails and - in some cases - even sent me books...
In reviewing my book choices I am also acutely aware of the importance of identifying native authors where possible; and I am pleased that I have only had to resort to four non-native authors on my journey so far. That said, the next leg of my journey "The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo" is written by an American, Paula Huntley, who journeyed to Kosovo in 2000 as part of a UN-led restructuring programme. However, given the sensitive and polarised nature of the recent conflict in Serbia and Kosovo, it could be argued that an outsiders' view is perhaps beneficial here in providing a less subjective perspective on the situation in Kosovo....
The premise then, of this book, is that it is culled from a series of journal extracts and emails written by Paula during her year-long stay in Kosovo where she travelled with her husband, teaching English at the University in Pristina. Indeed Paula herself calls this "an accidental book", and whilst the diary format has no doubt undergone a degree of rewriting prior to publication, the format does give an immediacy and honesty to the narrative: Paula questions her own innermost motivations in journeying to Kosovo:- as well as making interesting parallels of the prejudice she sees around her with her own previous racial intolerance whilst growing up in 1960s America.
However, this is not an introspective work, and indeed one of the most effective elements of this book are her vivid descriptions of a war-torn Kosovo desparately trying to get back to normal within the artificial confines of UN administration. The physical descriptions are particularly telling:
"Prishtina is a city of fragments. There are few whole things here - few intact surfaces, few complete buildings, few functional systems. Concrete sidewalks are split and buckled, stuccoed walls are crazed and stained, roads are gullied and pocked with holes big enough to swallow a small car, steps are crumbling, ragged-edged. Turbid, smelly gray-water seeps from every crack and pit. And everywhere, everywhere, garbage."
Defying these grim conditions are the key characters: the Kosovan students who attend her English lessons and the titular Book Club. These students provide fascinating insights into the psyche of this region, and their optimisim and fortitude is universally humbling given that they are effectively suffering a double tragedy - a scarred past of death and displacement at the hands of Serbian paramilitaries; and an uncertain future in a country still devastated by war and reliant upon the fickle Western powers for support. All see themselves as 'lucky' (they are, after all, still alive) and see the learning of English as a ticket to a better future. Whilst some achieve their dreams of escaping their situations, to varying degrees, Paula is acutely aware that she may well be raising unrealistic expectations among her students; a heartbreaking prospect for both writer and reader.
Paula herself proves to be an insightful guide into Kosovo here - she is always aware that her views of the country are tempered by a Western/US perspective and she shows a rare sensitivity in her actions - for instance, whilst attempting to encourage her Kosovo Albanian students to acknowledge that not all Serbians are murderers and aggressors, she wisely retreats in the face of obvious confusion and even anger. These individuals' wounds are simply too recent and too deep, although by the end of the book there are signs of hope here too...as Paula says in a recent interview "Kosovo will be judged by how well the Albanian majority of some 90 per cent protects the Serbs, Roma and other minority groups. Are they up to this? I hope so. Everything depends upon it".
Ultimately, this is a story of a country and a people scarred and traumatised by recent war, who desperately require an autonomy and stake in their own future which they are unlikely to attain whilst they remain under international governance - a situation which remains nearly a decade after this book was written. As of 2010, the status of Kosovo remains unclear - of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council the US, UK and France acknowledged a declaration of Kosovan independence in 2008, yet this has not been formalised due to the resistance of China and Russia.
On a personal note, I must admit to being shamefully unaware of the details of the Kosovan crisis and the Balkan conflict of the 1990s... as a twentysomething living in the UK at the time, I was aware of the conflict from the nightly news reports of NATO bombings and I recall being appalled at the UN's failure to prevent the Srebenica massacre in 1995, but the details never really struck home. To me, this was a conflict happening elsewhere, to other people, and I never really engaged with it. As a final thought, I have to say I would welcome an update from Paula Huntley on how these various individuals are doing, almost a decade on from her book's events.
In any case, I am grateful that my journey round the world - whilst inevitably limited - is at least giving myself, and hopefully followers of this Blog, a glimpse into the terrible real-life situations that so many of our fellow global citizens find themselves in.
With this in mind, I am setting out from Pristina, Kosovo, to its controversial neighbour, Serbia (Serbia itself still claims Kosovo as one of its own territories). The general populace of Serbia were not untouched by the wars of the 90s/early 00s themselves (or ignorant of the plight of the people of Kosovo) and my next account takes me to the industrial town of Pančevo, which was heavily bombed by NATO forces at the turn of the Millenium as a result of Serbian aggression in Kosovo.
The book in question is "Regards From Serbia" by Aleksandar Zograf, a resident of Pančevo (about 15km from Belgrade) during the conflicts. This is a mix of graphic novel (Zograf is a cartoonist) and email diary to his friends outside of Serbia during the bombing campaign. I will write more of this work when I have finished reading it, but suffice to say, as an ordinary individual, he expresses the same horror, bewilderment and frustration as his Kosovan counterparts during this terrible conflict.
To this day, direct travel is still not permitted from Kosovo to Serbia if the journey has not started in Serbia itself (there is talk of this ban being lifted soon for international citizens but not for Kosovan passport holders. The embargo will remain in place "primarily because of the [Kosovo] Albanian population’s crime links in Western Europe” according to Serbia's interior minister).
Thus I have no option but to make my way to the recently renovated Pristina International Airport and get a cheap flight from Pristina back to Tirana in Albania.
From there I get a 12.20pm connecting 'Alitalia' flight to Rome, leaving Rome at 2.30pm and finally arriving at Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport at 4.30pm (convoluted but - relatively! - cheap at $380).
From here I get a (surprisingly cheap) taxi - making sure it has the blue city taxi sign on the roof as well as the offical logo of the taxi company - travelling about 12km east of the airport into Belgrade proper where I catch the reasonably efficient commuter rail from 'Beograd Centar' direct to 'Pančevo Vojlovica'.
And so I arrive at my destination in Serbia - Pančevo - eager to see the other side of the conflict referred to in my Kosovan stopover, and also aware that this represents a significant gateway on my travels into the other former Yugoslavian states of Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia etc. I hope to find out more about this tragic conflict through this leg of my journey. However - above all - I hope to get a sense of the everyday lives of our fellow European citizens in this ravaged region; almost a decade after the conflict which has defined their lives for so long...
Before I discuss my Kosovan sojourn, this seems like a good time to reflect upon my journey so far, which started way back in May of this year. The concept of travelling around the world through literature was one which I had been toying with for some time, and a six-month period of unemployment (now gladly resolved) gave me that opportunity... I was also fortunate that I was able to use the Internet to plan, plot and share my thoughts on my visits - and indeed without the use of the Internet as a resource to identify key works, I would not have been able to get close of my aim of visiting all official (and several unofficial) states in the world.
I had originally only planned to identify my trips three or four countries ahead, but tracking down representative works of each country has been such a fascinating exercise that I have only another 15 or so countries on my itinerary to track books down for! Of course, I am aware that this journey may take some years and that more relevant books may appear for certain countries, so I shall be constantly reviewing my choices... and any suggestions are more than welcome! The help and assistance that I have had from authors, academics and readers from across the globe has been overwhelming, and I am truly grateful for all those who have taken the time to contact me, respond to my emails and - in some cases - even sent me books...
In reviewing my book choices I am also acutely aware of the importance of identifying native authors where possible; and I am pleased that I have only had to resort to four non-native authors on my journey so far. That said, the next leg of my journey "The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo" is written by an American, Paula Huntley, who journeyed to Kosovo in 2000 as part of a UN-led restructuring programme. However, given the sensitive and polarised nature of the recent conflict in Serbia and Kosovo, it could be argued that an outsiders' view is perhaps beneficial here in providing a less subjective perspective on the situation in Kosovo....
The premise then, of this book, is that it is culled from a series of journal extracts and emails written by Paula during her year-long stay in Kosovo where she travelled with her husband, teaching English at the University in Pristina. Indeed Paula herself calls this "an accidental book", and whilst the diary format has no doubt undergone a degree of rewriting prior to publication, the format does give an immediacy and honesty to the narrative: Paula questions her own innermost motivations in journeying to Kosovo:- as well as making interesting parallels of the prejudice she sees around her with her own previous racial intolerance whilst growing up in 1960s America.
However, this is not an introspective work, and indeed one of the most effective elements of this book are her vivid descriptions of a war-torn Kosovo desparately trying to get back to normal within the artificial confines of UN administration. The physical descriptions are particularly telling:
"Prishtina is a city of fragments. There are few whole things here - few intact surfaces, few complete buildings, few functional systems. Concrete sidewalks are split and buckled, stuccoed walls are crazed and stained, roads are gullied and pocked with holes big enough to swallow a small car, steps are crumbling, ragged-edged. Turbid, smelly gray-water seeps from every crack and pit. And everywhere, everywhere, garbage."
Defying these grim conditions are the key characters: the Kosovan students who attend her English lessons and the titular Book Club. These students provide fascinating insights into the psyche of this region, and their optimisim and fortitude is universally humbling given that they are effectively suffering a double tragedy - a scarred past of death and displacement at the hands of Serbian paramilitaries; and an uncertain future in a country still devastated by war and reliant upon the fickle Western powers for support. All see themselves as 'lucky' (they are, after all, still alive) and see the learning of English as a ticket to a better future. Whilst some achieve their dreams of escaping their situations, to varying degrees, Paula is acutely aware that she may well be raising unrealistic expectations among her students; a heartbreaking prospect for both writer and reader.
Paula herself proves to be an insightful guide into Kosovo here - she is always aware that her views of the country are tempered by a Western/US perspective and she shows a rare sensitivity in her actions - for instance, whilst attempting to encourage her Kosovo Albanian students to acknowledge that not all Serbians are murderers and aggressors, she wisely retreats in the face of obvious confusion and even anger. These individuals' wounds are simply too recent and too deep, although by the end of the book there are signs of hope here too...as Paula says in a recent interview "Kosovo will be judged by how well the Albanian majority of some 90 per cent protects the Serbs, Roma and other minority groups. Are they up to this? I hope so. Everything depends upon it".
Ultimately, this is a story of a country and a people scarred and traumatised by recent war, who desperately require an autonomy and stake in their own future which they are unlikely to attain whilst they remain under international governance - a situation which remains nearly a decade after this book was written. As of 2010, the status of Kosovo remains unclear - of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council the US, UK and France acknowledged a declaration of Kosovan independence in 2008, yet this has not been formalised due to the resistance of China and Russia.
On a personal note, I must admit to being shamefully unaware of the details of the Kosovan crisis and the Balkan conflict of the 1990s... as a twentysomething living in the UK at the time, I was aware of the conflict from the nightly news reports of NATO bombings and I recall being appalled at the UN's failure to prevent the Srebenica massacre in 1995, but the details never really struck home. To me, this was a conflict happening elsewhere, to other people, and I never really engaged with it. As a final thought, I have to say I would welcome an update from Paula Huntley on how these various individuals are doing, almost a decade on from her book's events.
In any case, I am grateful that my journey round the world - whilst inevitably limited - is at least giving myself, and hopefully followers of this Blog, a glimpse into the terrible real-life situations that so many of our fellow global citizens find themselves in.
With this in mind, I am setting out from Pristina, Kosovo, to its controversial neighbour, Serbia (Serbia itself still claims Kosovo as one of its own territories). The general populace of Serbia were not untouched by the wars of the 90s/early 00s themselves (or ignorant of the plight of the people of Kosovo) and my next account takes me to the industrial town of Pančevo, which was heavily bombed by NATO forces at the turn of the Millenium as a result of Serbian aggression in Kosovo.
The book in question is "Regards From Serbia" by Aleksandar Zograf, a resident of Pančevo (about 15km from Belgrade) during the conflicts. This is a mix of graphic novel (Zograf is a cartoonist) and email diary to his friends outside of Serbia during the bombing campaign. I will write more of this work when I have finished reading it, but suffice to say, as an ordinary individual, he expresses the same horror, bewilderment and frustration as his Kosovan counterparts during this terrible conflict.
To this day, direct travel is still not permitted from Kosovo to Serbia if the journey has not started in Serbia itself (there is talk of this ban being lifted soon for international citizens but not for Kosovan passport holders. The embargo will remain in place "primarily because of the [Kosovo] Albanian population’s crime links in Western Europe” according to Serbia's interior minister).
Thus I have no option but to make my way to the recently renovated Pristina International Airport and get a cheap flight from Pristina back to Tirana in Albania.
From there I get a 12.20pm connecting 'Alitalia' flight to Rome, leaving Rome at 2.30pm and finally arriving at Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport at 4.30pm (convoluted but - relatively! - cheap at $380).
From here I get a (surprisingly cheap) taxi - making sure it has the blue city taxi sign on the roof as well as the offical logo of the taxi company - travelling about 12km east of the airport into Belgrade proper where I catch the reasonably efficient commuter rail from 'Beograd Centar' direct to 'Pančevo Vojlovica'.
And so I arrive at my destination in Serbia - Pančevo - eager to see the other side of the conflict referred to in my Kosovan stopover, and also aware that this represents a significant gateway on my travels into the other former Yugoslavian states of Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia etc. I hope to find out more about this tragic conflict through this leg of my journey. However - above all - I hope to get a sense of the everyday lives of our fellow European citizens in this ravaged region; almost a decade after the conflict which has defined their lives for so long...
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Leaving Albania
And so I am leaving Albania...a country I was always curious about in my youth, given the secretive Communist government that persisted during the 80s and 90s, giving rise to the perception (in the UK) that this was a closed-off totalitarian state which even planes had to fly around for fear of being shot down ...
I have to say that I was a little perplexed by the Albanian book on my journey: "Spring Flowers, Spring Frost" by Ismail Kadare. On the face of it, this work ticked all of the boxes for my travel purposes - a contemporary work (exploring the social upheavals of Albanian society since the demise of communism there), a native - and well respected - author (compared in the blurb to Orwell, Kafka and Gogol, no less) and an interesting premise: the return of Albania's notorious Kanun 'blood laws'.
These laws were developed pre-communism and have indeed seen a resurgence of such since communism's fall. Whilst these are actually a complicated set of feudal laws relating to social relationships and land ownership; this novel focuses on the blood law element that states: "someone is allowed to kill another person to avenge an earlier murder or moral humiliation."
This is interesting as it also colours my next stopping off point: Kosovo (inextricably linked with both Albania and Serbia through the recent Balkan conflict). However, in the context of this novel, it is used more as a device to explore the inner torment and anxieties of the work's (largely unsympathetic) protagonist - the artist Mark Gurabardhi.
And there, for me, is the problem. Whilst reading this work I did gain a glimpse of life in contemporary Albania - the coffee shops, the occasional black-outs of small village life, the left-over paranoia from the communist era - yet I never felt engaged with the plot. For a start Mark is a particularly unlikeable character who - through his own unwillingness to engage with events around him - impedes our own attempts to immerse ourselves in the plot. He is also particularly misogenistic towards his (possibly pregnant) girlfriend which - coupled with his rather unsettling fantasies about her possible incestuous infidelity with her brother - serve only to alienate the reader even further.
The main narrative is interspersed with several "Counter-chapters" which exposit upon topics as diverse as Tantalus, Oedipus Rex and the sinking of the Titanic. Again, I failed to see the connection with the main narrative, although - as with the previous Macedonian work on my journey - it may well be that I am failing to pick up on socially-specific allegorical references here...
Still, despite my literary gripes I have come away from this book with a sense of life in a small snowbound town in northern Albania - particularly fitting as whilst writing this blog, I am sitting in a small snowbound UK town called St Albans!
For the sake of fairness however; as I have not really critiqued this book in my travel entry and it seems that Kadare has a legion of fans who do appreciate his writings; here is the official Amazon review of the work:
Working at the intersection of allegory and reality, Kadare (The Three-Arched Bridge, etc.) balances the forces of expression and repression in his latest novel, about an Albanian artist who struggles to keep his sense of equilibrium when the post-Communist government threatens to bring back the so-called "blood laws," which dictated behavior in the country's medieval past. Mark Gurabardhi is the protagonist, a sensitive soul who finds himself disturbed by political events in his strife-torn country, as well as by a bizarre bank robbery and a strange, lurid report that an attractive young woman has married a snake. Closer to home, Gurabardhi's relationship with his girlfriend who also models for him is an up-and-down affair, but what changes the artist's situation is the sudden death of his boss, the director of the art center, who is killed in murky circumstances. His death prompts Gurabardhi to investigate the rumor that the repressive government is about to reintroduce the ancient, family-oriented blood laws to help tighten their control of artistic expression. To learn more, Gurabardhi finds a way to eavesdrop on a conference of prominent leaders. The political turns personal when the artist's girlfriend reveals that her brother is being hunted by the state, and the book closes with the artist making a formal inquiry to the police chief to see if the old laws will be reinstated. Kadare's plotting is sometimes spotty and disjunctive, but despite the lack of continuity, each scene is as tight as the writer's razor-sharp prose. The juxtaposition of ideas and bizarre images is alternately beautiful, peculiar and provocative, as Kadare once again provides an excellent glimpse at the difficult nature of life in a politically unstable land.
Well, it is time to leave Albania and travel further into the Balkans. Eschewing local advice I am taking a (very!) expensive taxi down the mountain routes into the northern reaches of Tirana, Albania's main city, arriving in the early hours.
Making my way on foot to the Tirana International Hotel at the bottom end of Bulevard Zogu i Pare, I approach a tout shouting shout "Prishtina, Prishtina!" and hand over my 20 EURO. The basic looking, but comfortable, bus arrives at about 8.00am and I set out on my 6-hour journey to Prishtina, in the still-disputed Republic of Kosovo...
I have to say that I was a little perplexed by the Albanian book on my journey: "Spring Flowers, Spring Frost" by Ismail Kadare. On the face of it, this work ticked all of the boxes for my travel purposes - a contemporary work (exploring the social upheavals of Albanian society since the demise of communism there), a native - and well respected - author (compared in the blurb to Orwell, Kafka and Gogol, no less) and an interesting premise: the return of Albania's notorious Kanun 'blood laws'.
These laws were developed pre-communism and have indeed seen a resurgence of such since communism's fall. Whilst these are actually a complicated set of feudal laws relating to social relationships and land ownership; this novel focuses on the blood law element that states: "someone is allowed to kill another person to avenge an earlier murder or moral humiliation."
This is interesting as it also colours my next stopping off point: Kosovo (inextricably linked with both Albania and Serbia through the recent Balkan conflict). However, in the context of this novel, it is used more as a device to explore the inner torment and anxieties of the work's (largely unsympathetic) protagonist - the artist Mark Gurabardhi.
And there, for me, is the problem. Whilst reading this work I did gain a glimpse of life in contemporary Albania - the coffee shops, the occasional black-outs of small village life, the left-over paranoia from the communist era - yet I never felt engaged with the plot. For a start Mark is a particularly unlikeable character who - through his own unwillingness to engage with events around him - impedes our own attempts to immerse ourselves in the plot. He is also particularly misogenistic towards his (possibly pregnant) girlfriend which - coupled with his rather unsettling fantasies about her possible incestuous infidelity with her brother - serve only to alienate the reader even further.
The main narrative is interspersed with several "Counter-chapters" which exposit upon topics as diverse as Tantalus, Oedipus Rex and the sinking of the Titanic. Again, I failed to see the connection with the main narrative, although - as with the previous Macedonian work on my journey - it may well be that I am failing to pick up on socially-specific allegorical references here...
Still, despite my literary gripes I have come away from this book with a sense of life in a small snowbound town in northern Albania - particularly fitting as whilst writing this blog, I am sitting in a small snowbound UK town called St Albans!
For the sake of fairness however; as I have not really critiqued this book in my travel entry and it seems that Kadare has a legion of fans who do appreciate his writings; here is the official Amazon review of the work:
Working at the intersection of allegory and reality, Kadare (The Three-Arched Bridge, etc.) balances the forces of expression and repression in his latest novel, about an Albanian artist who struggles to keep his sense of equilibrium when the post-Communist government threatens to bring back the so-called "blood laws," which dictated behavior in the country's medieval past. Mark Gurabardhi is the protagonist, a sensitive soul who finds himself disturbed by political events in his strife-torn country, as well as by a bizarre bank robbery and a strange, lurid report that an attractive young woman has married a snake. Closer to home, Gurabardhi's relationship with his girlfriend who also models for him is an up-and-down affair, but what changes the artist's situation is the sudden death of his boss, the director of the art center, who is killed in murky circumstances. His death prompts Gurabardhi to investigate the rumor that the repressive government is about to reintroduce the ancient, family-oriented blood laws to help tighten their control of artistic expression. To learn more, Gurabardhi finds a way to eavesdrop on a conference of prominent leaders. The political turns personal when the artist's girlfriend reveals that her brother is being hunted by the state, and the book closes with the artist making a formal inquiry to the police chief to see if the old laws will be reinstated. Kadare's plotting is sometimes spotty and disjunctive, but despite the lack of continuity, each scene is as tight as the writer's razor-sharp prose. The juxtaposition of ideas and bizarre images is alternately beautiful, peculiar and provocative, as Kadare once again provides an excellent glimpse at the difficult nature of life in a politically unstable land.
Well, it is time to leave Albania and travel further into the Balkans. Eschewing local advice I am taking a (very!) expensive taxi down the mountain routes into the northern reaches of Tirana, Albania's main city, arriving in the early hours.
Making my way on foot to the Tirana International Hotel at the bottom end of Bulevard Zogu i Pare, I approach a tout shouting shout "Prishtina, Prishtina!" and hand over my 20 EURO. The basic looking, but comfortable, bus arrives at about 8.00am and I set out on my 6-hour journey to Prishtina, in the still-disputed Republic of Kosovo...
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Macedonian snapshots: a fractured view of a disparate country
Well, I have now explored the Republic of Macedonia, courtesy of the short story anthology: "Change of the System".
I have to say, as expected, that this was a mixed bag of literature - coming from contemporary native writers writing both before and after the 1991 declaration of independence.
Co-translator Richard Gaughran states, quite correctly, in his introduction that "It is certainly true that if you want to know something about a place, you should read its fiction" - that could actually be the mission statement of this blog/website!
However, I could not help but feel a certain sense of exclusion whilst reading many of these stories... and I believe that is because a number of them are highly allegorical, no doubt due to the political climate of pre/early 90s Yugoslavia. The result of this is that whilst I enjoyed many of these stories, I felt that I was only appreciating them on the surface, and not understanding the deeper allegorical references. Examples of this would be "The Mole" by Petre M. Andreevski (a humorous tale of the battle between a man and a mole plaguing his garden, with strong oral folktale traditions in its telling), and "Sunday Dinner" by Vase Mancev; a very disturbing account of the battle between a rooster fleeing for its life and a determined farmer. Both stories were enjoyable to read but, for me, tempered by the feeling that I was not - as a foreigner - able to appreciate the deeper meanings of the tales, on a social, political or cultural level.
Elsewhere, to be honest, some stories were allegorical to the point of inpenetrability (such as Kim Mehmeti's "The Moonflower"), although works such as Ermis Lafazanovski's "The Half Rainbow" and Jadranka Vladova's "A Face to Lend" are satisfying in being well-written and giving a degree of cultural/social insight into Macedonian society.
Where this anthology really comes into its own for me, however, is in the final author's two works: "Nothing Especially Happens" and "The Death of a Fox" by Igor Isakovski. These are by a young and developing author and are notable in their focus on realism and personal experience rather than allegory and fable, and represent both a useful insight into modern Macedonian life and an exciting taster of a new, representative Macedonian literature. Isakvoski is writer to watch out for in future European literature!
I should point out here that, in finding a printed work of Macedonian literature translated into English, I struggled... and even having identified this book, I found it very difficult to track down (it is not on Amazon, and even the co-translator Richard Gaughran was unable - although not unwilling! - to help find a copy).
I finally got lucky through a secondhand book store, but if you wish to explore modern Macedonian literature further I cannot recommend highly enough the Macedonian literature website:
www.blesok.com.mk
This is managed and produced by the aforementioned Igor Isakovski as a forum for literature in the area, and features an online English translation of his short story collection: Sandglass
(I would have used this to represent Macedonia if I did not have my stipulation of printed books for my travels).
So, to sum up, this work is a curate's egg:- i.e. good in parts - and I sincerely thank the book's producers: Richard Gaughran and Zoran Ancevski, without whom there would be no published representation of Macedonia on my travels!
And so on to Albania. I shall be travelling from Struga to Tirana at around 11-11.30am. The bus ride should be around 6-8 hours, through beautiful countryside, getting dark by the time I reach Tirana through Durres on the Adriatic, with a wait of about an hour or two at the border crossing.
Once in Albania, I shall be travelling by taxi to the remote mountain town of B.... in a book called "Spring Flowers, Spring Frost" by Ismail Kadare, which explores the conflicts and contradictions left over from the old Albanian regime. "People are disappearing never to be heard from again. The secret police appears to remain in place and operating in the shadows. The blood feuds of the ancient rule book, the "Kanun", are rumoured to being revived. And the stories that the ominous secret state archives are hidden in vaults in the local area won't die..."
See you soon!
I have to say, as expected, that this was a mixed bag of literature - coming from contemporary native writers writing both before and after the 1991 declaration of independence.
Co-translator Richard Gaughran states, quite correctly, in his introduction that "It is certainly true that if you want to know something about a place, you should read its fiction" - that could actually be the mission statement of this blog/website!
However, I could not help but feel a certain sense of exclusion whilst reading many of these stories... and I believe that is because a number of them are highly allegorical, no doubt due to the political climate of pre/early 90s Yugoslavia. The result of this is that whilst I enjoyed many of these stories, I felt that I was only appreciating them on the surface, and not understanding the deeper allegorical references. Examples of this would be "The Mole" by Petre M. Andreevski (a humorous tale of the battle between a man and a mole plaguing his garden, with strong oral folktale traditions in its telling), and "Sunday Dinner" by Vase Mancev; a very disturbing account of the battle between a rooster fleeing for its life and a determined farmer. Both stories were enjoyable to read but, for me, tempered by the feeling that I was not - as a foreigner - able to appreciate the deeper meanings of the tales, on a social, political or cultural level.
Elsewhere, to be honest, some stories were allegorical to the point of inpenetrability (such as Kim Mehmeti's "The Moonflower"), although works such as Ermis Lafazanovski's "The Half Rainbow" and Jadranka Vladova's "A Face to Lend" are satisfying in being well-written and giving a degree of cultural/social insight into Macedonian society.
Where this anthology really comes into its own for me, however, is in the final author's two works: "Nothing Especially Happens" and "The Death of a Fox" by Igor Isakovski. These are by a young and developing author and are notable in their focus on realism and personal experience rather than allegory and fable, and represent both a useful insight into modern Macedonian life and an exciting taster of a new, representative Macedonian literature. Isakvoski is writer to watch out for in future European literature!
I should point out here that, in finding a printed work of Macedonian literature translated into English, I struggled... and even having identified this book, I found it very difficult to track down (it is not on Amazon, and even the co-translator Richard Gaughran was unable - although not unwilling! - to help find a copy).
I finally got lucky through a secondhand book store, but if you wish to explore modern Macedonian literature further I cannot recommend highly enough the Macedonian literature website:
www.blesok.com.mk
This is managed and produced by the aforementioned Igor Isakovski as a forum for literature in the area, and features an online English translation of his short story collection: Sandglass
(I would have used this to represent Macedonia if I did not have my stipulation of printed books for my travels).
So, to sum up, this work is a curate's egg:- i.e. good in parts - and I sincerely thank the book's producers: Richard Gaughran and Zoran Ancevski, without whom there would be no published representation of Macedonia on my travels!
And so on to Albania. I shall be travelling from Struga to Tirana at around 11-11.30am. The bus ride should be around 6-8 hours, through beautiful countryside, getting dark by the time I reach Tirana through Durres on the Adriatic, with a wait of about an hour or two at the border crossing.
Once in Albania, I shall be travelling by taxi to the remote mountain town of B.... in a book called "Spring Flowers, Spring Frost" by Ismail Kadare, which explores the conflicts and contradictions left over from the old Albanian regime. "People are disappearing never to be heard from again. The secret police appears to remain in place and operating in the shadows. The blood feuds of the ancient rule book, the "Kanun", are rumoured to being revived. And the stories that the ominous secret state archives are hidden in vaults in the local area won't die..."
See you soon!
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Passing through Bulgaria
Well, my trip to Bulgaria turned out to be a brief stopover of two days, courtesy of Georgi Gospodinov's "Natural Novel" set mainly on the outskirts of the capital, Sofia.
The brevity of this visit does not indicate, however, that this is an insignificant novel - quite the contrary, I really enjoyed this work and that (combined with its relatively short length of 136 pages) - is why this was such a brief stop.
On the face of it, this novel should not have been as enjoyable as it was - it is very experimental in form and content, with a fractured structure and a number of digressions as varied as a history of toilets and the possibility of literature by flies (even a Fly Bible). These musings are loosely connected to a central (although never clearly defined) concept that Gospodinov has of a 'natural novel': "My immodest desire is to mold a novel of beginnings, a novel that keeps starting, promising something, reaching page 17 and then starting again".
Gospodinov does not achieve that aim in this work for, despite the various digressions, there is a clear sub-narrative here of a writer whose life has been shattered by the discovery that his wife is pregnant with his best friend's baby, and their subsequent divorce. This narrative is driven forward through a series of touching, at times heartbreaking, vignettes charting his various stages of disbelief, anger, despair and resignation. It is interesting that the shattered nature of the main protagonist's life is reflected fittingly in the shattered structure of the novel itself.
For me, the book works better here, in the narrative of the main character, than it does in its postmodernist musings on the nature of language and literature; although these are interesting enough. And the narrative contains enough descriptions of everyday life in Sofia to make this a worthwhile stopping point on my journey. I was particuarly struck by the description of the recent economic hardships of the country in the 1990s: "I remember an elderly woman asking for half a lemon at the market. Others searched around the empty stalls at night for a potato that might have been accidentally dropped. More and more well-dressed people overcame their shame and reached into the garbage cans".
What really struck me was the style of writing here: an engaging, at times brutally honest, and direct style which - whilst the author namechecks Salinger - for me was more reminiscent of Charles Bukowski or Hubert Selby Jnr; both of whom were expert at depicting the self-destructive anti-hero's knowing descent into social exclusion. That is not to say that this novel is derivative however, it is highly original and deserves and wider readership than it will inevitably get in the West. Nor is it a depressing read - indeed there are some moments of great humour (a favourite of mine is Chapter 22, entitled "A List of Pleasures in the 1980s". The chapter simply consists of the line: "...I can't remember any pleasures".)
To sum up then, an entertaining tragi-comic work with some fascinating glimpses of Bulgarian life, interspersed with some interesting semiotic asides. I am certainly pleased that my travels led me to this work.
And so, without further ado, it is time for me to make my way to the impressively modern glass edifice which is Sofia Central Bus Station in time for the 16.00 bus to Skopje in the Republic of Macedonia. There, for the first time on my journey, I will be tackling an anthology of short stories by a range of different native authors from different generations; I look forward to seeing what overall picture of the country these diverse voices will paint.
The brevity of this visit does not indicate, however, that this is an insignificant novel - quite the contrary, I really enjoyed this work and that (combined with its relatively short length of 136 pages) - is why this was such a brief stop.
On the face of it, this novel should not have been as enjoyable as it was - it is very experimental in form and content, with a fractured structure and a number of digressions as varied as a history of toilets and the possibility of literature by flies (even a Fly Bible). These musings are loosely connected to a central (although never clearly defined) concept that Gospodinov has of a 'natural novel': "My immodest desire is to mold a novel of beginnings, a novel that keeps starting, promising something, reaching page 17 and then starting again".
Gospodinov does not achieve that aim in this work for, despite the various digressions, there is a clear sub-narrative here of a writer whose life has been shattered by the discovery that his wife is pregnant with his best friend's baby, and their subsequent divorce. This narrative is driven forward through a series of touching, at times heartbreaking, vignettes charting his various stages of disbelief, anger, despair and resignation. It is interesting that the shattered nature of the main protagonist's life is reflected fittingly in the shattered structure of the novel itself.
For me, the book works better here, in the narrative of the main character, than it does in its postmodernist musings on the nature of language and literature; although these are interesting enough. And the narrative contains enough descriptions of everyday life in Sofia to make this a worthwhile stopping point on my journey. I was particuarly struck by the description of the recent economic hardships of the country in the 1990s: "I remember an elderly woman asking for half a lemon at the market. Others searched around the empty stalls at night for a potato that might have been accidentally dropped. More and more well-dressed people overcame their shame and reached into the garbage cans".
What really struck me was the style of writing here: an engaging, at times brutally honest, and direct style which - whilst the author namechecks Salinger - for me was more reminiscent of Charles Bukowski or Hubert Selby Jnr; both of whom were expert at depicting the self-destructive anti-hero's knowing descent into social exclusion. That is not to say that this novel is derivative however, it is highly original and deserves and wider readership than it will inevitably get in the West. Nor is it a depressing read - indeed there are some moments of great humour (a favourite of mine is Chapter 22, entitled "A List of Pleasures in the 1980s". The chapter simply consists of the line: "...I can't remember any pleasures".)
To sum up then, an entertaining tragi-comic work with some fascinating glimpses of Bulgarian life, interspersed with some interesting semiotic asides. I am certainly pleased that my travels led me to this work.
And so, without further ado, it is time for me to make my way to the impressively modern glass edifice which is Sofia Central Bus Station in time for the 16.00 bus to Skopje in the Republic of Macedonia. There, for the first time on my journey, I will be tackling an anthology of short stories by a range of different native authors from different generations; I look forward to seeing what overall picture of the country these diverse voices will paint.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Leaving Turkey....
Well, the snows have melted, the roads are open and I find myself on the first train heading out of the remote city of Kars after three days' worth of events (which took me a month to read!).
This is an important point actually - the narrative of this book - for the most part - takes place over only three days (you can find a more detailed account of the plot itself in previous posts), yet while this might seem to imply this is a simple book it is, in fact, extremely complex with a multilayered plot which intertwines the wider concerns of religion and politics with the more individual issues of love, selfishness and difficulty of retaining moral integrity whilst pursuing personal happiness.
All of these themes are encapsulated in the central character - the poet Ka - and in his poems which he attempts to relate to the simple, yet complex, nature of a snowflake (reflecting the simple, yet complex, nature of the novel itself).
Orhan Panuk, the author of Snow, is an assured writer who has written a fascinating novel. He even appears as character himself, and whilst he denigrates his own art as a novelist as inferior to that of a poet, he achieves moments of poetry within his own narrative - especially in the hauntingly melancholic descriptions of the snowbound city of Kars itself.
Furthermore, Panuk is acutely aware of the fact that the East/West divisions of religion / politics which he describes also apply to literature. I shall quote a passage from Snow which is a dialogue between Panuk and a disillusioned Islamist student from Kars... this is about the novel (Snow) which Panuk is still in the process of writing at this point. The passage struck me as directly relevant to my trip around the world generally:- in selecting representative books for each country, I am only scratching the surface of each nation's culture, and caution should be taken in ever assuming one can truly learn about a culture from a single book - indeed no matter how many books about a nation one reads, one will always be reading and intepreting those works through one's own cultural background and assumptions. Anyway, Panuk illustrates this better than I can hope to, here is the passage in question:
Fazil (the former Islamic student): "If you write a book set in Kars and put me in it, I'd like to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about me, anything you say about any of us. No-one could understand us from so far anyway".
"But no-one believes everything they read in a novel," I said.
"Oh, yes, they do believe it," he cried. "If only to see themselves as wise and superior and humanistic, they need to think of us as sweet and funny, and convince themselves that they sympathise with the way we are and even love us. But if you would put in what I've just said, at least your readers will keep a little room for doubt in their minds."
A telling exchange and one which applies to anybody reading a book about others from outside of their own sphere of knowledge. This passage really struck me and I shall keep its message in mind for the duration of my journey around the world....
And so, after the long train journey from Kars, I shall disembark at Istanbul's main station, make my way hurriedly to the impressive Atatürk International Airport, and board an Bulgarian Air flight to Sofia, Bulgaria, for the next leg of my journey..."Natural Novel" by Georgi Gospodinov.
This is an important point actually - the narrative of this book - for the most part - takes place over only three days (you can find a more detailed account of the plot itself in previous posts), yet while this might seem to imply this is a simple book it is, in fact, extremely complex with a multilayered plot which intertwines the wider concerns of religion and politics with the more individual issues of love, selfishness and difficulty of retaining moral integrity whilst pursuing personal happiness.
All of these themes are encapsulated in the central character - the poet Ka - and in his poems which he attempts to relate to the simple, yet complex, nature of a snowflake (reflecting the simple, yet complex, nature of the novel itself).
Orhan Panuk, the author of Snow, is an assured writer who has written a fascinating novel. He even appears as character himself, and whilst he denigrates his own art as a novelist as inferior to that of a poet, he achieves moments of poetry within his own narrative - especially in the hauntingly melancholic descriptions of the snowbound city of Kars itself.
Furthermore, Panuk is acutely aware of the fact that the East/West divisions of religion / politics which he describes also apply to literature. I shall quote a passage from Snow which is a dialogue between Panuk and a disillusioned Islamist student from Kars... this is about the novel (Snow) which Panuk is still in the process of writing at this point. The passage struck me as directly relevant to my trip around the world generally:- in selecting representative books for each country, I am only scratching the surface of each nation's culture, and caution should be taken in ever assuming one can truly learn about a culture from a single book - indeed no matter how many books about a nation one reads, one will always be reading and intepreting those works through one's own cultural background and assumptions. Anyway, Panuk illustrates this better than I can hope to, here is the passage in question:
Fazil (the former Islamic student): "If you write a book set in Kars and put me in it, I'd like to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about me, anything you say about any of us. No-one could understand us from so far anyway".
"But no-one believes everything they read in a novel," I said.
"Oh, yes, they do believe it," he cried. "If only to see themselves as wise and superior and humanistic, they need to think of us as sweet and funny, and convince themselves that they sympathise with the way we are and even love us. But if you would put in what I've just said, at least your readers will keep a little room for doubt in their minds."
A telling exchange and one which applies to anybody reading a book about others from outside of their own sphere of knowledge. This passage really struck me and I shall keep its message in mind for the duration of my journey around the world....
And so, after the long train journey from Kars, I shall disembark at Istanbul's main station, make my way hurriedly to the impressive Atatürk International Airport, and board an Bulgarian Air flight to Sofia, Bulgaria, for the next leg of my journey..."Natural Novel" by Georgi Gospodinov.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Still walking through the Snow in Turkey...
I am now about two thirds of the way through "Snow", the Turkish book on my journey.
What fascinates me about this book is its structure (as well as its hugely interesting characters and ideas). The book takes place over only 3 days of the protagonist (Ka)'s stay in the snowbound city of Kars, and this is reflected in the dense nature of the text itself. Furthermore, much of the narrative is currently taken up with the different views of a number of radical and moderate characters within Kars - Islamist, communist and secular - mostly involving an antipathy towards both the West and the central Turkish government. It is these religio-political debates which take precendence in the latter half of this book, whilst certain dramatic events (which I won't reveal for fear of spoiling the plot) are portrayed as almost secondary.
This could lead to a dry and inpenetrable work, yet it is quite the opposite, Orhan Panuk keeps the reader's interest by clearly showing the human side of the exponents of these - often contentious - views.
At the stage I have reached in this book, there is also an unexpected - and jarring - chapter, where Panuk himself appears to step in as a character in the novel itself, reflecting back on events following Ka's stay in Kars. Again, I cannot comment too much else I shall spoil the plot, but this brief chapter (the next chapter returns to the main narrative) gives a shocking new perspective to the events that precede and follow it...
What this demonstrates is that Panuk is a consumate writer who is able to anticipate and confound the expectations of his readers. In my opinion, he is also a writer who is able to articulate the concerns of his native homeland (which straddles Western Europe and the Islamist East) in a way which reflects the viewpoint of his fellow countrymen, yet which is also accessible to readers from outside of this perspective.
Given the current global "East/West divide" - as Governments and the media would have it - this work is especially pertinent in giving a human voice to the fragmented views of a nation which is uniquely placed to represent this wider schism, in microcosm.
I shall be finishing this book within the next week or so, and shall sum up my opinions once finished; but suffice to say I am pleased that I came across this novel at this stage on my journey.
One postscript to this blog: may I thank Deena Dajani, a follower of this trip from Jordan, for their encouraging and kind words, and suggestion for a representative work from Jordan. It is hugely encouraging to know that people from around the world are engaging with this project, and accompanying me on my online "journey" - and I really appreciate all suggestions and comments which I receive.
What fascinates me about this book is its structure (as well as its hugely interesting characters and ideas). The book takes place over only 3 days of the protagonist (Ka)'s stay in the snowbound city of Kars, and this is reflected in the dense nature of the text itself. Furthermore, much of the narrative is currently taken up with the different views of a number of radical and moderate characters within Kars - Islamist, communist and secular - mostly involving an antipathy towards both the West and the central Turkish government. It is these religio-political debates which take precendence in the latter half of this book, whilst certain dramatic events (which I won't reveal for fear of spoiling the plot) are portrayed as almost secondary.
This could lead to a dry and inpenetrable work, yet it is quite the opposite, Orhan Panuk keeps the reader's interest by clearly showing the human side of the exponents of these - often contentious - views.
At the stage I have reached in this book, there is also an unexpected - and jarring - chapter, where Panuk himself appears to step in as a character in the novel itself, reflecting back on events following Ka's stay in Kars. Again, I cannot comment too much else I shall spoil the plot, but this brief chapter (the next chapter returns to the main narrative) gives a shocking new perspective to the events that precede and follow it...
What this demonstrates is that Panuk is a consumate writer who is able to anticipate and confound the expectations of his readers. In my opinion, he is also a writer who is able to articulate the concerns of his native homeland (which straddles Western Europe and the Islamist East) in a way which reflects the viewpoint of his fellow countrymen, yet which is also accessible to readers from outside of this perspective.
Given the current global "East/West divide" - as Governments and the media would have it - this work is especially pertinent in giving a human voice to the fragmented views of a nation which is uniquely placed to represent this wider schism, in microcosm.
I shall be finishing this book within the next week or so, and shall sum up my opinions once finished; but suffice to say I am pleased that I came across this novel at this stage on my journey.
One postscript to this blog: may I thank Deena Dajani, a follower of this trip from Jordan, for their encouraging and kind words, and suggestion for a representative work from Jordan. It is hugely encouraging to know that people from around the world are engaging with this project, and accompanying me on my online "journey" - and I really appreciate all suggestions and comments which I receive.
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