Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (Myths) in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 11, 2020 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: transl-croatian, zchallenge-eu, genre-litfic, europe-croatia, europe, author-woman, a-reviewed, z-read-gelesen-2020, zchallenge-2020-reading-women, genre-fiction

A few pages before the end, the author breaks the fourth wall: "It seems, dear editor, that the moment has come for us to part. I hope the sudden change of tone won't confuse you [...] In some places you sighed with boredom, in others you yawned, in others again your forehead creased in a frown. You had fiendish folklore coming out of your ears."

All this is true. I was bored. I was annoyed. And I felt intense tedium at the arty 'Literary' device of false self-reflection and assuming who I, the r A few pages before the end, the author breaks the fourth wall: "It seems, dear editor, that the moment has come for us to part. I hope the sudden change of tone won't confuse you [...] In some places you sighed with boredom, in others you yawned, in others again your forehead creased in a frown. You had fiendish folklore coming out of your ears."

All this is true. I was bored. I was annoyed. And I felt intense tedium at the arty 'Literary' device of false self-reflection and assuming who I, the reader, am. And critiquing me subtly for my boredom and my frowning as if I weren't every bit as intelligent and worthy of respect as the author, narrator, text.

The book comes in three parts, and what is good is that each part celebrates old women. The middle part was the most interesting, with its trio of old women on a spa jaunt but the final part is a list of folkloric instances, what a witch does in Bulgaria, what an old crone does on a Croatian peninsula and yes, what dolls of old women mean in 'an African tribe'. It is a tendency within the study of fairy-tales and folklore to universalize the themes and motifs. I don't like this tendency. It leads to ahistorical extraction from contexts. It makes everything and everyone the same. It typecasts people - 'African tribe', what does this even mean? After having read Scholastique Mukasonga's Our Lady of the Nile, I am more attuned to the political, cultural and post-colonial nuances of what goes by the European concept of 'tribe so this "über den Kamm scheren" irritates, and yes, does cause a "frown". As does the unreconstructed 1970s women's lib feminism that, for instance, mocks in passing all women who have cosmetic surgery as victims of the patriarchy.

Apologise for my frown, author! Why be happy for me to pay money for a book that makes me frown? I am not a bourgeois of the 1920s, waiting to be épatéed. This book just wasn't a good match for me on the dating site of novelling. I'll finish with some points I liked: the old crones; the insight into daily life in former Yugoslavia; the connection among Slavic-speaking nations; the one bit where a young handsome masseur thrusts his condition of non-stop erection into the old woman's face and she feels flattered and pleased (but the novel shies away from any fun and queer consequences and quickly returns the young man to heteronormative romance with an even younger girl who sucks on ice cream and cures his erectile dysfunction through the power of lurv).

Format: The translation from the Croatian is not fantastic -- perhaps because three cooks (Ellen Elias-Bursać, Celia Hawkesworth and Mark Thompson) were involved in it (why?). The translations of rhymes were especially clunky. The paper is toilet paper texture. Kudos to Rathos & Gabler (Hamburg) for the cover design (Canongate paperback 2010). Irritatingly, the publishers do not list the book's original Croatian (or hrvatski) title (which is Baba Jaga je snijela jaje (2008).

Provenance: Seen in Waterstone's on the look-out for folklore. The cover sucked me in with its chicken claws and the words 'Baba Yaga'. I am intrigued by Baba Yaga. She is a great personage but I would rather read the actual folk tales with her than this novel whose characters didn't grab me emotionally.

Read for the 2020 Reading Women Challenge, rubric #9 'inspired by folklore' (and boy, did it fill that prompt). Read for my 2020 EU challenge (Croatia, capital Zagreb, has been an EU member since 2013). ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 24, 2009 Daisy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: eastern-europe, former-yugoslavia-balkan, czech-slovak, bulgaria, fairy-tales

Almost 4 stars. Symbols everywhere. Contradictions. Things we recognize. Puzzles.

And in the end, there's this:

"... we act as if we have understood, we are convinced that we know what we are talking about, we are convinced that they understand us, we translate other languages into our own. And all our endeavours boil down to this: we miss the meaning."

So there's that.
Not an easy read. I'm glad I stuck with it though. Hmmm. ...more

Like · see review