“Every day the world we’re living in is increasingly turning into…a circus. Yes, I know, the comparison’s a dull one. It’s what people used to say in ancient B.G., (Before Google). It’s a compete circus! My life has turned into a circus! Politics is a circus! The word ‘circus’ was an analogy for chaos, madness, unbecoming behavior, for events that had gotten out of hand, for life’s more grotesque turns. It’s possible, though, that the word might soon regain currency. Let’s remember P. T. Barnum for a second, father of the circus and American millionaire, and his declaration that ‘no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.’ Barnum’s cynical declaration naturally doesn’t only apply to Americans. The circus is global entertainment.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie  (FEB 21, 2014)

Dubravka Ugresic’s new collection of cultural essays deal, primarily, with “Nostalgia,” the title of her first piece.

Ms. Ugresice is a Croatian, formally a Yugoslavian, who now lives in Amsterdam.

Her essays delve into politics, history, popular US, Yugoslavian and European culture from the 1950’s to the 21st century, as well as her own thoughts and flights of fancy. She is branded a “Yugonostalgnic,” by many of her fellow countrymen and women. This is a derogatory term, a synonym for those who long for the days of the Yugoslavia of yore under the reign of Tito; dinosaurs who look back fondly to the slogan “brotherhood and unity.”

Her “Yugonostalgia” began before the death of Tito, before the unified country of Yugoslavia broke up into six different states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia. “Back then I was haunted by an unnerving premonition that the world around me was about to suddenly vanish.” She wonders if she has developed what psychologists call LAT, or “Low Authoritarianism Syndrome.”

The collection’s first essay, which really captivated me, has the author visiting New York City in 2011. She is searching for Zucotti Park during the “Occupy Wall Street” protests. She asks a stranger, “Excuse me, where’s the ah, revolution.” She wonders if “a long dormant rebel virus” was stirring in her.

She visits Washington Square in New York City’s Greenwich Village and laments the absence of the “dropouts, the refuseniks, the superfluous men and women, the alcoholics and smokers, the homeless, the pickpockets the vagrants, the hustlers, the grumblers grumbling to themselves, the idlers, the losers, the dreamers,” of before…the Washington Square Park as she remembers it.

The author was born in 1949, around the time when Marshall Josip Broz Tito, a statesman, revolutionary and authoritarian head of the post WWII state of Yugoslavia, told Soviet dictator Stalin “NO!” He modeled his economic development plan independently from Moscow, which resulted in a diplomatic escalation followed by a bitter exchange of letters in which Tito affirmed that although his country would follow the examples of the Soviet system, his country would remain separate from Russia and the Eastern Bloc Countries. Ms. Ugresic seems to be having trouble with what the future has brought. She asks herself, “What in her lifetime of civil war, new passports and fractured identities, betrayals, etc., had actually been realized of all the things promised to us by communists’ ideologues.”

She reflects on a post Soviet Union world, “a BG, (Before Google),” world. However, although she paints the past with artificial colors, (which she is very much aware of), she really doesn’t want to turn time back, but is not happy with life in the present. The author quotes Peter Sloterdijk, a German philosopher, cultural theorist TV host and columnist, “Europe no longer loves life. The radiance of historical fulfillment is gone, in its place only exhaustion, the entropic qualities of an aging culture,” a reign of “spiritual nakedness.” Yes, she agrees, “Europe is in decay.”

With a wry, often quirky sense of humor, she does riffs on 21st century Europe – western and eastern. The essays contain comments on the Netherlands, where undocumented immigrants are not wanted. Here Poles are branded as thieves – they are blamed for everything that goes wrong. Even the Polish prostitutes flourish, taking work away from Amsterdam’s ever famous “ladies” who work their trade in the infamous red light district. As far as Hungary goes – they are “anti-Semitic and despise the Roma, (gypsies).” She muses on formerly great Russian literature and Europe’s neglected film industry, where only yesterday directors, i.e., Luis Bunuel, Ingmar Bergman, Lina Wertmueller, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Goddard, Sergei Eisenstein, Michelangelo Antonioni, etc., created cinematic masterpieces. She even mentions the popularity of aquarium ownership among wealthy young men, to the marginalization of unattractive people.

There are also pieces ranging from her travels to USA’s Midwest and her native Zagreb, from Ireland to Israel. There are lots of personal anecdotes here. Her insights on the people she meets in her travels are perceptive. Like an anthropologist, she analyzes the norms of the times and writes of “Lookism.” ” ‘Lookism’ is a widespread and very powerful prejudice based on a person’s physical appearance.” It is discriminatory. Fat people are targeted as ugly. Even Sak’s Fifth Avenue has closed their plus-size department. Fat people and smokers are “intolerable social evils.”

The “Sepia” from the title refers to the past…to old photographs in sepia.

These essays are passionate, intriguing, and skillfully written. They should appeal to those who are curious about the take on today’s world by a woman who is the product of both a communist regime and the “now” of the 21st century. Highly recommended. (Translated from the Croatian by David Williams.)

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 1 readers
PUBLISHER:	Open Letter Books; Reprint edition (February 18, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Dubravka Ugresic
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

Bibliography:

• In the Jaws of Life and Other Stories (1992)
• Fording the Stream of Consciousness (1993)
• The Museum of Unconditional Surrender (1998)
• Lend Me Your Character (2004)
• The Ministry of Pain (2005)
• Nobody’s Home (2007)
• Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (2009)

Non-fiction:

• Have a Nice Day: From the Balkan War to the American Dream (1994)
• The Culture of Lies: Antipolitical Essays (1998)
• Thank You for Not Reading: Essays on Literary Trivia (2003)
• Karaoke Culture (2011)
• Europe in Sepia (February 2014)

“I sometimes think that I know Roza’s stories better than I know my own.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (NOV 28, 2009)

One evening, Christian decides that he wants to pick up a prostitute for the first time in his life. He drives around in a certain part of London and sees a young woman dressed provocatively. He turns his car around and asks her how much she charges. She tells him that her price, when she did work, was 500 pounds, and this is a lot more than Christian could ever afford. However, she asks him for a ride home and their relationship begins then. Roza, the young woman, is the daughter of a partisan of Tito‘s army and she begins to beguile Chris with Scheherazade-like stories about her life night after night.

Chris is deeply in love with Roza. He is married to a woman who he describes as “the great white loaf.” Roza lives in a squatter’s apartment in London with an ubiquitous Bob Dylan and some other characters. Regularly, she and Chris get together for tea and story telling – mostly Roza’s stories. Some of the stories are poignant, some revolting, some draw us in so far that we don’t know where the story ends and the novel picks up. However, we never really know how much of Roza’s stories are the truth. Gradually, however, we see a growing closeness between Chris and Roza.

Though nothing sexual has happened yet, Chris is consumed with sexual images of Roza that keep him awake every night. He longs for her with all his heart and it appears that his feelings may be reciprocated. He is trying desperately to save 500 pounds in case Roza decides that she will return to the life.

Chris is a simpler man than Roza is in terms of life experiences. He often visits the library after his story times with Roza in order to check up on historical events or figures. He doesn’t know about the events that surrounded Tito’s regime, what the Ustase was, what the difference is between a communist, a socialist or an anarchist.

The reader is beguiled by Roza’s stories. We lament the events that Roza shares with us and are driven to fury and tears as Roza eloquently weaves her web of love for Chris. The characters that inhabit the squatter’s apartment are entertaining and fun as background. Chris has a daughter Roza’s age and he turns to her for information about the music and mores of the time.

This is a book that hits hard. It vacillates between intellectualizing, educating and didacticism, to the painful events of the heart, those aspects of us that we take with us no matter where our travels take us.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 18 readers
PUBLISHER:	Vintage (October 6, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Louis de Bernieres
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review: Birds Without Wings

Bibliography:

• The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts (1990) *
• Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord (1991) *
• The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman (1992) *
• Corelli’s Mandolin (1994)
• Labels (1997)
• Red Dog: Stories (2001)
• Birds Without Wings (2004)
• A Partisan’s Daughter (2008)
• Notwithstanding (2009)

* The Latin American Trilogy

Movies from Books:

• Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001)