Mansarda by Danilo Kiš , John K. Cox (review)

Abstract

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII of war-torn Sarajevo as Brik nears his roots. Brik's wild pilgrimage becomes a sardonic search forhis soul,which "most people" locate "somewhere in the abdominal area." At the Cher nivitsi Jewish Center, however, a man observes, "God will take care of the dead. We need to take care of the living."And in theChi?en?u (Kishinev) Jewish cemetery, in response toKirk's existential query about whether theworld is about lifeor death, his guide responds: "I think it is about life. I think there is always more life than death." From these threads Brik fash ions Lazarus's sister Olga, strong and clear-sighted. After grave rob bers "raise" and mutilate Lazarus's body, thus literalizingBrik's confla tion of Averbuch with his biblical counterpart, Olga attends a public burial of the rediscovered corpse, compromising her Orthodox faith to spare her community a possible revenge attack. Her imagined letter to her mother echoes the Ukrainians' words: "I chose lifeover death. God will take care of thedead. We have to take care of the living." No less lost in the East than in America, Brik muses, "Home is where someone might notice your absence." But visiting Rora's sur geon sisterAzra, to fix thehand he broke freeingaMoldavian girl from her would-be pimp, he abandons irony: "The seat of her soul was in her deep, sea-green eyes. Somehow, she reminded me of Olga Averbu ch." Shortly after a nurse urges him to stay?"This is your home"?Brik meets an old girlfriendwho asks, "Where have you been?" Someone has finally noticed his absence: he ishome. After Rora is gratuitously murdered, Azra encourages Brik to finishhis project. iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimii Ultimately, Hemon's completed work is both a postmodern tour de forcewhose ironic style evokes Conrad and Flaubert and an exis tentialcall toembrace lifedespite its horrors, one's self despite its flaws, and a commitment to the living that acknowledges and nurtures the soul. Michele Levy North CarolinaA&T University Danilo Kis\Mansarda. John K. Cox, tr. New York. Serbian Classics. 2008. 112 pages. $19.95. isbn978-0-9678893-7-5 Mansarda is the firstEnglish trans lation of Danilo Kis's novel pub lished in Yugoslavia in 1962. The author's emphasis on bohemian and socially transgressive behavior goes against the grain of "socialist realist" tendencies that elevated the collective spirit and self-sacrificeof the individual for the creation of socialist Utopia. The protagonist is an urban bohemian whose lofty dis sociation from the mundane and socially responsible is declared by theepigraph of thenovel taken from Alexandr Blok: "The more that life pushes a person up to greater and greater heights, the colder it gets forhim or her, and the less one is capable of comprehending life and ^^^h adjusting to it."The attic room,man- ^^^m sarda, thus becomes a metaphor for therathercarefree lifeof theaspiring ^^^H writer, Orpheus, and his roommate ^^^1 and alter ego Igor?"Perpetual stu dent. Student-vagabond. Stargazer. ^^^J Sleepwalker"?a life that revolves around the girl Eurydice, drinking, ^^^h womanizing, and discussions on the relation of art to reality. The beginning of Orpheus's transformation occurs following his (real or imaginary) "visit" to the ^^^h Pacific islands, bringing over non- ^^^J European "wisdom" and a realiza tion that everything in his lifehas been a construct, even the mansarda and Eurydice. Challenged to "move down to theground floor,"exchange his candlelit night musings with daylight writing thatoffers a better look at people below, and engage inwriting about thepoor, Orpheus insists thathis book will be "without dialectics and ethics," devoid even of love. His work, he emphasizes, is an exercise in the emancipation from egoism that, however, soon turns intoa revolt against the indul gent artifice of literature and the urge to acknowledge the "reality" of life through rituals of everyday life and charitable work. "Doesn't real life, realitas, lie somewhere between your mansarda and your Walpurgis Night?!" a friend inquires of him. The mythical Orpheus ^^^B descended into theUnderworld in ^^^b order to bring back Eurydice, and was the only man to come back alive. Doesn't realitas, therefore, lie between thepalpable misery of the people "below" and his disinterest edness in daily matters? Orpheus's...