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Saulius Vasiliauskas “Now I will have a quiet lunch”, Editorial of the Lithuanian Writers Union, 2020
Behind what seems to me to be a very successful cover, in a socialist style, evoking the allusion to the Czech author Bohumil Hrabal’s novel “I Served the King of England” mentioned several times in the book, the experiences of a young man who grew up in Širvintos, the bohemian and academic Vilnius. the relations of the representative of the millennial generation with things, friends, girls; the look of a doctoral student, a bohemian, a character indifferent to science, himself and others. In the stories, it is not difficult to capture the influence of material reality in the relationships of young people and the consequent leveling of values: the mixing of real and significant things with other insignificant.
In the first book of S. Vasiliauskas, the characters drawn and the themes developed are typical of many beginners; They are like a kind of exercise in speaking and reconciling conscience, challenges that must be overcome or steps without which it is difficult to move forward motivated. Such steps of creative coordination could be guessed from the following: an unspecified character, an unmotivated time vagueness, a walk to change the narrative in the right direction (a short story is even called “I went for a walk”), and also a frequent one ( Let’s call it funny) or not knowing one’s own house as in the story “Keys”), the relationship between a man and a woman, the dreams of the characters (the text “Gniutulas” and retelling the dream), etc.
Several predominant thematic blocks can be distinguished: they are the complicated relationships with the girls, the multitude of the academic world, the bohemian routine, the noteworthy travel essays. Most of the stories are dominated by a materialistic and physiological perspective: the characters of the book or the narrator rarely turn inward and evaluate only the objective exterior, so they do not face spiritual challenges but various curiosities of physical reality with objects , food, objects, nails, umbrellas, underpants, keys or pendants, potato chips, pizza, beer or soy milk, etc. Experiencing the wonder of the everyday world as if it were said to have fallen from the moon, the author deliberately seeks a kind of satirical effect, as he chooses and saves the words, rather than wrapping the pages in sentences, cobwebs, and multi-layered allegories. .
As is customary for its debut, this book in the PK series is characterized by diversity of genres, but I personally advocate pure satire with an intriguing and elaborate plot (eg “I’d Ask Potatoes”, “Classic”).
Virginie Despentes Vernon Subutex 1, translated from French by Paul Yevseyev, White Bows, 2020
Such books are rare: although the reader gets carried away, he is greeted by the passionate language of the work, who doubts more and more about the page, and to whom you read everything. To paraphrase a typical quote from a novel: “Kemar is so good at forgetting what you did to others” (p. 147), it can be said that the various failed characters are portrayed so persuasively that they simply forget what the fuck it is.
The opposite of the Irish Times review idea, aside from this “article about us all – how loud we scream, how much it hurts”, is inaccurate and maybe even false – we’re not actually all sperm, porn stars, narcotics , the poor and whatever ghost (problems). The book tells the story of the fall, the fall, the collapse of those people – the fringe characters, whatever. Lots of coke and sex, as if that’s what life was about. It is true that history is also full of good music, only that usually, with charming exceptions, it does not verbalize its sound and interpretation, but simply names the titles of the works.
In a word, “Vernon Subutex” is another case in which in literature we find a marginal character who justifies himself, as if he were force and norm, goodness and beauty. It is true that the author at least avoids the romanticization of the border, pointing out that the behavior and conditions of the characters do not satisfy themselves: “It was like a hotel for friends who immediately moved away from it when they no longer needed anything. Emil’s poets are already in his throat. Bees too sensitive to work ”(p. 51).
Personally, I don’t understand why readers of the hedonistic book à la Bukowski arouse such interest; It seems to me that the people depicted in the novel should only care about social services and their parents and grandparents, who are condemned to the grave, as their offspring have fallen. Although when you think about what you are going to write about the life of a girl, a nurse or a firefighter … Literature, like the world, is driven by violence, sex and politics, right? I have been actively involved in bohemianism myself and can attest that the most obscene things happen only in violent or criminal settings, although even in an innocent decadent bohemian, crime sooner or later still occurs. The prose worldview of the writer V. Despentes was determined by the sexual abuse he experienced as a teenager, working as a prostitute, and his first novel was titled “Fuck me.”
The first in the “Vernon Subutex” trilogy is a book about being infinitely faded, renewed and energetic, more ingenious than Bukowski’s and beautifully translated (“ten”, “pofig”, “dovetail”). I think that the spiritual misery and hunger he feels in the novel will resonate with many readers, even if he only knows the attributes of the limit described by the stories of the films, “Tūla” by Jurgis Kunčinas and his second cousin who studies at the academy.
Jon Fosse “Images of childhood”, translated from Norwegian by Justė Nepaitė, Golden Fish, 2020
Once The Daily Telegraph named the Norwegian author as one of the 100 living geniuses, I certainly don’t dare to argue. The first little contact with J. Fosse began in 2014, after reading the story “And then the dog comes” from the magazine “Metai”, which I consider one of the best texts I have ever experienced (it can and should be found by sniffing ).
Both in that story previously published in the magazine and in the latest collection, we find a virtuous stylist, in whose work the order of words, their repetition and selection are especially important. For example, going back to a particular motif, the author creates a dramatic tension, in other words, only from the plasticity of word order and syntax, causing reading anxiety, say, “and if the weather is not wet You could go out to sea, try to fish, yes, do it. Juhanes thinks, and then it occurs to him that he thinks like that every morning, he thinks the same thing every beautiful morning, Juhanes thinks, but what else can he think?
In the aforementioned story, Fosse sets out to tell the day of the birth and death of one of the characters, and he does so so close to the greatest mysteries of being that he himself seems to experience the “participation effect” of birth and death. In another story, he develops the consciousness of a four-year-old boy, flawlessly reflecting the behavioral motives inherent at that time. Yet another story unfolds the breach of a strong first erotic lust that strikes every adolescent, and again from as close as if this prose has fallen under the skin.
What’s more disappointing is that only one hundred and a half pages of Fosse’s work have been published. Didn’t we deserve more?
Frans de Waal’s “Mother’s Last Hug”, translated from English by Rasa Dirgėlė, Other books, 2020
Just don’t stress. Such could be the message of this book for us, for humanity, for our species. The rather thin work aims to explain in detail why we are so similar to other humanoids, and they are similar to us, according to the author himself: “The most interesting emotional expressions, body language and social dynamics are for me. Humans and other primates are so similar in this respect that I basically don’t care which ones to look at ”(p. 9). Biologically separated, we are not superior to monkeys or chimpanzees, only culturally we have talked about it. It’s hard to accept that, but whatever you do. The man long ago had to stop, worship pride and take a closer look at himself.
After all, probably no one will dispute that the United States and Belarus are ruled by monkeys? Behold. Here, when I recently moved to another apartment, I had to add my hand back to the Ikea bed, during which I experienced various emotions and feelings, from curiosity to rage (I hope the designer of this bed has a separate place in humanoid hell). When I got angry and spread out on the ground, I acted like a monkey. Because other primates feel and do the same as humans, and “refusing to acknowledge that humans are similar to other animals poses more problems than reconciling with that” (p. 69).
I think after reading “Mom’s Last Hug,” you’ll never see your own class the same again, and then that girl or boyfriend’s smile on the first date will remind you of something familiar from the law of the jungle.
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