The Metaphysical Fantasias of Zoran Živković

Abstract

SPECIAL SECTION Behind a story read, a taletold, something elseissaidaswell, like a nagging voice half heard amid a conversation. Wehave the certainty that this voice isimportant, a necessity, andyet wecannot exactly make itout. - Alberto Manguel, BlackWater: TheAnthology ofFantastic Literature A patient has recall "Virus nothing is told 451/' of by whose their hisdoctor lives sufferers but that have can he has "Virus451/'whosesufferers can recallnothing oftheir livesbuthave photographic memoriesof everybook they haveeverread.Anelderly recluse whocollects photographs of himself he has takenonce a month foryearsdiscovers thathisimagehas beguntofadefrom eachphoto.Theteacher of a freestyle drawing classforautistic children onedayplaysfor hisclassa recording ofChopin 'sSecondPianoConcerto, whereupon one of his wards does something impossible for anyhumantodo. Suchis everyday lifeinthe worldsofSerbian fantasist Zoran2ivkovic. Perhaps becausehisfirst novel,TheFourth Circle(1993),incorporates devicesassociated with sciencefiction (aliens,artificial intelligence , parallelworlds), 2ivkovicis often misconstrued as a "science-fiction writer" - a label he aggressively disavows. And rightly so. 2ivkovicdoes notwritesciencefiction. Even whenheappropriates science-fictional conceits, hedoesnotusethem as sfwriters do. Neither does he writefantasy. His story worldsare not thoseof faerie - Oz, Narnia, MiddleEarth; they arefamiliar worlds ofeveryday .Nordoes he write horror. Thefrisson of supernatural fearis as alientohisaesthetic as explicit sexandgraphic physical violence. 2ivkovic belongstono genre. He writes a modern form oftheancient storytelling mode of the fantastic, whichhe calls "fantastika" and whichhe elucidates in theinterview that appearsinWLTonline. Lacedwith postmodern play, surrealjuxtapositions, and (especially) absurdist humor, his storiesmix,in varying proportions, themundane andtheMarvelous. 2ivkovic'sfiction issuesfrom thecentral andeastern European tradition ofmetaphysical fantasy; inourinterview, henumbered among hisliterary influences NikolaiGogol,E. T. A. Hoffmann, MikhailBulgakov, Stanistaw Lem, KarelCapek,Umberto Eco,and Russiansymbolist Valerie Bryusov. Inthisrespect, ifinfew others, hisworkfollows longstanding trends in Serbian prose. The supernatural and themystical have figuredprominently in written Serbianliterature from thefirst Christian religious and monastic worksofthetwelfth century. During thelong"Turkish night" ofdomination bythe Ottoman Empire (1478-1878), written literature all butvanished.Butfiction and poetry persistedin oral epic poems,legends,folktales, andparables. Following Serbian independence, written literature returned - primarily, realistic accounts ofpeasantlivesin smallvillages.By thelateeighteenth century, however, Serbian proponents ofEuropeanmodernism beganto challenge ruralrealists - first in poetry, then, after World WarI,inprose. By1948, theyearof2ivkovic's birth, many Serbian writers hadmovedtoward moremodern ,oftenexperimental formsthatincluded innovativeuses of the fantastic. Notwithstandingthe continuedimportance of real26 1 World Literature Today istssuchas 1961Nobel LaureateIvo Andric (1892-1975)and regionalists such as Janko Veselinovic (1862-1905), postwarSerbianliterature aboundswithwriters suchas Danilo Ki§ (1935-89), MiloradPavic(1929-2009), and BorislavPekic(1930-92),whose worksoften combine realism withthefantastic, sometimes usingtactics ofpostmodernism. Anyone wantingan overview ofcontemporary Serbianfictionshouldseekouttheinvaluable anthology ThePrince ofFire , editedbyRadmilaJ.Gorup andNadezdaObradovic (1998). Evenreaders familiar withthesmallfractionofSerbian literature available intranslation willfindZivkovic's workatypical, foritinno way alludesto Serbia,itsculture, or itstortured history. Hiswork islargely indeterminate geographically, historically, culturally, politically , eventemporally. Whilemany stories containmarkers tosometimeperiod - computers, horse-drawn carriages, anancient monastery veryfewcontaindatesor allusionsto events that wouldsituate them moreprecisely. v Zivkovic's dreamlike fictions reduction aredistinguished ofstory toessentials. bytheir dreamlike reduction ofstory toessentials. Witha fewverbalbrushstrokes Zivkovic rendersimmediate settings so theycomealivein ourimagination. Butthat'sall we get."Compartments " (2004)openswitha manrushing to catch a train abouttoleavethestation. Inwhat city isthestation? Inwhatcountry? Whatisthe train's destination? Whyis he taking thistrip? Whendoesthestory takeplace?We'renottold. As Zivkovicrenderssetting, so does he rendercharacter. About the protagonist of "Compartments" welearn only that heispolite, amiable, and unflappable - traits he willneed in orderto cope withthebizarreencounters thatawaithimaboardthetrain. Whatis his profession, his background, his name?We're nottoldbecausewe don'tneedtoknow. Elisionof the extraneous is essentialto Zivkovic'sart.His stories'lackofperipheral context, theirspatial and temporalindeterminacy , makesthemaccessible to anyreader, anytime, anywhere.By omitting characters' nationalities, backgrounds, cultural, political, andsocialcontexts butvividly rendering their innerlives,Zivkovicconnects thepersonal meticulously individuated people - totheuniversal - commonalities his charactersshare withallhumans. Zivkovicpopulateshis worldsnot with superheroes, serialkillers, masterminds, orevil villainsbut withordinary, ifofteneccentric, humanbeingswhose quotidianrealitiesare as familiar as yoursormine.Theirimmediate environs are citystreets, coffee shops,bookshops ,antiquestores, hospitals, libraries . . . eachvivified withprecise details. True,readersmayfindit hardto identify withMissTamara,a lifelong readerwho one day decides,on thebasisofno evidence whatsoever, thatto read even one sentence in anybook in herlibrary will resultin her instant death;orwiththenameless bibliophile in "NobleLibrary," a story intheaward-winningTheLibrary (2002), whowageswarwitha miraculously empowered paperbackthat,for all his increasingly hysterical efforts, persistently reappearsin his fastidiously arranged bookshelf. But anyonecan empathizewith themiddle-aged undertaker in Hidden Camera (2003).A slaveto routine and ritual, he daily dealswiththedeadbutneverengagestheliving .His mostintimate relationship is withhis fish, withwhomheshares"nothing morethan reciprocated indifference." Thenone day,on impulse, hegiveshimself overtounseenforces thatguidehimthrough a heroicstruggle to...