On Josip Novakovich’s Salvation and Other Disasters
(Josip Novakovich is a writer of Croatian origin, who moved to the States when he was twenty.)
While reading Novakovich’s highly captivating stories in Salvation and Other Disasters (Graywolf Press, 1998), I kept wondering what makes them so different from other contemporary American short stories. The most obvious difference is, for me, the fact that his writing appears very “natural,” as if there were no “craft” or struggle involved in it. Many contemporary American short stories are very “well crafted” from a technical point of view, yet one often wonders what was the point of writing them. With Novakovich, the opposite happens: every single story tells us something essential about the human being, but it does it in a way that appears very simple and natural. I say “appears” because a “very simple and natural” surface is often the result of a very sophisticated mind. Apparent simplicity is far from simplistic. In fact, Novakovich’s simplicity is on a par with that of great storytellers. The lack of apparent artifice is due, at least in part, to the fact that his stories often come from an oral tradition. They sound as if he were telling them to a friend in a bar. Sometimes they even sound like, “A man (usually a Croat) walks into a bar…”
Reading Salvation and Other Disasters I managed to articulate a thought I never quite succeeded in putting into words before: that a certain Eastern European aesthetic specificity that cannot be categorized either entirely under “realism” nor under “magic realism” or “surrealism” (as it is often improperly called) belongs to a different aesthetic category, which I would call “aesthetic exaggeration” or “exaggerated realism” or “hyperrealism.” The idea came to me from a remark by Thomas Bernhard, who, referring to his own exaggerations, noted that “Exaggeration is the best way of telling the truth.”
Many of Novakovich’s stories are told in a realist way—some are based on the horrors of the Balkan wars, others on the horrors of WWII, and others on his childhood in Croatia in the 1960s, which resembles uncannily my own childhood in Romania in the 1970s. But almost every single story has some detail that escapes realism, and which, nevertheless, is not gratuitous. For instance, in “Sheepskin,” a Croat man is so hungry during the war in the 90s that he eats sheepskin. (Personally, I doubt that the Croats, no matter how hungry they might have been, ate sheepskin in those years.) This man, who had been tortured by a Serb, meets him later by chance, follows him to a restaurant (yes, that is a restaurant, not a store) where the Serb negotiates with the waiter the purchase of a sheepskin jacket, and eventually shoots the Serb from the back. In the end, the Croat realizes that he’d been wrong and the man he killed was not the one who’d tortured him. He then meets the man’s wife and falls in love with her. One can tell that there is a point to everything that happens in the story, and that no matter how absurd or non-realist things might appear, they are not gratuitous—nor are they used to “spice up” the gory details.
Or, take “Real Estate”—a story whose humor, I think, can be entirely appreciated only by an Eastern European. A Croat man confesses that he hates all the Serbs and he tells us why. In his youth, his chances of becoming a great basketball player were ruined when a Serb player hit him during an important game; the enraged Croat violently attacked the Serb and his career ended there. As it happens, the same Serb stole from him the Serb woman he was courting. The Croat ends up marrying another woman, and when, later, he meets the Serb again, the latter is a successful psychiatrist and is married to the Croat’s former lover. But the Serb gives him a different version: he hadn’t hit him on purpose while playing, and the woman he married had been his lover before being with the Croat.
When the war between the Serbs and the Croats ends, the Croat realizes that now that he is on the winners’ side, he could use this to his advantage and appropriate the beautiful house of the Serb if he were to convince him to leave the country. The two men agree on a price, and during the negotiations, the Croat, who never got over the woman who is now married to the Serb, asks him to include her in the deal. The Serb advances a counterproposal: to swap wives. This is the point where the idea of aesthetic exaggeration (and Eastern European dark humor) comes into play. The absurdity of the situation—of which the two enemies are quite aware—is pushed to its ultimate limit, so in the end, the insanity of it all seems rather funny, and even the two men laugh at it together. In the end, none of them sleeps with the other’s wife, the Serb leaves the country, the Croat gets his house, and eventually becomes a successful real estate agent.
But the story that deserves a prize for dark humor is “A Free Fall”—one of the funniest stories I have ever read. It is about a man with a wooden leg, which he calls “Oaky.” Having said this, I realize that some people might think, “a story about a handicapped person”—and I wonder if contemporary American readers could read this story by using a different frame than that of a “disability.” Obviously, such a story would not be funny. But Novakovich’s story is NOT about a “handicap.” The mode in which the story is written is not that of dramatic realism—which is the customary mode of contemporary American stories (unless they are written in a fantastic mode). This story is neither realist, nor fantastic. It is an aesthetic exaggeration in the same way that a caricature is an exaggeration. It is funny in the same way a caricature is funny. In the story, the wooden leg becomes a “fragment” of a man’s body—the narrator, with whom the author, obviously, identifies. This man has a problem not only with his leg, but also with other parts of his body that have become fragmented (his hair, which is falling), his penis, and his balls (or rather, his ball because he had lost one during an operation). I would put this story on a par with some of the most absurd stories ever written (by such authors as Kobo Abe, Gogol, Daniil Kharms or Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky).
While reading Novakovich’s highly captivating stories in Salvation and Other Disasters (Graywolf Press, 1998), I kept wondering what makes them so different from other contemporary American short stories. The most obvious difference is, for me, the fact that his writing appears very “natural,” as if there were no “craft” or struggle involved in it. Many contemporary American short stories are very “well crafted” from a technical point of view, yet one often wonders what was the point of writing them. With Novakovich, the opposite happens: every single story tells us something essential about the human being, but it does it in a way that appears very simple and natural. I say “appears” because a “very simple and natural” surface is often the result of a very sophisticated mind. Apparent simplicity is far from simplistic. In fact, Novakovich’s simplicity is on a par with that of great storytellers. The lack of apparent artifice is due, at least in part, to the fact that his stories often come from an oral tradition. They sound as if he were telling them to a friend in a bar. Sometimes they even sound like, “A man (usually a Croat) walks into a bar…”
Reading Salvation and Other Disasters I managed to articulate a thought I never quite succeeded in putting into words before: that a certain Eastern European aesthetic specificity that cannot be categorized either entirely under “realism” nor under “magic realism” or “surrealism” (as it is often improperly called) belongs to a different aesthetic category, which I would call “aesthetic exaggeration” or “exaggerated realism” or “hyperrealism.” The idea came to me from a remark by Thomas Bernhard, who, referring to his own exaggerations, noted that “Exaggeration is the best way of telling the truth.”
Many of Novakovich’s stories are told in a realist way—some are based on the horrors of the Balkan wars, others on the horrors of WWII, and others on his childhood in Croatia in the 1960s, which resembles uncannily my own childhood in Romania in the 1970s. But almost every single story has some detail that escapes realism, and which, nevertheless, is not gratuitous. For instance, in “Sheepskin,” a Croat man is so hungry during the war in the 90s that he eats sheepskin. (Personally, I doubt that the Croats, no matter how hungry they might have been, ate sheepskin in those years.) This man, who had been tortured by a Serb, meets him later by chance, follows him to a restaurant (yes, that is a restaurant, not a store) where the Serb negotiates with the waiter the purchase of a sheepskin jacket, and eventually shoots the Serb from the back. In the end, the Croat realizes that he’d been wrong and the man he killed was not the one who’d tortured him. He then meets the man’s wife and falls in love with her. One can tell that there is a point to everything that happens in the story, and that no matter how absurd or non-realist things might appear, they are not gratuitous—nor are they used to “spice up” the gory details.
Or, take “Real Estate”—a story whose humor, I think, can be entirely appreciated only by an Eastern European. A Croat man confesses that he hates all the Serbs and he tells us why. In his youth, his chances of becoming a great basketball player were ruined when a Serb player hit him during an important game; the enraged Croat violently attacked the Serb and his career ended there. As it happens, the same Serb stole from him the Serb woman he was courting. The Croat ends up marrying another woman, and when, later, he meets the Serb again, the latter is a successful psychiatrist and is married to the Croat’s former lover. But the Serb gives him a different version: he hadn’t hit him on purpose while playing, and the woman he married had been his lover before being with the Croat.
When the war between the Serbs and the Croats ends, the Croat realizes that now that he is on the winners’ side, he could use this to his advantage and appropriate the beautiful house of the Serb if he were to convince him to leave the country. The two men agree on a price, and during the negotiations, the Croat, who never got over the woman who is now married to the Serb, asks him to include her in the deal. The Serb advances a counterproposal: to swap wives. This is the point where the idea of aesthetic exaggeration (and Eastern European dark humor) comes into play. The absurdity of the situation—of which the two enemies are quite aware—is pushed to its ultimate limit, so in the end, the insanity of it all seems rather funny, and even the two men laugh at it together. In the end, none of them sleeps with the other’s wife, the Serb leaves the country, the Croat gets his house, and eventually becomes a successful real estate agent.
But the story that deserves a prize for dark humor is “A Free Fall”—one of the funniest stories I have ever read. It is about a man with a wooden leg, which he calls “Oaky.” Having said this, I realize that some people might think, “a story about a handicapped person”—and I wonder if contemporary American readers could read this story by using a different frame than that of a “disability.” Obviously, such a story would not be funny. But Novakovich’s story is NOT about a “handicap.” The mode in which the story is written is not that of dramatic realism—which is the customary mode of contemporary American stories (unless they are written in a fantastic mode). This story is neither realist, nor fantastic. It is an aesthetic exaggeration in the same way that a caricature is an exaggeration. It is funny in the same way a caricature is funny. In the story, the wooden leg becomes a “fragment” of a man’s body—the narrator, with whom the author, obviously, identifies. This man has a problem not only with his leg, but also with other parts of his body that have become fragmented (his hair, which is falling), his penis, and his balls (or rather, his ball because he had lost one during an operation). I would put this story on a par with some of the most absurd stories ever written (by such authors as Kobo Abe, Gogol, Daniil Kharms or Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky).
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Notes on Books
Book reviews and occasional notes and thoughts on world literature and writers by an American writer of Eastern European origin.
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