| Prosit
2000
A very personal look at Croatian literature
A young Croatian journalist, or a writer, witnessing the end of
the year 1919, comforts himself with the hope that the New Year might
bring brighter and gentler dawns. In the past years, he has seen such
troubles and adversities of war, the pain and the suffering of so
many Croatian blows, then the ravage and devastation of death, and
finally such moral and material destitution. A whole procession of
penance with no trust in redemption; and then, finally, the successes
achieved turned out to be more illusions than reality.
Prophetic, timeless words following directly on the heels of the "War
To End All Wars" and just two decades after fin-de-siécle, resound,
reverberate and resonate through Croatia eighty years later - at the
end of the whole millennium, after the war (which was not intended
to end any wars), after most ideals in the souls were cut to size,
after the fin-de-millennium finally deconstructed not only political
and economic relations, but also whirled like a hurricane over cultural
discourse - with equal might, mistrust and melancholy.
The optimism present in the remainder of Tin's text is much more in
question today. Programmatic passwords no longer function, mystic
Quests (albeit for the Bottom) neither. What is left is sloth and
disorganisation, and, before all, snobbism, house-trained and adapted
to the trends and patterns of "civilisation achievements",
the post-modern in particular. (Ah, what a wonderful, liberating word!
ah, the prospects for half-taught apprentices!)
Lately, I've been suffering from a certain reading block. It mostly
comes down to the first few dozen pages, after which I lose interest.
Or, if it's poetry, I am reduced to accidental glances, when the eye
is caught by an interesting word or syntagm, what the Slovenes call
brskanje. Why? There are plenty of reasons - the authors getting stuck
on old pathways, a general lack of artistic ambition, fillers in place
of creation?
It is horrible to say that all of our "great" literature
is actually dreadfully poor and shallow. There are moments of extraordinary
"presentation", but the content of the presentations is
as far removed from greatness as possible, and hardly worth the mastery
in the working. Content has long overtaken the function of context,
form took the function of content, and so we're left with what we've
got - furious lines and pages of text on??, and discussions focusing
(if they happen at all) on form, "good writing", or, at
best, "style". It has often happened to me to catch even
the most highly regarded authors in merely piling sentences onto what
they feel and want to say, not knowing how to reduce the envelope,
until it becomes its own meaning and goal - just a flat reprint of
their thought. Dimension is lost; living, breathing feelings, characters
and themes are reduced to profiles. When not in the service of experiment
for experiment's sake, literature appears as mere verbose journalism,
slightly more literate publicism, a more polished report or compte
rendu.
This may be caused by the press, or the TV, or the Internet. The final
speed of performance and reading, equally quick complementation of
themes and days, a lack of critical distance, time/space, personal
contemplation, readership perception - all these things characterise
Croatian literature, the older, more moulded one as well as the younger,
copy-cat oriented one. And the worst in all of this empty drumming
is the fact that anything goes, that there is no judgement form. There
is no time for their creation in all that rush. There is merely the
fantasy of separate and general means an individual always uses -
a performance of the supply and demand principle. Literature has become
just a quick effect. Considered observation and exploration of detail
is out of the question. Production goes as if on tape - a literary
Ford-T, modified to meet the individual demands of the customer, publisher,
critic or "public", that amorphous, shapeless mass raised
to the pedestal of supreme blessing-bestower.
Literature is a product in an economic sense, but must not be reduced
to trade, to fees, to public acceptance personified in the number
of copies sold. Literature is the most disgusting form of trade. Doubly
so because some talent is involved. Market items are often actual
spiritual values.
Almost all of our literature is popular, in the sense that most works
focus on extraordinary events, critical phases - passions, crimes
- which are what attracts and entices the souls disinterested in the
everyday flow of reality. And even when literature does focus on everyday
matters, it needs to create a dramatised, poetised value. Intellectual
soap-opera. Dynasty with a human face. Renewals, resurrections, redemptions,
counteractions, revolutions. Impossibility of significance. The poor
also weep. And drink, and take drugs, and get laid? Our literature
has a particular fondness of confessions, revelations. One discloses
one's moral outlook but hides one's feet. Removes the drawers while
keeping the hat on. Another releases his most intimate feelings, but
would rather die than confess to his problems. And so forth. Anything
for the audience.
One should not write for the audience, but rather for the reader.
For the one who can?t be forced neither with arrogance nor with tone.
For the one who will either live or kill your idea, for the one whom
you bestow with ultimate power over your creation, with the power
to jump, to pass, not only to follow, as well as the power to think
different and not believe, not accept.
And the number of authors! The mutual tendency, in those most vainglorious,
not to back up before difficulties - a book a year, a year a page.
The young complain (they're young, after all), and thus forgiven,
even enticed. Artificial creation and destruction of "values".
The idea of existence and progress as an element of procrastination.
Shameless stagnation. After all, anything can work. The judgement
- near future. Successive success of everything.
The worst is meekness, not to say pliancy of the critique. The object
of critique should be to discover which problem the author had tackled
(consciously or not), and to decide whether the problem was resolved
or not. Unfortunately, we see instead critical parasitism at work,
creatures devoid of existence except through denial of others. They
would perish without those they so avidly criticise, as can best be
seen in the void of their positive works. Those whose word-processors
produce just milk and honey, regardless of the literary hotchpotch
they've got at hand; why bother thinking.
You've criticised everyone, are you any better? someone might ask
at the end. I'm not.
Maybe, just maybe, a little more tired. And maybe, just maybe, I am
one of those relics not afraid to shake hands skin-to-skin, no gloves,
with all those rising above the category of mere entertainers, continuously
and uncompromisingly throwing that same glove to every scribble sold
under the guise of art.
*Prosit 1920. a text by Croatian writer Tin Ujeviæ, published on New
Year 1920, in which he describes the situation in domestic literature.
The parallels between the situations then and today partially determined
the form and content of this text. Certain words from the original
text were changed or paraphrised, while some were repeated verbatim,
although with no particular notice.
En passant, the visual similarity between the words Pontes i Prosit,
although accidental, should not be completely ignored.
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Igor Markoviæ |
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