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Family Cycle Trilogy #2
Bašta, pepeo
The story of Garden, Ashes is narrated by Andreas (“Andi�) Scham in a series of loosely connected reminiscences about his childhood. At the beginning of the novel, he is a five-year-old boy who remembers vividly the incomprehensible happenings around him: the constant comings and goings, the changing places in which he lives, the numerous older relatives whom he cannot quite remember, and the mysterious disappearances of his father, Eduard Scham. Only later does Andi fully understand these happenings; at the time, surrounded by an aura of anxiety... -enotes.com
Andreas Scham's father disappeared during the Holocaust--as Kis's father did--and the family is forced into leaving its neighborhood in the city of Novi Sad. They become a family of rootless wanderers. Andreas, always searching for his lost father, finds that his memories of him grow ever stronger. --Overstock.com
Andreas Scham's father disappeared during the Holocaust--as Kis's father did--and the family is forced into leaving its neighborhood in the city of Novi Sad. They become a family of rootless wanderers. Andreas, always searching for his lost father, finds that his memories of him grow ever stronger. --Overstock.com
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
52 people are currently reading
3,278 people want to read
About the author
Danilo Kiš
81books514followersDanilo Kiš was born in Subotica, Danube Banovina, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the son of Eduard Kiš (Kis Ede), a Hungarian Jewish railway inspector, and Milica Kiš (born Dragićević) from Cetinje, Montenegro. During the Second World War, he lost his father and several other family members, who died in various Nazi camps. His mother took him and his older sister Danica to Hungary for the duration of the war. After the end of the war, the family moved to Cetinje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, where Kiš graduated from high school in 1954.
Kiš studied literature at the University of Belgrade, and graduated in 1958 as the first student to complete a course in comparative literature. He was a prominent member of the Vidici magazine, where he worked until 1960. In 1962 he published his first two novels, Mansarda and Psalam 44. Kiš received the prestigious NIN Award for his Peščanik ("Hourglass") in 1973, which he returned a few years later, due to a political dispute.
During the following years, Kiš received a great number of national and international awards for his prose and poetry.
He spent most of his life in Paris and working as a lecturer elsewhere in France.
Kiš was married to Mirjana Miočinović from 1962 to 1981. After their separation, he lived with Pascale Delpech until his early death from lung cancer in Paris.
A film based on Peščanik (Fövenyóra) directed by the Hungarian Szabolcs Tolnai is currently in post-production.
Kiš was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and was due to win it, were it not for his untimely death in 1989.
Kiš studied literature at the University of Belgrade, and graduated in 1958 as the first student to complete a course in comparative literature. He was a prominent member of the Vidici magazine, where he worked until 1960. In 1962 he published his first two novels, Mansarda and Psalam 44. Kiš received the prestigious NIN Award for his Peščanik ("Hourglass") in 1973, which he returned a few years later, due to a political dispute.
During the following years, Kiš received a great number of national and international awards for his prose and poetry.
He spent most of his life in Paris and working as a lecturer elsewhere in France.
Kiš was married to Mirjana Miočinović from 1962 to 1981. After their separation, he lived with Pascale Delpech until his early death from lung cancer in Paris.
A film based on Peščanik (Fövenyóra) directed by the Hungarian Szabolcs Tolnai is currently in post-production.
Kiš was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and was due to win it, were it not for his untimely death in 1989.
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August 27, 2024
Garden, Ashes is a very fanciful novel and in its poetical imagery, it reminded me of ’s stories.
A boy and his family: the times are hard and life is full of misery and deprivations but child’s imagination is capable to turn even sorrow and unhappiness into something magical.
There were his kind mother, his older sister, his strange relatives but the boy was growing up in the dark shadow of his father�
Like the mad prophet of the old testament his father raged, thundered curses and foreboded eternal darkness�
We are born� We grow up� We grow older� Time flies� We live� And life is but a dream.
A boy and his family: the times are hard and life is full of misery and deprivations but child’s imagination is capable to turn even sorrow and unhappiness into something magical.
Since childhood, I was afflicted with a sick hypersensitivity, and my imagination quickly turned everything into a memory, too quickly: sometimes one day was enough, or an interval of a few hours, or a routine change of place, for an everyday event with a lyrical value that I did not sense at the time, to become suddenly adorned with a radiant echo, the echo ordinarily reserved only for those memories which have been standing for many years in the powerful fixative of lyrical oblivion.
There were his kind mother, his older sister, his strange relatives but the boy was growing up in the dark shadow of his father�
And that man wrapped in a caftan with the insane glow in his eyes, with his arms raised to heaven, that must be my lather, the sinful prophet, the false apostle.
Like the mad prophet of the old testament his father raged, thundered curses and foreboded eternal darkness�
“There are people who are born to be unhappy and to make others unhappy, who are the victims of celestial intrigues incomprehensible to us, guinea pigs tor the celestial machinery, rebels allotted the part of a rebel yet born � by the cruel logic of the celestial comedy � with their wings clipped. They are titans without the power of titans, dwarf-titans whose only greatness was given them in the form of a rigid dose of sensitivity that dissolves their trifling strength like alcohol. They follow their star, their sick sensibility, borne along by titanic plans and intentions, but then break like waves against the rocky banks at triviality.�
We are born� We grow up� We grow older� Time flies� We live� And life is but a dream.
April 17, 2020
Bu enfes roman, Sırpça aslından çevirisiyle (Özge Deniz) bu yıl yayınlarımız
arasında olacak.
arasında olacak.
December 17, 2010
I don’t know if I am totally comfortable with liking a book such as Garden, Ashes as much as I do. The historical facts behind it’s necessity of being are too terrible, and it brings up the question, at least in my mind, as to why I enjoy these particular types of books so much. The type of books I mean are early to mid-twentieth century literary memoirs from Eastern Europe and Russia; and if they are memoirs of a childhood, or a gulag, or the front, it is all the more strangely alluring, and I’m not sure if the reasons behind my fascination with this genre are pure. But is “enjoy� even the right word to use here? Maybe it’s more like I am comforted by them (but how does a deluge bring about comfort?), or that they give me the hopeful thought that art often embodies the better nature of humanity, the ability to sustain itself through tragedy, that it is works of art (books, films, discussions, monuments) that are the truly lasting echoes of a disaster- they resound a bit longer than the disaster itself and perhaps better inform the future. Regardless, one only can wish that these books never had to come into being.
The world did not end with the Holocaust, but it surely made it a lot tougher to forgive humanity its sins, to see us as something possessing an inherent good. Danilo Kiš’s father vanished, presumably into Auschwitz, sometime in the middle of World War II, when the writer was 9 years old. He was a Jew, Kiš’s mother was Christian, so she and Danilo were spared that specific fate; they were dealt a grim one nonetheless. Garden, Ashes is a fictional account of a parallel event, though the Holocaust is never directly mentioned. Through the perspective of a child growing into an adolescent, World War II in Eastern Europe takes on the qualities of a Biblical epic, or a mythical fantasia, or a series of morbid absurdities and caricatures, constant motion, hunger, and destitution. Garden, Ashes always inhabits the perspective of Andi Scham, but is also a portrait of his eccentric, messianic, disturbed father Eduard Scham (really the most unforgettable character I’ve encountered in literature in a long time), also of his sister and his mother, relatives and coevals caught in the flood of events that subsumed the Jewish population of Eastern Europe in the middle of the last century. However, a reader going into this book looking for a Holocaust memoir, or a WWII epic, or even a literal historical perspective on the time period will be confounded. The world of Garden, Ashes is Andi Scham’s world; personalized, rendered, mythologized, fragmented as memories of childhood are. The reader is disoriented when Andi is disoriented, the reader sees the events of pogroms and intermittent fleeing and poverty and war with the naivete and narrow discernment of someone not yet quite acclimated to his perceptions. Another way to say it is that Andi Scham’s perceptions are not yet prejudiced, his interpretations not yet made logical and sterile by the clockwork mechanisms of adulthood. The war to him is the doldrums, but a spectacle, and his quixotic visions and memories comprise the book.
Kiš focuses on objects, magnifying them in his descriptions, revitalizing their interaction with their world. A Singer sewing machine, a dirty tray, a painting of an angel, a dog, a book, more than inhabit a living space; they have consequences of their own. Their dissolution is also the dissolution of their world:
�...a spool from which the thread unwinds, as thick as a cord, magnified and therefore difficult to recognize, like the letter S, giving the illusion of spider legs. The emblem is painted a golden yellow, like a nobleman’s coat of arms, and so are the arabesques on the lacquered head of the machine. They are peeling here and there and the gilt drops off in thin, delicate flakes. The wooden base has also begun to peel, especially along the edges. First it blisters from temperature changes and dampness, then it begins to wrinkle and split like diseased fingernails. A small brass emblem, elliptical like a medallion, yellow and shiny, is attached to the slender neck of the machine with two toothed screws. The same spider-spool is on the emblem, but much clearer because of its reduced dimensions. The words “The Singer Manfg. Co.- Trade Mark� appear in bas-relief on all sides, as though the machine were a coin. When I pressed the treadle, the machine hummed like a lyre.�
Notice the qualities of degradation of the sewing machine- temperature changes, dampness, age- evidence of poverty. It is a lyre covered in spiders and webs, with teeth, a machine of wonder and danger, and a symbol- later you realize the Singer is what the children’s only clothes are made on, altered throwaways, and that after Eduard Scham disappears, sewing is the activity that occupies the desperate widow. A particularly heartbreaking scene unfolds when the family, after one of their numerous “trips� (flights from the war, from pogroms), returns to their former dwelling to find the objects, so wonderfully described earlier by Andi’s wandering thoughts, in ruin and decay and abandon. One of the imminent devices of this novel is the use of object description as scene setting, as narrative. Things are reduced to the immediate, as they often are in a child’s eyes. Andi’s first sexual and religious experiences are told in a kind of fairy tale style, a Garden of Eden encounter and the vengeful God, and everything luminous and positive (as in the description of the sewing machine) is entwined with something dangerous and dark, something eating away at the stability of each object and moment.
At the center of all of this is the portrait of Andi’s father- monomaniacal, prophetic, apocalyptic Eduard Scham. A book is at the center of his madness. What began with a simple question “How can one travel to Nicaragua?�, develops into an obsession. His Bus, Ship, Rail, and Air Travel Guide, a massive “timetable� of arrivals and departures into and out of every city in the world, by every means of transportation, began as an honest attempt at something like a travel guide, but becomes a historical-philosophical jeremiad, as well as the continuing evidence of Eduard Scham’s disconnection with reality. In its third edition it has become a treatise on Eduard’s personal pantheism, world-philosophy, and theosophical rantings overflowing with inserts, digressions, and rambling, endless end notes. He is hounded and persecuted wherever he goes, thought a madman and a spy by the inhabitants of the towns they settle in (mainly due to his days-long wanderings through the countryside, subsisting on eggs found in bird’s nests, grass, nettles and water from creeks; his filthy, soiled clothing; his messianic, vitriolic rants in local pubs), and ostracized by his relatives. Yet there is a sweetness in Eduard, like a multi-colored eggshell contained in the bramble of a nest, and in the end one has to admit that his apocalyptic prophesies were proven true.
“There are people,� my father continued, “who are born to be unhappy and to make others unhappy, who are the victims of celestial intrigues incomprehensible to us, guinea pigs for the celestial machinery, rebels allotted the part of a rebel yet born- by the cruel logic of the celestial comedy- with their wings clipped. They are titans without the power of titans, dwarf-titans whose only greatness was given them in the form of a rigid dose of sensitivity that dissolves their trifling strength like alcohol. They follow their star, their sick sensibility, borne along by titanic plans and intentions, but then break like waves against the rocky banks of triviality. The height of the cruelty allotted them in lucidity, that awareness of their own limitations, that sick capacity for dissociation. I look at myself in the role forced on me by the heavens and by fate, conscious of my role at all times yet at the same time unable to resist it with the force of logic or will... Fortunately, as I said, this role is coming to an end...�
It is very easy to read into Eduard the fate of the entire Jewish population of Europe in WWII- pursued, vilified, accosted, criminalized, and finally vanished. And all of his titanic plans of unifying the motion and philosophies of the world in a single “timetable� vanish too.
The family lives on, hungry, desperate, alone, wandering. But the luminosity of Andi’s perceptions is maintained. His particularly sensitive nature reacts. He writes his first poem. Thus art is born from tragedy, as a coping mechanism, as a retreat, as a kind of redemption for the world of the survivors, as an ark to maintain and restore meaning after a deluge.
The world did not end with the Holocaust, but it surely made it a lot tougher to forgive humanity its sins, to see us as something possessing an inherent good. Danilo Kiš’s father vanished, presumably into Auschwitz, sometime in the middle of World War II, when the writer was 9 years old. He was a Jew, Kiš’s mother was Christian, so she and Danilo were spared that specific fate; they were dealt a grim one nonetheless. Garden, Ashes is a fictional account of a parallel event, though the Holocaust is never directly mentioned. Through the perspective of a child growing into an adolescent, World War II in Eastern Europe takes on the qualities of a Biblical epic, or a mythical fantasia, or a series of morbid absurdities and caricatures, constant motion, hunger, and destitution. Garden, Ashes always inhabits the perspective of Andi Scham, but is also a portrait of his eccentric, messianic, disturbed father Eduard Scham (really the most unforgettable character I’ve encountered in literature in a long time), also of his sister and his mother, relatives and coevals caught in the flood of events that subsumed the Jewish population of Eastern Europe in the middle of the last century. However, a reader going into this book looking for a Holocaust memoir, or a WWII epic, or even a literal historical perspective on the time period will be confounded. The world of Garden, Ashes is Andi Scham’s world; personalized, rendered, mythologized, fragmented as memories of childhood are. The reader is disoriented when Andi is disoriented, the reader sees the events of pogroms and intermittent fleeing and poverty and war with the naivete and narrow discernment of someone not yet quite acclimated to his perceptions. Another way to say it is that Andi Scham’s perceptions are not yet prejudiced, his interpretations not yet made logical and sterile by the clockwork mechanisms of adulthood. The war to him is the doldrums, but a spectacle, and his quixotic visions and memories comprise the book.
Kiš focuses on objects, magnifying them in his descriptions, revitalizing their interaction with their world. A Singer sewing machine, a dirty tray, a painting of an angel, a dog, a book, more than inhabit a living space; they have consequences of their own. Their dissolution is also the dissolution of their world:
�...a spool from which the thread unwinds, as thick as a cord, magnified and therefore difficult to recognize, like the letter S, giving the illusion of spider legs. The emblem is painted a golden yellow, like a nobleman’s coat of arms, and so are the arabesques on the lacquered head of the machine. They are peeling here and there and the gilt drops off in thin, delicate flakes. The wooden base has also begun to peel, especially along the edges. First it blisters from temperature changes and dampness, then it begins to wrinkle and split like diseased fingernails. A small brass emblem, elliptical like a medallion, yellow and shiny, is attached to the slender neck of the machine with two toothed screws. The same spider-spool is on the emblem, but much clearer because of its reduced dimensions. The words “The Singer Manfg. Co.- Trade Mark� appear in bas-relief on all sides, as though the machine were a coin. When I pressed the treadle, the machine hummed like a lyre.�
Notice the qualities of degradation of the sewing machine- temperature changes, dampness, age- evidence of poverty. It is a lyre covered in spiders and webs, with teeth, a machine of wonder and danger, and a symbol- later you realize the Singer is what the children’s only clothes are made on, altered throwaways, and that after Eduard Scham disappears, sewing is the activity that occupies the desperate widow. A particularly heartbreaking scene unfolds when the family, after one of their numerous “trips� (flights from the war, from pogroms), returns to their former dwelling to find the objects, so wonderfully described earlier by Andi’s wandering thoughts, in ruin and decay and abandon. One of the imminent devices of this novel is the use of object description as scene setting, as narrative. Things are reduced to the immediate, as they often are in a child’s eyes. Andi’s first sexual and religious experiences are told in a kind of fairy tale style, a Garden of Eden encounter and the vengeful God, and everything luminous and positive (as in the description of the sewing machine) is entwined with something dangerous and dark, something eating away at the stability of each object and moment.
At the center of all of this is the portrait of Andi’s father- monomaniacal, prophetic, apocalyptic Eduard Scham. A book is at the center of his madness. What began with a simple question “How can one travel to Nicaragua?�, develops into an obsession. His Bus, Ship, Rail, and Air Travel Guide, a massive “timetable� of arrivals and departures into and out of every city in the world, by every means of transportation, began as an honest attempt at something like a travel guide, but becomes a historical-philosophical jeremiad, as well as the continuing evidence of Eduard Scham’s disconnection with reality. In its third edition it has become a treatise on Eduard’s personal pantheism, world-philosophy, and theosophical rantings overflowing with inserts, digressions, and rambling, endless end notes. He is hounded and persecuted wherever he goes, thought a madman and a spy by the inhabitants of the towns they settle in (mainly due to his days-long wanderings through the countryside, subsisting on eggs found in bird’s nests, grass, nettles and water from creeks; his filthy, soiled clothing; his messianic, vitriolic rants in local pubs), and ostracized by his relatives. Yet there is a sweetness in Eduard, like a multi-colored eggshell contained in the bramble of a nest, and in the end one has to admit that his apocalyptic prophesies were proven true.
“There are people,� my father continued, “who are born to be unhappy and to make others unhappy, who are the victims of celestial intrigues incomprehensible to us, guinea pigs for the celestial machinery, rebels allotted the part of a rebel yet born- by the cruel logic of the celestial comedy- with their wings clipped. They are titans without the power of titans, dwarf-titans whose only greatness was given them in the form of a rigid dose of sensitivity that dissolves their trifling strength like alcohol. They follow their star, their sick sensibility, borne along by titanic plans and intentions, but then break like waves against the rocky banks of triviality. The height of the cruelty allotted them in lucidity, that awareness of their own limitations, that sick capacity for dissociation. I look at myself in the role forced on me by the heavens and by fate, conscious of my role at all times yet at the same time unable to resist it with the force of logic or will... Fortunately, as I said, this role is coming to an end...�
It is very easy to read into Eduard the fate of the entire Jewish population of Europe in WWII- pursued, vilified, accosted, criminalized, and finally vanished. And all of his titanic plans of unifying the motion and philosophies of the world in a single “timetable� vanish too.
The family lives on, hungry, desperate, alone, wandering. But the luminosity of Andi’s perceptions is maintained. His particularly sensitive nature reacts. He writes his first poem. Thus art is born from tragedy, as a coping mechanism, as a retreat, as a kind of redemption for the world of the survivors, as an ark to maintain and restore meaning after a deluge.
June 13, 2020
Kišobrani, 쾱šobrani.
Nisam bio nikad ni strastveni 쾱š-o-bran, ni strastveni negator Kiša. A nisam nikad bio ni između, ravnodušan. Moj odnos prema Kišu je stoga dijagonalan, bočan, na preklop. Neobičan. I nadam se, onoliko svež i nezatrovan koliko može da bude, jer se plašim da fama o Kišu ne potopi Kišovo delo, što bi bilo osiromašujuće za sve. Ali to je računica površnosti � zašto bismo uopšte čitali ako ima neko drugi ko (ne) čita, neko ko će nas izvestiti o modelima koje ćemo čuvati kao misaone mustre. To je izrodilo mnoge besmilice, koje se i dalje gomilaju, čineći Kiša još usamljenijim nego što je bio. Ali dobro, i zablude mogu biti pogon za sopstveno prevazilaženje.
„Bašta, pepeo� je srce Porodičnog cirkusa/ciklusa. Uz sve svoje liciderstvo, enciklopedijski rokoko, to je delo u srži preplavljeno životom, Kišove „igre proljeća i smrti�. Dirljiva priča o figuri oca (autora moje omiljene knjige-u-knjizi znane pod naslovom „Red vožnje autobuskog, brodskog, železničkog i avionskog saobraćaja� � a kad smo već kod saobraćaja, nisu li sve priče, na ovaj ili onaj način, priče o putovanju?), odrastanju, nestajanju, o majčinoj singerici, sećanju, posustajanju, nostalgiji, iskupljujućim trenucima, drami pred odlazak na spavanje... I kako onda da ne pomislim da ceo roman nije samo deo centralnoevropskog narativa o Holokaustu, ili džojsovska literarna trampolina, već jedna ogromna fusnota na Prustovo delo, u kojoj vlada ringišpil afektivnih sećanja i nemira.
A mene je radovao svaki katalog, svaki predmet (ovde predmeti imaju živote dovljne za tomove knjiga), pa čak i sve one divne Kišove preteranosti koje imaju snagu da ceo svet dovedu u red.
I šta se više i može od pisanja!
Nakon poslednje rečenice, ušunja se u čoveka neki pljusak.
Pokislu dušu ne možeš da skineš pred počinak.
(Pepeo pepelu, ali i pepeo bašti.
Neka raste.)
Nisam bio nikad ni strastveni 쾱š-o-bran, ni strastveni negator Kiša. A nisam nikad bio ni između, ravnodušan. Moj odnos prema Kišu je stoga dijagonalan, bočan, na preklop. Neobičan. I nadam se, onoliko svež i nezatrovan koliko može da bude, jer se plašim da fama o Kišu ne potopi Kišovo delo, što bi bilo osiromašujuće za sve. Ali to je računica površnosti � zašto bismo uopšte čitali ako ima neko drugi ko (ne) čita, neko ko će nas izvestiti o modelima koje ćemo čuvati kao misaone mustre. To je izrodilo mnoge besmilice, koje se i dalje gomilaju, čineći Kiša još usamljenijim nego što je bio. Ali dobro, i zablude mogu biti pogon za sopstveno prevazilaženje.
„Bašta, pepeo� je srce Porodičnog cirkusa/ciklusa. Uz sve svoje liciderstvo, enciklopedijski rokoko, to je delo u srži preplavljeno životom, Kišove „igre proljeća i smrti�. Dirljiva priča o figuri oca (autora moje omiljene knjige-u-knjizi znane pod naslovom „Red vožnje autobuskog, brodskog, železničkog i avionskog saobraćaja� � a kad smo već kod saobraćaja, nisu li sve priče, na ovaj ili onaj način, priče o putovanju?), odrastanju, nestajanju, o majčinoj singerici, sećanju, posustajanju, nostalgiji, iskupljujućim trenucima, drami pred odlazak na spavanje... I kako onda da ne pomislim da ceo roman nije samo deo centralnoevropskog narativa o Holokaustu, ili džojsovska literarna trampolina, već jedna ogromna fusnota na Prustovo delo, u kojoj vlada ringišpil afektivnih sećanja i nemira.
A mene je radovao svaki katalog, svaki predmet (ovde predmeti imaju živote dovljne za tomove knjiga), pa čak i sve one divne Kišove preteranosti koje imaju snagu da ceo svet dovedu u red.
I šta se više i može od pisanja!
Nakon poslednje rečenice, ušunja se u čoveka neki pljusak.
Pokislu dušu ne možeš da skineš pred počinak.
(Pepeo pepelu, ali i pepeo bašti.
Neka raste.)
May 4, 2013
There are spoilers endemic to what follows.
How would a child have dealt with the horror of something as regimentally and encompassingly evil as the Holocaust? We are all armed, to some degree, with an imagination that can help us deflect, ignore, transform, subsume select trials and tribulations within immiserating life; but the Shoah is an atrocity at an entirely overwhelming level—so that Andreas Scham, the child's narrative voice relating the events of Garden, Ashes, manages to not only enflesh his own tale within the candied concoctions and selenian spells dispensed from his inventive fount, but, in parallel, that of the mythological meandering of historic time and prophetic passage of Old Testament Blues makes for something truly special. Being born of a Jewish father, the raggedly brilliant and eclectic Eduard Scham, means that his male parent will fall under the classification consigning one to the hell of the Nazi death camps, and that enduring poverty will be the lot for his Catholic mother, older sister, and own self as the Second World War consumes Yugoslavia with a ravening hunger, leaving but table scraps and eked crumbs for those allowed the opportunity to survive.
Yet it begins not with that horror, but in the kindled warmth of the hearth and arboreal shelter of the forest—a primal magic, matriarchal and earthen, golden and honeyed, potently daubed with feminine traces as young Andi, but a boy, exists within the meticulously described and domiciled closeness of his mother, with quiet elder sister and cat-ghosted Miss Edith nestling at the sides. In a certain light, it proceeds almost in Edenic form, all beautiful chestnut trees and embraces and tanned traces—though the serpent intrudes with such abrupt announcements as that Andi's uncle has died, ere the child knew him. A Jewish uncle, though, at this primordially idyllic stage, that awareness does not fully encroach itself—just hisses forth and slithers immediately away. The serpent is a Semitic spirit, an intrusion into the Singer'ed realm of women's talk and nurturing and feats, ever gazing backward with rapture and harbingering immortality. Indeed, when Andi is set in competition with, and eventual victory over, his classmate Julia, there are hints of a pagan queen having been challenged by the first strains of a stormy, power-wielding patriarchal energy bruiting forth from the harshness of the desert; the intimations of the arrival of sin, of fear, of retribution for having fallen from this verdantly veiled state of grace, most of all in the wrinkled awareness with which Andi is struck that even his beloved mother will die.
Enter the father: Eduard Scham, the Wandering Jew, a gifted man harrowed, tormented, even defeated beneath his pride, bowler wearing and deftly wielding an iron-tipped cane, engorged with philosophies and wracked with prophecies, seeking knowledge and solitude with the same thirst he evinces for drink, restless in spirit and body, consuming everything inside as he compiles the variegated lore textually ensconced within the pages of his seminal work, the Bus, Ship, Rail, and Air Travel Guide, save for the musical words his loquaciousness inspires in his son. A fantastic creation, once Eduard has impressed his gaunt self upon the pages the demiurgical dreams of his son take a Judaic turn, delivering him unto the care of Pharaoh's daughter in Egypt and revealing the terrifying and blanketing aerial darkness of the Angel of Death—a reaping spirit unleashed by God when one's eyes are closed, the Germans when waking life has anew staked its claim. Is the real world leaking into Andi's inner world, or has the latter been worked upon the outer reality? Always, there figures his father: in one of the most sublime scenes (and with countless competition), Eduard emerges, hat-first, from the rustling, golden flames of a wheat field like a spirit of darkness all his own—an apocalyptic messiah from another plane encased in bodily form, pure fire imprisoned within a lean and haggardly proud materiality: the pantheistic anima of an actor of polymorphic gestures and postures, ever masked and hidden in performing angles. This oft-absent familial patriarch, who fascinates and beguiles his Slavic neighbors through his eloquent speech and lithe, cane-propped stance, with its aural strains of mythic desert magic from yore, is being thrust—perhaps against his will, and with his kin—into the straitened theater of the modern world. At one point, when his son has been following him, trying to find a way into and through the malestrom of eccentricity that rages within the parent, Eduard delivers an elocution of blistering acumen:
And so it is, at all times, difficult to discern what part of the father is of this peripatetic genius so unforgettably evoked through the reminiscent verse of Andi, and how much such glamours veiled a worn and weary man, broken at the end by one indignity after another, not least of which was his need to drink. In yet another marvelous passage, Eduard stands singly for an attempted pogrom against Serbian Jews, staving it off through the combinatory potency of his form of address and his fetishistic cane. In another, Andi and his sister come across bits of newspaper wrapped about their father's viscous spittle after he has fully disappeared and they realize, with incredulous melancholy, that such bedaubed treasures are all that they have left of this mesmerizing man. In yet one more, they are forced to watch as Jewish goods are confiscated by German-surnamed overseers; the relocating tension cannot be masked by the politeness and bemused perches under which it is carried out. And most touching of all is the dressed banality of the final note delivered by Eduard to his long-suffering and -admiring family. It took several sentences subsequent to its unremarkable unfolding ere I drew up with a start and returned to the words with which it had been revealed, only to espy the full penetration of Kiš' stiletto thrust on this second try:
After Eduard's disappearance, the remaining Schams are hard put to it: shuffled into ever-more degraded living conditions (perhaps ghettoized due to the war's demands and/or their condemnatory links to a camp-sent Jew?) and desperately lacking in food, the bronze burnish and cinnamon scents with which we opened the book have been fully bleached to gray, drained of life, reduced to soot. The remainder of Andi's paternal relatives are removed. The air is timbered with fear, marked by the resurgence of the viscously enshrouded Angel of Death in Andi's recurring nightmares, a spectral terror sufficient to render sleep a dread visitation. Yet it also draws mother and child into an approximation of their closeness back when the world was golden and feminine lips held spells, and Andi finds escape within the romanticism, heroism, and adventurism of the novels he has come to devour; finds himself so moved by the engined potency of the ingested word that, in a breaching of his interior surface, its apogean instantiation within poetry inflames him, giving his life both a new meaning and a means by which he might come to honor that which, and those whom, he dearly loved and lost—in particular, the abscessed space which his wondrous father once filled with voluminous words and limbered presence and a pantheistic communion with a world far less hostile when shed of its human miscreants.
Escape through the written word. Solace in its versed expression. Purpose in seeking it to imbibe, penning it to share. All of this, fueled by the fantasies and illusions which we not only graft upon the real world, but ofttimes elevate such that reality, with its dehumanizing strains, is fully subsumed. It's the invocation of this, as an answer to history and encomium to family, that Kiš primarily—and beautifully—serves with Garden, Ashes. It begins with the former, ends regrettably with the latter: but through the ashes life is reborn, carries on, rebuilds, learns lessons, perdures. That such a harvest of wondrous resonances and lovely images could be wrought from a tale whose spine is a localized linkage with the measured and professionalized mass murder of millions of fellow human beings—and have it all so aptly conjoined with myth and history—is endlessly impressive. It's also necessary, both tonic to and potent reminder of what must never be allowed to happen again. Ever. We don't have differing grades of human beings—only those who can write like Danilo Kiš, and a vast remainder who can choose to read their words.
How would a child have dealt with the horror of something as regimentally and encompassingly evil as the Holocaust? We are all armed, to some degree, with an imagination that can help us deflect, ignore, transform, subsume select trials and tribulations within immiserating life; but the Shoah is an atrocity at an entirely overwhelming level—so that Andreas Scham, the child's narrative voice relating the events of Garden, Ashes, manages to not only enflesh his own tale within the candied concoctions and selenian spells dispensed from his inventive fount, but, in parallel, that of the mythological meandering of historic time and prophetic passage of Old Testament Blues makes for something truly special. Being born of a Jewish father, the raggedly brilliant and eclectic Eduard Scham, means that his male parent will fall under the classification consigning one to the hell of the Nazi death camps, and that enduring poverty will be the lot for his Catholic mother, older sister, and own self as the Second World War consumes Yugoslavia with a ravening hunger, leaving but table scraps and eked crumbs for those allowed the opportunity to survive.
Yet it begins not with that horror, but in the kindled warmth of the hearth and arboreal shelter of the forest—a primal magic, matriarchal and earthen, golden and honeyed, potently daubed with feminine traces as young Andi, but a boy, exists within the meticulously described and domiciled closeness of his mother, with quiet elder sister and cat-ghosted Miss Edith nestling at the sides. In a certain light, it proceeds almost in Edenic form, all beautiful chestnut trees and embraces and tanned traces—though the serpent intrudes with such abrupt announcements as that Andi's uncle has died, ere the child knew him. A Jewish uncle, though, at this primordially idyllic stage, that awareness does not fully encroach itself—just hisses forth and slithers immediately away. The serpent is a Semitic spirit, an intrusion into the Singer'ed realm of women's talk and nurturing and feats, ever gazing backward with rapture and harbingering immortality. Indeed, when Andi is set in competition with, and eventual victory over, his classmate Julia, there are hints of a pagan queen having been challenged by the first strains of a stormy, power-wielding patriarchal energy bruiting forth from the harshness of the desert; the intimations of the arrival of sin, of fear, of retribution for having fallen from this verdantly veiled state of grace, most of all in the wrinkled awareness with which Andi is struck that even his beloved mother will die.
Enter the father: Eduard Scham, the Wandering Jew, a gifted man harrowed, tormented, even defeated beneath his pride, bowler wearing and deftly wielding an iron-tipped cane, engorged with philosophies and wracked with prophecies, seeking knowledge and solitude with the same thirst he evinces for drink, restless in spirit and body, consuming everything inside as he compiles the variegated lore textually ensconced within the pages of his seminal work, the Bus, Ship, Rail, and Air Travel Guide, save for the musical words his loquaciousness inspires in his son. A fantastic creation, once Eduard has impressed his gaunt self upon the pages the demiurgical dreams of his son take a Judaic turn, delivering him unto the care of Pharaoh's daughter in Egypt and revealing the terrifying and blanketing aerial darkness of the Angel of Death—a reaping spirit unleashed by God when one's eyes are closed, the Germans when waking life has anew staked its claim. Is the real world leaking into Andi's inner world, or has the latter been worked upon the outer reality? Always, there figures his father: in one of the most sublime scenes (and with countless competition), Eduard emerges, hat-first, from the rustling, golden flames of a wheat field like a spirit of darkness all his own—an apocalyptic messiah from another plane encased in bodily form, pure fire imprisoned within a lean and haggardly proud materiality: the pantheistic anima of an actor of polymorphic gestures and postures, ever masked and hidden in performing angles. This oft-absent familial patriarch, who fascinates and beguiles his Slavic neighbors through his eloquent speech and lithe, cane-propped stance, with its aural strains of mythic desert magic from yore, is being thrust—perhaps against his will, and with his kin—into the straitened theater of the modern world. At one point, when his son has been following him, trying to find a way into and through the malestrom of eccentricity that rages within the parent, Eduard delivers an elocution of blistering acumen:
“There are people,� my father continued, “who are born to be unhappy and to make others unhappy, who are the victims of celestial intrigues incomprehensible to us, guinea pigs for the celestial machinery, rebels allotted the part of a rebel yet born- by the cruel logic of the celestial comedy- with their wings clipped. They are titans without the power of titans, dwarf-titans whose only greatness was given them in the form of a rigid dose of sensitivity that dissolves their trifling strength like alcohol. They follow their star, their sick sensibility, borne along by titanic plans and intentions, but then break like waves against the rocky banks of triviality. The height of the cruelty allotted them in lucidity, that awareness of their own limitations, that sick capacity for dissociation. I look at myself in the role forced on me by the heavens and by fate, conscious of my role at all times yet at the same time unable to resist it with the force of logic or will... Fortunately, as I said, this role is coming to an end...�Oddly fitting words from a disillusioned messiah; ones that might have ever-pressed behind the lips of Jesus—another Jew entranced by new modes of thinking and believing whilst yet unable (even unwilling) to abscond from all identification with established and eldritch covenants—ever-demanding their utterance, that the charade, whose grim end he'd evidently entirely foreseen, might at least be honestly acknowledged.
And so it is, at all times, difficult to discern what part of the father is of this peripatetic genius so unforgettably evoked through the reminiscent verse of Andi, and how much such glamours veiled a worn and weary man, broken at the end by one indignity after another, not least of which was his need to drink. In yet another marvelous passage, Eduard stands singly for an attempted pogrom against Serbian Jews, staving it off through the combinatory potency of his form of address and his fetishistic cane. In another, Andi and his sister come across bits of newspaper wrapped about their father's viscous spittle after he has fully disappeared and they realize, with incredulous melancholy, that such bedaubed treasures are all that they have left of this mesmerizing man. In yet one more, they are forced to watch as Jewish goods are confiscated by German-surnamed overseers; the relocating tension cannot be masked by the politeness and bemused perches under which it is carried out. And most touching of all is the dressed banality of the final note delivered by Eduard to his long-suffering and -admiring family. It took several sentences subsequent to its unremarkable unfolding ere I drew up with a start and returned to the words with which it had been revealed, only to espy the full penetration of Kiš' stiletto thrust on this second try:
A month or so later he sent us a letter. He had tossed this letter, or rather a fragment of an envelope, from a sealed cattle car with a note asking the finder to to send it on to the marked address.There's more casually but carefully imparted brutality in this one unshielded glance than were the reality of that ghastly final transport portrayed in its entirety. Afterwards, when Andi puzzles over the interminably perduring absence of his father—deeming he was perhaps lost within his pursuit of book-finalizing knowledge, traipsing the continent and unwilling to be hampered by the quotidian demands of familial responsibility—the reader understands that the father, a ghostly visitor teasingly keeping just beyond sight from the seeking eyes of his dream-rheumy son, has become such a ghost in actuality: a figure, long dead, whose spirit, embalmed in the pretense of fully-committing to his wandering ways, will haunt his son to the end of his days. It's exquisitely, perfectly portrayed; and if the reader's heart isn't broken by the sustained sadness underlying both fact and fiction, said reader simply doesn't have one to be so fractured. It is in such subtle, supernal, sorcerous ways that Danilo Kiš performs his artist's craft.
After Eduard's disappearance, the remaining Schams are hard put to it: shuffled into ever-more degraded living conditions (perhaps ghettoized due to the war's demands and/or their condemnatory links to a camp-sent Jew?) and desperately lacking in food, the bronze burnish and cinnamon scents with which we opened the book have been fully bleached to gray, drained of life, reduced to soot. The remainder of Andi's paternal relatives are removed. The air is timbered with fear, marked by the resurgence of the viscously enshrouded Angel of Death in Andi's recurring nightmares, a spectral terror sufficient to render sleep a dread visitation. Yet it also draws mother and child into an approximation of their closeness back when the world was golden and feminine lips held spells, and Andi finds escape within the romanticism, heroism, and adventurism of the novels he has come to devour; finds himself so moved by the engined potency of the ingested word that, in a breaching of his interior surface, its apogean instantiation within poetry inflames him, giving his life both a new meaning and a means by which he might come to honor that which, and those whom, he dearly loved and lost—in particular, the abscessed space which his wondrous father once filled with voluminous words and limbered presence and a pantheistic communion with a world far less hostile when shed of its human miscreants.
Escape through the written word. Solace in its versed expression. Purpose in seeking it to imbibe, penning it to share. All of this, fueled by the fantasies and illusions which we not only graft upon the real world, but ofttimes elevate such that reality, with its dehumanizing strains, is fully subsumed. It's the invocation of this, as an answer to history and encomium to family, that Kiš primarily—and beautifully—serves with Garden, Ashes. It begins with the former, ends regrettably with the latter: but through the ashes life is reborn, carries on, rebuilds, learns lessons, perdures. That such a harvest of wondrous resonances and lovely images could be wrought from a tale whose spine is a localized linkage with the measured and professionalized mass murder of millions of fellow human beings—and have it all so aptly conjoined with myth and history—is endlessly impressive. It's also necessary, both tonic to and potent reminder of what must never be allowed to happen again. Ever. We don't have differing grades of human beings—only those who can write like Danilo Kiš, and a vast remainder who can choose to read their words.
May 6, 2022
Aunque me resultó más difícil de leer que Una Tumba para Boris Davidovich o Penas Precoces, es sin ninguna duda el libro de Kis que mas placer me ha dado en su lectura por la belleza y elegancia de su prosa, una prosa muy poética que dista mucho de la utilizada en otros libros.
La novela podría decirse que es autoreferencial y describe el mundo del autor durante su niñez, aunque el foco de la novela esta puesto principalmente en su extravagante padre, y toca el tema del holocausto y la migración judía, pero de forma sutil e indirecta.
Una novela con un aire muy melancólico ideal para leer de forma pausada y sin apuro; yo la he disfrutado muchísimo y ya tengo ganas de volver a leerla pronto.
Muy recomendable.
“Hay personas -prosiguió mi padre- que han nacido para ser desgraciadas y hacer infelices a los demás, que son víctimas de no sé qué maquinaciones celestes que escapan a nuestro entendimiento, cobayas de la mecánica del cielo, rebeldes a quienes a sido destinado el papel de rebeldes, pero que, sin embargo, han nacido, según la cruel lógica de la comedia celeste, con las alas cortadas. Titanes sin la fuerza de los titanes, pequeños titanes enanos, raquíticos, que no han recibido de los que corresponde a los grandes mas que una cruel dosis de sensibilidad enfermiza, guiados por proyectos y propósitos titánicos, y se rompen como las olas contra las duras rocas de la mediocridad cotidiana.�
La novela podría decirse que es autoreferencial y describe el mundo del autor durante su niñez, aunque el foco de la novela esta puesto principalmente en su extravagante padre, y toca el tema del holocausto y la migración judía, pero de forma sutil e indirecta.
Una novela con un aire muy melancólico ideal para leer de forma pausada y sin apuro; yo la he disfrutado muchísimo y ya tengo ganas de volver a leerla pronto.
Muy recomendable.
“Hay personas -prosiguió mi padre- que han nacido para ser desgraciadas y hacer infelices a los demás, que son víctimas de no sé qué maquinaciones celestes que escapan a nuestro entendimiento, cobayas de la mecánica del cielo, rebeldes a quienes a sido destinado el papel de rebeldes, pero que, sin embargo, han nacido, según la cruel lógica de la comedia celeste, con las alas cortadas. Titanes sin la fuerza de los titanes, pequeños titanes enanos, raquíticos, que no han recibido de los que corresponde a los grandes mas que una cruel dosis de sensibilidad enfermiza, guiados por proyectos y propósitos titánicos, y se rompen como las olas contra las duras rocas de la mediocridad cotidiana.�
September 14, 2020
„Bašta, pepeo� je drugi po redu roman iz Kišove porodične trilogije „Porodični cirkus�. Uprkos tome, može se čitati nevezano za ciklus kojem pripada.
Glavni junak i narator, dečak Andreas Sam, iz svoje perspektive pripoveda događaje iz vremena Drugog svetskog rata. U Andreasu su sukobljena dva sveta � pravoslavni (od majke Crnogorke) i jevrejski (od oca Eduarda, Jevrejina), te je preko toga naglašena tema potrage za indentitetom.
Ovaj asocijativno-monološki roman jeste veoma složen. U njemu pronalazimo dve pripovedne tehnike kojima se Kiš služi: prustovska pripovedna tehnika (usmerenje na unutrašnji svet junaka) i odbacivanje fabule, odnosno uobičajene radnje romana na kakvu smo navikli.
Celokupna radnja romana se odvija između tematike smrti i tematike erosa. Majka je ta koja uvodi smrt u život Andreasa i podstiče ga na razmišnjanje o njoj. Od tog trenutka sva junakova delanja i htenja se odvijaju pod tim velom smrti i prolaznosti � počinje dečakova borba protiv smrti, borba protiv anđela sna. Tog straha uspeva da se oslobodi tek kad osećaj beznađa zameni estetskim uživanjem u umetnosti, odnosno pisanju.
Traganje za figurom oca je ono što obeležava ovaj Kišov roman. Oca koji je prisutan svojim odsustvom � jeste zapravo traganje za sopstvenim identitetom i rekonstruisanje očeve figure pisanjem siguran je beg od smrti, ako ne i konačna pobeda.
Nastavak pod nazivom „Peščanik� će se baviti životom Eduarda Sama, oca o kome se ovde govori samo kroz prizmu njegovog sina.
Glavni junak i narator, dečak Andreas Sam, iz svoje perspektive pripoveda događaje iz vremena Drugog svetskog rata. U Andreasu su sukobljena dva sveta � pravoslavni (od majke Crnogorke) i jevrejski (od oca Eduarda, Jevrejina), te je preko toga naglašena tema potrage za indentitetom.
Ovaj asocijativno-monološki roman jeste veoma složen. U njemu pronalazimo dve pripovedne tehnike kojima se Kiš služi: prustovska pripovedna tehnika (usmerenje na unutrašnji svet junaka) i odbacivanje fabule, odnosno uobičajene radnje romana na kakvu smo navikli.
Celokupna radnja romana se odvija između tematike smrti i tematike erosa. Majka je ta koja uvodi smrt u život Andreasa i podstiče ga na razmišnjanje o njoj. Od tog trenutka sva junakova delanja i htenja se odvijaju pod tim velom smrti i prolaznosti � počinje dečakova borba protiv smrti, borba protiv anđela sna. Tog straha uspeva da se oslobodi tek kad osećaj beznađa zameni estetskim uživanjem u umetnosti, odnosno pisanju.
Traganje za figurom oca je ono što obeležava ovaj Kišov roman. Oca koji je prisutan svojim odsustvom � jeste zapravo traganje za sopstvenim identitetom i rekonstruisanje očeve figure pisanjem siguran je beg od smrti, ako ne i konačna pobeda.
Nastavak pod nazivom „Peščanik� će se baviti životom Eduarda Sama, oca o kome se ovde govori samo kroz prizmu njegovog sina.
February 2, 2021
GARDEN, ASHES (1965), is the story of Andi Scham's childhood, as his family wanders around Eastern Europe, escaping persecution during WWII.
At the beginning of the novel, Andi is only five years old. He tries to make sense of the confusing things that happen around him: the constant moves, his family's increasing poverty, his father's eccentric behavior and later, his mysterious disappearances. Andi's father, Eduard Scham, is unconventional and brilliant. Also, he is a Jew.
As their world starts disintegrating before their eyes, Eduard's intake of alcohol increases, and he goes off on long solitary walks, daydreaming, speaking to himself like a crazy prophet. He is often humiliated and treated like a possible threat by the authorities, who follow and eavesdrop on him. Eduard frequently goes away, sometimes for weeks at a time, many times wandering around in the woods and living as a tramp. Eventually he goes away, never to return. It is assumed he ended up in Auschwitz, like Kiš's own father, hence this novel has been described as a "concealed memoir".
The central event of GARDEN, ASHES is the Holocaust, but Auschwitz and the death camps are never mentioned in the novel. There is always intense hunger and cold, an atmosphere of ominous danger but the central drama of the story is poignantly understated allowing the full force of the horror to break through subtly.
Danilo Kiš was the son of a Montenegrin Serbian mother and a Hungarian Jewish father. He was born in Subotica, which was then in Yugoslavia, a prosperous town near the Hungarian border. The Hungarian far-right regime avoided participating in the "Final Solution " until 1944. At that time, the Hungarian Nazis took power and they speeded up the process of sending Jews to the death camps. The last trains arriving in Auschwitz consisted mostly of Hungarian Jews, and on one of these trains was Danilo Kiš's father.
Aleksandar Hemon describes this novel as "an unmitigated masterpiece, surely not just one of the best books about the Holocaust, but one of the greatest books of the past century." I agree. GARDEN, ASHES is an outstanding, tragic book and Danilo Kiš is surely, after Max Sebald, my favorite writer.
At the beginning of the novel, Andi is only five years old. He tries to make sense of the confusing things that happen around him: the constant moves, his family's increasing poverty, his father's eccentric behavior and later, his mysterious disappearances. Andi's father, Eduard Scham, is unconventional and brilliant. Also, he is a Jew.
As their world starts disintegrating before their eyes, Eduard's intake of alcohol increases, and he goes off on long solitary walks, daydreaming, speaking to himself like a crazy prophet. He is often humiliated and treated like a possible threat by the authorities, who follow and eavesdrop on him. Eduard frequently goes away, sometimes for weeks at a time, many times wandering around in the woods and living as a tramp. Eventually he goes away, never to return. It is assumed he ended up in Auschwitz, like Kiš's own father, hence this novel has been described as a "concealed memoir".
The central event of GARDEN, ASHES is the Holocaust, but Auschwitz and the death camps are never mentioned in the novel. There is always intense hunger and cold, an atmosphere of ominous danger but the central drama of the story is poignantly understated allowing the full force of the horror to break through subtly.
Danilo Kiš was the son of a Montenegrin Serbian mother and a Hungarian Jewish father. He was born in Subotica, which was then in Yugoslavia, a prosperous town near the Hungarian border. The Hungarian far-right regime avoided participating in the "Final Solution " until 1944. At that time, the Hungarian Nazis took power and they speeded up the process of sending Jews to the death camps. The last trains arriving in Auschwitz consisted mostly of Hungarian Jews, and on one of these trains was Danilo Kiš's father.
Aleksandar Hemon describes this novel as "an unmitigated masterpiece, surely not just one of the best books about the Holocaust, but one of the greatest books of the past century." I agree. GARDEN, ASHES is an outstanding, tragic book and Danilo Kiš is surely, after Max Sebald, my favorite writer.
May 23, 2012
Semi-autobiographical memoir tremolo-ed with essay, lithograph, phantasmagoria and confessional to name but a few: a medley of style and temporal, reads like a collection of self contained story pieces loosely threaded together.
Kis was Yugoslavian, or, to be even more imprecise, half Austro-Hungarian Jew and half Montenegrin Christian. Finding this out helps contextualise the dichotomy of constantly referring to his father as the Wandering Jew whilst indulging in protracted biblical escapism (granted, the old testament). Sadly, his father perished in Nazi concentration camp during the war, which may have prompted the idealised, poignant focus on his pater -and -familias in the novel; a near obsession, really, but duly justified given the circumstances.
Otherwise the war remains firmly on the periphery in this childhood recollection of the 1940s.Lurking in the background are the sceptres of hunger and Singer machines being carted off to concentration camps, but always centre stage is the redemptive salvation of the flight of imagination: the creation of a spiritual and alternate reality of biblical battles, esoteric philosophies and the occasional ‘grope� with Julia, which actually pissed me off a treat because Kis manages to get that prize by basically demoralising and humiliating her into submission through superior mental prowess. (Not a recommended seduction technique from where I’m standing). Julia is a very minor gripe.
The rest is beautiful, mellow tones of rich prose buoyed with understated humour and a marvellous homage to dad: in a style vaguely reminiscent of Rikki Ducornet’s ‘Jade Cabinet�, although she wrote that later, of course. And interestingly, extremely accessible: kis sems to have abandoned mittelEuropa for the cultural harvest of the West: references are plucked from Western lore with erudition and finesse. Baba Yaga, conversely, never makes an appearance.
Kis was Yugoslavian, or, to be even more imprecise, half Austro-Hungarian Jew and half Montenegrin Christian. Finding this out helps contextualise the dichotomy of constantly referring to his father as the Wandering Jew whilst indulging in protracted biblical escapism (granted, the old testament). Sadly, his father perished in Nazi concentration camp during the war, which may have prompted the idealised, poignant focus on his pater -and -familias in the novel; a near obsession, really, but duly justified given the circumstances.
Otherwise the war remains firmly on the periphery in this childhood recollection of the 1940s.Lurking in the background are the sceptres of hunger and Singer machines being carted off to concentration camps, but always centre stage is the redemptive salvation of the flight of imagination: the creation of a spiritual and alternate reality of biblical battles, esoteric philosophies and the occasional ‘grope� with Julia, which actually pissed me off a treat because Kis manages to get that prize by basically demoralising and humiliating her into submission through superior mental prowess. (Not a recommended seduction technique from where I’m standing). Julia is a very minor gripe.
The rest is beautiful, mellow tones of rich prose buoyed with understated humour and a marvellous homage to dad: in a style vaguely reminiscent of Rikki Ducornet’s ‘Jade Cabinet�, although she wrote that later, of course. And interestingly, extremely accessible: kis sems to have abandoned mittelEuropa for the cultural harvest of the West: references are plucked from Western lore with erudition and finesse. Baba Yaga, conversely, never makes an appearance.
September 14, 2018
Here’s what lingers for me: 1) The hope that Gaddis was right that a work of art redeems time. 2) Kis� prose-walk so thoroughly in the mind of a child’s limited conception of enduring still never allows you to forget the adult reflecting through the animation of detail. Maybe writing a more limited mimesis of the experience of the holocaust from the eyes of a child might seem more realistic. But there’s another sense in which the rhetoric of such an execution would be a covering over, a cheapening copy, an impossibility. The constant awareness of oblique looking is a way not to damage the eyes and yet maintain the glaze of panoptic attention that such an abyss calls for.
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December 11, 2021
� Ima ljudi� nastavi moj otac ,“koji su rođeni da budu nesrećni i da drugima čine nesreću, onih koje su žrtve nekih nebeskih, nama neshvatljivih mahinacija, zamorčići nebeske mehanike, buntovnici kojima je dodeljena uloga buntovnika, no koji su rođeni po okrutnoj logici nebeske komedije, sa posečenim krilima. Titani bez snage titana, mali kržljavi titančići kojima je od veličine data samo jedna okrutna doza osetljivosti u kojoj se kao u alkoholu rastvara njihova ništavna snaga. Oni idu za svojom zvezdom, za svojom bolesnom senzibilnošću, nošeni titanskim planovima i namerama, pa se razbijaju kao talasi o kamene hridi običnosti. Vrhunac pak, okrutnosti koja im je dodeljena jeste lucidnost, to saznanje sopstvenih granica, ta bolesna moć distance. Ja gledam sebe u ulozi koju su mi nametnula nebesa i sudbina, svestan u svakom trenutku svoje uloge, ali u isto vreme sasvim nemoćan da joj se suprotstavim snagom logike ili volje.�
� Sem pisanja beskrajnih rečenica sa barem deset zareza, Kiš i ja imamo još jednu zajedničku crtu, a to je nemogućnost shvatanja figure oca.
Šala na stranu, u ovom romanu pratimo junaka, Andreasa Sama, i njegovo odrastanje za vreme Drugog svetskog rata. Istorijska dešavanja su u pozadini, dok dominiraju dva elementa: omnipotentna figura oca i spoljašnji svet koje narator opisuje do tančina, tehnika koju je Kiš „pozajmio� iz francuskog nouveau roman i prilagodio svom shvatanju poetike.
Prelepe lirske, evokativne scene gde se opisuju kestenovi, majčina singerica, hromirani poslužavnik, kolači i tako dalje su odraz misli naratora, opisujući sve te predmete on nam daje uvid u svoju ličnost.
� Andreasa odlikuje određena senzibilnost, rastrzan između dve nacionalnosti i vere (Nemačke i Crnogorske, Judaizma i Pravoslavne vere) primoran da često migrira sa svojom porodicom (usled istorijskih zbivanja) i sa nestabilnom očinskom figurom, jedina misao koja zaokuplja dečaka je misao o smrti. Još specifičnije, on razmišlja o tome kako da je nadmudri i pobegne od nje.
„A naročito me uzbuđivala činjenica, koju sam nejasno naslućivao, da dok ja spavam, moje telo, pruženo u mekom krilu sna, prelazi prostore i daljine, uprkos svojoj nepokretnosti i uprkos snu, i u takvim trenucima nisam se bojao smrti, čak mi se činilo da je tom zanosnom brzinom kojom se moje telo pomera kroz prostor i vreme, ono oslobođeno smrti, da je, dakle, ta brzina i to pomeranje zapravo pobeda nad smrću i nad vremenom.�
� Figura oca uvodi se u drugom segmentu, ili poglavlju(moje izdanje nema numerisana poglavlja samo beline između celina/epizoda) i kroz dečakov pokušaj demaskiranja oca, mi pratimo njegovu potragu za svojim identitetom.
Zanimljiva stvar je što se Kiš kao narator minimalno oseća u delu, tako da nemamo njegov stav ili kritiku očevog lika, što čini Eduarda Sama zagonetnim i za samog čitaoca.
„Sa slepim besom Prometeja i demijurga, moj otac nije priznavao daljinu imeđu zemlje i neba.�
� O Eduardu Samu sigurno postoje teze, diplomski radovi i razne interpretacije, jer ovo je jedan od najfascinantnijih likova u našoj književnosti. Pitanje da li je on bio lud, bipolaran, maničan, ili vrhunski orator, ili pak glumac koji igra ulogu koja mu je dodeljena, ostaje otvoreno.
Ono što je sigurno jeste da je on svemoguća sila koja gura Andreasa i radnju romana, daje obojici oblik. Njegov nestanak iz romana je istovremeno i buđenje umetnika, Andreas piše svoju prvu pesmu, metaforički sin preuzima ulogu oca (prepoznaćete Frojdov uticaj).
„Otkako je genijalna figura mog oca nestala iz ove priče, iz ovog romana � sve se rastočilo, razuzdalo. Njegova moćna pojava, njegov autoritet, pa čak i njegovo ime, njegovi stalni rekviziti, bili su dovoljni da drže potku ove priče u čvrstim okvirima, tu priču koja vri kao grožđe u bačvama, tu priču u kojoj voće polako gnjije, izgaženo nogama, smrvljeno presom uspomena, opterećeno svojim sokovima i suncem. Sada su pak naprsli obruči, istočilo se vino priče, duša voća, i nema tog boga koji će ga vratiti u mešinu, koji će ga sabiti u priču, saliti u kristalu čašu.�
� Sve je ovo upakovano prelepim pisanjem, ako vam duge rečenice nisu problem i ako ste navikli na Džejms Džojsa ili Virdžiniju Vulf nećete imati nikakvih problema s njim. Kiš je pre svega elokventan i liričan, ne bavi se previše politikom u ovom romanu nego formiranju ličnosti junaka (
Sve u svemu, ovo je nešto najbolje sa domaćeg tržišta, i šteta je što danas u prodaji ima samo Arhipelagovo izdanje; vreme je da neko uzme stvar u svoje ruke i izda ovu trilogiju opet npr. Srpska književna zadruga (
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✒️ 11.12.2021. Mali apdejt: Elem, napokon sam stigla da čitam Prusta i nakon završetka prve knjige, "Jedna Svanova Ljubav", sličnost u pisanju, posebno u formi rečenica i određenih stilskih tehnika, je ogromna. Po mom mišljenju, Kiš je možda čak i snažniji na ovom terenu od Prusta. Možda je to zato što smo sa istog mesta, iste kulture, pa sam se više vezala za Kiša i njegovu priču nego za Prusta. U svakom slučaju, obojica imaju divan stil pisanja.
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Odlična knjiga ali Kišov stil pisanja je zvezda romana, da se razumemo 🙌 prikaz stiže za par dana kad mi se slegnu utisci.
May 19, 2012
The realization that I was able to control my dreams, channel them in a particular direction by my choice of reading matter or by thinking certain thoughts before going to sleep, resulted in an explosion of my darkest impulses. In fact, I was living two lives (not a trace of bookishness in that), one in reality and the other in my dreams, which produced in me an extraordinary and sinful joy.
I am dreaming this. I am dreaming this. I want this. I loved Garden, Ashes and I am on my third reading. I want to keep on reading it until I learn its terrible power of thrilling happiness edged with the ache you can already feel behind it to head it off too early, waking up too early. Well, it is just power, maybe, of the now and the future and past don't exist in its wake. If you can keep on pretending, if you have the juice. I could paint it on my eyeballs or put it in my pocket. If I have the juice... It could be called up whenever you need it like a dark demon with a name to be said three times. Stage, unreality, dreams. The autobiographical cloud grounded sister would sob her heart out when something she loved was over (I know the feeling. I don't really love something unless I prematurely mourn its passing) until she learns to no longer notice what she cannot change. Andi doesn't have that. Andi and his father have costumes and walking one foot before the other in a double dream world. This happened, this won't happen, this will happen.
Eduard Scham is the father figure tethered to the front of the horse cart. Dragged behind all the kinds of shit and mud, the Wandering Jew persona to the world and the head of the family for as long as he can disappear behind it. If you could willingly hide behind someone's illusion for as long as you wanted it to last. Oh, their times were hard. Dream or perish. Taste the food in your mouth or starve. What kind of a position are any of those? The victim, the martyr, kicked under. It's not my fault. I could see him moving forever to meet new people to trot out the old sob stories once the old audience has lost the fresh horror (or is that sympathy?) in their eyes. The new, the show, the surprise. It's the knowing your place. How long can you kick yourself under? Andi could freeze frame a moment between the acts to get a glimpse of the real father. If it could have lasted as a deliberate together act. If you could walk inside your own memory and light every thing to see if anything changes you could change the past. Relive, rejoice, revive. Too late. There's another word I was looking for. Oh yeah, it is read. Andi's living this way pulled at every vessel in my body. You know, if you think with your heart. If you could imagine the others you could taste it on your mouth. Maybe it was every cell of my body or something. It hurt. When you're sick sometimes you're vital organs hurt when there is something else wrong with you. It's sort of a way of telling you that something is wrong. Eduard puts on a show. What's wrong? Migrate with the birds in the depression season. Return to sender all letters. Did he use morse code of the animals in the great wide wood? I could see every leaf on every tree. Or was it really every tear drop and not rain drops on the leaves? Dreams are the brain's way of teling you something is important, right? A tiny cell in a ghetto. Kicked under isn't like giving in to the current when you're held under. Strings trailing behind and the sign doesn't say just married it says I'm migrating with the wildebeasts and you know they say those are probably extinct. Someone let go. He could still be in other books, though, if you could dream it hard enough. Heads of family on other heads. Was it all really about the father, anyway? Funny how you start talking about things when you meant to talk about something else. I was having a really good dream and I tried to get back to it.
Geoff's review is one of my favorites I've ever (re)read on goodreads. It was one of the few times I had to thank someone on goodreads for writing their review after I finished reading a book that absolutely did me in. Geoff says he tells everyone he knows to read Garden, Ashes and they don't take him up on it. I know there are a lot of other wonderful books in the world. But this one is really special and if you need a special book about what it feels like to write history and your speck of life dust in it through will of dreams and grief and passion and lust for making every thing count and how doing both rips you in two and you don't even want to stop because it can feel like in Garden, Ashes... You could make it last forever, you could pretend it to be real. Read Garden, Ashes. I'm no good at this so please go listen to Geoff.
I am dreaming this. I am dreaming this. I want this. I loved Garden, Ashes and I am on my third reading. I want to keep on reading it until I learn its terrible power of thrilling happiness edged with the ache you can already feel behind it to head it off too early, waking up too early. Well, it is just power, maybe, of the now and the future and past don't exist in its wake. If you can keep on pretending, if you have the juice. I could paint it on my eyeballs or put it in my pocket. If I have the juice... It could be called up whenever you need it like a dark demon with a name to be said three times. Stage, unreality, dreams. The autobiographical cloud grounded sister would sob her heart out when something she loved was over (I know the feeling. I don't really love something unless I prematurely mourn its passing) until she learns to no longer notice what she cannot change. Andi doesn't have that. Andi and his father have costumes and walking one foot before the other in a double dream world. This happened, this won't happen, this will happen.
Eduard Scham is the father figure tethered to the front of the horse cart. Dragged behind all the kinds of shit and mud, the Wandering Jew persona to the world and the head of the family for as long as he can disappear behind it. If you could willingly hide behind someone's illusion for as long as you wanted it to last. Oh, their times were hard. Dream or perish. Taste the food in your mouth or starve. What kind of a position are any of those? The victim, the martyr, kicked under. It's not my fault. I could see him moving forever to meet new people to trot out the old sob stories once the old audience has lost the fresh horror (or is that sympathy?) in their eyes. The new, the show, the surprise. It's the knowing your place. How long can you kick yourself under? Andi could freeze frame a moment between the acts to get a glimpse of the real father. If it could have lasted as a deliberate together act. If you could walk inside your own memory and light every thing to see if anything changes you could change the past. Relive, rejoice, revive. Too late. There's another word I was looking for. Oh yeah, it is read. Andi's living this way pulled at every vessel in my body. You know, if you think with your heart. If you could imagine the others you could taste it on your mouth. Maybe it was every cell of my body or something. It hurt. When you're sick sometimes you're vital organs hurt when there is something else wrong with you. It's sort of a way of telling you that something is wrong. Eduard puts on a show. What's wrong? Migrate with the birds in the depression season. Return to sender all letters. Did he use morse code of the animals in the great wide wood? I could see every leaf on every tree. Or was it really every tear drop and not rain drops on the leaves? Dreams are the brain's way of teling you something is important, right? A tiny cell in a ghetto. Kicked under isn't like giving in to the current when you're held under. Strings trailing behind and the sign doesn't say just married it says I'm migrating with the wildebeasts and you know they say those are probably extinct. Someone let go. He could still be in other books, though, if you could dream it hard enough. Heads of family on other heads. Was it all really about the father, anyway? Funny how you start talking about things when you meant to talk about something else. I was having a really good dream and I tried to get back to it.
Geoff's review is one of my favorites I've ever (re)read on goodreads. It was one of the few times I had to thank someone on goodreads for writing their review after I finished reading a book that absolutely did me in. Geoff says he tells everyone he knows to read Garden, Ashes and they don't take him up on it. I know there are a lot of other wonderful books in the world. But this one is really special and if you need a special book about what it feels like to write history and your speck of life dust in it through will of dreams and grief and passion and lust for making every thing count and how doing both rips you in two and you don't even want to stop because it can feel like in Garden, Ashes... You could make it last forever, you could pretend it to be real. Read Garden, Ashes. I'm no good at this so please go listen to Geoff.
October 20, 2020
Si entra in un mondo di immagini e immaginazione, attraverso gli occhi di un bambino, Andreas, ma non con il linguaggio dell’infanzia. Ci sono i profumi, i colori, gli oggetti di quell’età felice, ma c’� anche, come lo stesso titolo fa intuire, il pensiero della morte. Un pensiero che si abbatte improvvisamente su Andreas, che intraprende una lotta strenua per conquistare l’immortalità per sé e per la madre.
I ricordi riempiono le pagine in maniera non lineare: la signorina tedesca che vende caramelle d’orzo e sembra uscire dalle scatole di cartone che trasporta; Edith, un’amica di famiglia che fa cappelli da sposa; i viaggi in carrozza e poi in treno; i ritorni a casa, con la riscoperta di un miscuglio di odori dimenticati. Su tutto, a poco a poco, campeggia la figura del padre Eduard, alle prese con l’opera di una vita, un Orario che colleghi tutte le città.
Sono i ricordi di prima della fine di tutto: l’Eden prima della cenere della distruzione (anche quella di Auschwitz dove il padre Eduard morì).
I ricordi riempiono le pagine in maniera non lineare: la signorina tedesca che vende caramelle d’orzo e sembra uscire dalle scatole di cartone che trasporta; Edith, un’amica di famiglia che fa cappelli da sposa; i viaggi in carrozza e poi in treno; i ritorni a casa, con la riscoperta di un miscuglio di odori dimenticati. Su tutto, a poco a poco, campeggia la figura del padre Eduard, alle prese con l’opera di una vita, un Orario che colleghi tutte le città.
Sono i ricordi di prima della fine di tutto: l’Eden prima della cenere della distruzione (anche quella di Auschwitz dove il padre Eduard morì).
January 24, 2025
A deeply moving novel that chronicles the life of young Andi Scham during the tumultuous years of World War II. Set in the shadow of the Shoah, the story follows Andi's family and neighbors as they endure displacement and loss, with Andi's father, Eduard Scham, being an eccentric railway inspector and writer who is ultimately deported to Auschwitz. Through Andi's imaginative lens, the novel captures the heart-wrenching realities of war and the coping mechanisms of a sensitive child.
"Since childhood, I was afflicted with a sick hypersensitivity, and my imagination quickly turned everything into a memory, too quickly: sometimes one day was enough, or an interval of a few hours, or a routine change of place, for an everyday event with a lyrical value that I did not sense at the time, to become suddenly adorned with a radiant echo, the echo ordinarily reserved only for those memories which have been standing for many years in the powerful fixative of lyrical oblivion." These words beautifully illustrate Andi's heightened sensitivity and the way he romanticizes even the simplest events, highlighting the interplay between memory and imagination as a form of escapism from the harshness of reality.
Kiš's writing is replete with vivid imagery, painting scenes with smells, colors, and textures that bring Andi's world to life. The scents of freshly baked bread and the mustiness of old books contrast with the starkness of wartime realities, creating a sensory-rich experience that immerses the reader in the harrowing journey. Andi's father, Eduard, is portrayed as a dreamer lost in his own inventions and literary aspirations, while Andi's mother embodies the stoic resilience of those left behind. Other characters, such as Andi's siblings and neighbors, add depth to the story, each contributing to the mosaic of family life amidst chaos.
Danilo Kiš, a celebrated Yugoslav author of Hungarian Jewish descent, infused the novel with his own experiences. The character of Andi Scham mirrors Kiš's own childhood, while Eduard Scham reflects the eccentricities of Kiš's own father, who was also a victim of Auschwitz. This deeply personal connection adds layers of authenticity and emotional depth to the novel, allowing readers to feel the weight of history through the lens of Kiš's lived experiences.
The Hebrew edition of "Garden, Ashes," translated by אמציה פורת from English (1980s ISBN 965-13-0033-9), poignantly connects the Shoah and Auschwitz with Israeli cultural memory. Porat's translation faithfully conveys Kiš's reflections on loss, memory, and survival, ensuring that Andi's story resonates deeply with Hebrew-speaking readers who share a history of suffering, countless genocide attempts, antisemitism, ethnic cleansing and the resilience of the beautiful country that rose like a blooming garden from the ashes.
"Since childhood, I was afflicted with a sick hypersensitivity, and my imagination quickly turned everything into a memory, too quickly: sometimes one day was enough, or an interval of a few hours, or a routine change of place, for an everyday event with a lyrical value that I did not sense at the time, to become suddenly adorned with a radiant echo, the echo ordinarily reserved only for those memories which have been standing for many years in the powerful fixative of lyrical oblivion." These words beautifully illustrate Andi's heightened sensitivity and the way he romanticizes even the simplest events, highlighting the interplay between memory and imagination as a form of escapism from the harshness of reality.
Kiš's writing is replete with vivid imagery, painting scenes with smells, colors, and textures that bring Andi's world to life. The scents of freshly baked bread and the mustiness of old books contrast with the starkness of wartime realities, creating a sensory-rich experience that immerses the reader in the harrowing journey. Andi's father, Eduard, is portrayed as a dreamer lost in his own inventions and literary aspirations, while Andi's mother embodies the stoic resilience of those left behind. Other characters, such as Andi's siblings and neighbors, add depth to the story, each contributing to the mosaic of family life amidst chaos.
Danilo Kiš, a celebrated Yugoslav author of Hungarian Jewish descent, infused the novel with his own experiences. The character of Andi Scham mirrors Kiš's own childhood, while Eduard Scham reflects the eccentricities of Kiš's own father, who was also a victim of Auschwitz. This deeply personal connection adds layers of authenticity and emotional depth to the novel, allowing readers to feel the weight of history through the lens of Kiš's lived experiences.
The Hebrew edition of "Garden, Ashes," translated by אמציה פורת from English (1980s ISBN 965-13-0033-9), poignantly connects the Shoah and Auschwitz with Israeli cultural memory. Porat's translation faithfully conveys Kiš's reflections on loss, memory, and survival, ensuring that Andi's story resonates deeply with Hebrew-speaking readers who share a history of suffering, countless genocide attempts, antisemitism, ethnic cleansing and the resilience of the beautiful country that rose like a blooming garden from the ashes.
May 29, 2024
Jedna od onih knjiga koja vas podseti zašto toliko volite književnost. Kakva pripovedačka magija! Nova omiljena od Kiša.
Plumaserija.
Plumaserija.
October 28, 2024
Nerado moram da priznam da sam se, od gimnazijskih dana, ustezao od pristupanja Kišu. Iz meni sad nepoznatih razloga, oni lektirski "Rani jadi" toliko su me od njega odbili da sam se sa krajnjim oprezom dohvatio ove knjige. Koliko je bila zabludela predrasuda, toliko je i uzvišeno bilo iznenađenje već u prvih desetak stranica. Prustovština po naški, izvajana svim alatima našeg jezika, sa panonsko-malograđanskim neurozama koje odzvanjaju toplijim, poznatijim tonovima nego Vintejeva sonata. Jedan od upečatljivijih otaca u našoj književnosti, kojoj je otac toliko mio motiv, neopterećen suviše grubim frojdizmom. Nikad brži upliv u lični mi kanon.
February 14, 2023
A sera, mentre siamo a letto, mio padre fuma nell’oscurità e io vedo volteggiare attorno alla sua testa una lucciola incandescente, lo scintillante moscerino del suo genio. E so già che questa notte non potrò prendere sonno e mi sembra che dovrebbe ormai albeggiare, da tanto tempo sono disteso senza chiudere occhio. Sollevo la testa per scoprire se gli altri dormono già o fingono soltanto e sento che essa mi si piega dalla stanchezza. Non ce la farò a rimanere sveglio fino all’alba. Ma non riesco a capire com’� che il sonno arrivi così di colpo, senza che io lo voglia e lo sappia, e com’� che ogni notte io mi addormenti senza riuscire a cogliere l’istante in cui l’angelo del sonno, questa grande farfalla notturna, viene a chiudermi gli occhi con le sue ali.
Dopo i bellissimi racconti di “Dolori precoci�, con questo bel romanzo prosegue il ricordo trasognato dell’infanzia in un villaggio dell’Europa orientale, dove tutto è ricoperto dalla polvere dorata del tempo e dove l’attenzione del bambino Kis si concentra sulla figura mitizzata del padre, l’ebreo errante, visto dagli altri come un pericoloso rivoluzionario anarchico, poeta e nevrastenico, con le sue improvvise assenze fino alla sua partenza definitiva. Senza mai nominare la parola Auschwitz.
Due giorni erano per me sufficienti perché le cose acquistassero la grazia del ricordo. Per questa stessa eccitazione lirica, ereditata da nostro padre, mia sorella Anna sapeva piangere dopo una festa e dopo un viaggio, prima che ne risultasse evidente il carattere di episodio fugace: era sufficiente che una giornata terminasse, che si facesse sera, che il sole tramontasse perché lei capisse che quella giornata non si sarebbe più ripetuta e la piangesse come un ricordo ormai remoto. Per fortuna, fattasi un po� più grande, mia sorella si liberò di questa sensibilità morbosa. Con uno sforzo straordinario riuscì ad affrancarsene: attraverso un ragionamento pratico tipicamente femminile giunse alla conclusione che certi fenomeni sono inevitabili e perciò non ci fece più caso. Io non ci sono mai riuscito.
Dopo i bellissimi racconti di “Dolori precoci�, con questo bel romanzo prosegue il ricordo trasognato dell’infanzia in un villaggio dell’Europa orientale, dove tutto è ricoperto dalla polvere dorata del tempo e dove l’attenzione del bambino Kis si concentra sulla figura mitizzata del padre, l’ebreo errante, visto dagli altri come un pericoloso rivoluzionario anarchico, poeta e nevrastenico, con le sue improvvise assenze fino alla sua partenza definitiva. Senza mai nominare la parola Auschwitz.
Due giorni erano per me sufficienti perché le cose acquistassero la grazia del ricordo. Per questa stessa eccitazione lirica, ereditata da nostro padre, mia sorella Anna sapeva piangere dopo una festa e dopo un viaggio, prima che ne risultasse evidente il carattere di episodio fugace: era sufficiente che una giornata terminasse, che si facesse sera, che il sole tramontasse perché lei capisse che quella giornata non si sarebbe più ripetuta e la piangesse come un ricordo ormai remoto. Per fortuna, fattasi un po� più grande, mia sorella si liberò di questa sensibilità morbosa. Con uno sforzo straordinario riuscì ad affrancarsene: attraverso un ragionamento pratico tipicamente femminile giunse alla conclusione che certi fenomeni sono inevitabili e perciò non ci fece più caso. Io non ci sono mai riuscito.
June 14, 2007
I've read it at least four times, once aloud while the passenger in a car from NYC to Iowa. Easily the finest semi-erotic epileptic fit ever. Like Bruno Schulz more than anyone else (nothing like Marquez, per a review on here), but maybe a bit better than Schulz since it's written well after WWII but is set before it. Not to hype it too much but maybe it should be required reading for all human beings who read for everything other than plot, like lists that go on for six or seven pages . . .
August 15, 2021
"" Bir anlığına iki varlığın, iki yıldızın yazgısal buluşmasının damga vurduğu ağır sessizlik masada beliriverdi."
�
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June 24, 2018
Ovo nije knjiga koju sam čitala pre 5 godina.
Ovo toliko nije ona knjiga da, evo, sedim na ivici suza, skoro da ih dodirujem stopalima, i pitam se ko sam bila kad sam je čitala prvi put.
Ovo toliko nije ona knjiga da, evo, sedim na ivici suza, skoro da ih dodirujem stopalima, i pitam se ko sam bila kad sam je čitala prvi put.
December 10, 2022
Ništa, što bih bio u stanju da napišem, ne može ni na koji način da opiše ili dočara genijalnost Kišovog stila, njegovu poetiku i lepotu, pa neću ni da pokušavam.
Mogu samo da ostavim jedan odlomak od mnogih koje sam obeležio i koje sam čitao po nekoliko puta:
"Otkako je genijalna figura mog oca nestala iz ove priče, iz ovog romana - sve se rastočilo, razuzdalo. Njegova moćna pojava, njegov autoritet, pa čak i njegovo ime, njegovi slavni rekviziti, bili su dovoljni da drže potku priče u čvrstim okvirima, tu priču koja vri kao grožđe u bačvama, tu priču u kojoj voće polako gnjije, izgaženo nogama, smrvljeno presom uspomena, opterećeno svojim sokovima i suncem. Sada su pak naprsli obruči, istočilo se vino priče, duša voća, i nema tog boga koji će ga vratiti u mešinu, koji će ga sabiti u priču, saliti u kristalnu čašu. O, ta zlatnorumena tečnost, ta bajka, to alkoholno isparenje, o, sudbino!"
Mogu samo da ostavim jedan odlomak od mnogih koje sam obeležio i koje sam čitao po nekoliko puta:
"Otkako je genijalna figura mog oca nestala iz ove priče, iz ovog romana - sve se rastočilo, razuzdalo. Njegova moćna pojava, njegov autoritet, pa čak i njegovo ime, njegovi slavni rekviziti, bili su dovoljni da drže potku priče u čvrstim okvirima, tu priču koja vri kao grožđe u bačvama, tu priču u kojoj voće polako gnjije, izgaženo nogama, smrvljeno presom uspomena, opterećeno svojim sokovima i suncem. Sada su pak naprsli obruči, istočilo se vino priče, duša voća, i nema tog boga koji će ga vratiti u mešinu, koji će ga sabiti u priču, saliti u kristalnu čašu. O, ta zlatnorumena tečnost, ta bajka, to alkoholno isparenje, o, sudbino!"
July 31, 2023
O detinjstvu. Ali postoji li šta čudesnije? Upravo to nam je Kiš predstavio ovde, ono magično prepoznavanje sitnica koje su u tom dobu nama značajne, svakako se treba staviti u poziciju deteta, što verujem da je Kiš i uradio... ali s obzirom da je semi-autobiografska nije mu bilo teško da uz to ubaci i elemente svoje prošlosti, naše drage dame, Nostalgije.
Knjiga nema specifičan plot, što je još jedna od dobrih stvari koje ja smatram za originalnim. Likovi su svedeni na minimum, upravo onaj koji može da ima jedno dete, odnosno broj likova na koje ono obraća pažnju i koji utiče na njega, što je ovde izvanredno predstavljeno kod Eduarda Sama, oca naratora.
U trenucima sam poželeo da uporedim njegov stil sa Markesovim, ali bih tako na taj način poništio njegovu originalnost i Markesov čist prikaz magičnog realizma, što se ovde pomalo nazire ali uglavnom više teži ka nekom oniričkom stilu, nalik na veoma vididnom sanjarenju.
Dao sam ovoj knjizi 4 zvezdice jer je previše kratka, ili nedovoljno dugačka da zasiti moj apetit.
Knjiga nema specifičan plot, što je još jedna od dobrih stvari koje ja smatram za originalnim. Likovi su svedeni na minimum, upravo onaj koji može da ima jedno dete, odnosno broj likova na koje ono obraća pažnju i koji utiče na njega, što je ovde izvanredno predstavljeno kod Eduarda Sama, oca naratora.
U trenucima sam poželeo da uporedim njegov stil sa Markesovim, ali bih tako na taj način poništio njegovu originalnost i Markesov čist prikaz magičnog realizma, što se ovde pomalo nazire ali uglavnom više teži ka nekom oniričkom stilu, nalik na veoma vididnom sanjarenju.
Dao sam ovoj knjizi 4 zvezdice jer je previše kratka, ili nedovoljno dugačka da zasiti moj apetit.
January 5, 2023
A partire dalle semplici parole "Giardino, cenere", il titolo racchiude in sè due elementi fondamentali del romanzo: la fantasia e la storia, la vita e la narrazione, il passato che rimane intrecciato al presente senza dargli tregua, in una danza che non abbandona - nè può abbandonare - il lettore. Come una sinestesia continua, tingendosi di profumi e sinfonie dai colori più svariati, gli avvenimenti vengono così narrati attraverso gli occhi di un bambino e le memorie della sua terra. Dolore e malinconia si uniscono ad un velato umorismo dell'autore, facendo da cornice all'intero corso della storia. Viene data dignità a ciò che implica perdersi nell'immensità della memoria, della creatività, della religione e dell'umana nostalgia.
Kiš ci accompagna a osservare e a nasconderci tra i dettagli della sua infanzia e i lineamenti della figura paterna.
Ci invita a non dimenticare, a non chiudere gli occhi davanti all'immensa eredità che diviene la storia per un popolo che non può rinnegarla, che non può nemmeno sperare di salvarsi. Ci ricorda, infine, che porre limiti alla propria fantasia è come chiudersi tra le mura di un interminabile silenzio, che impedisce così di ritrovare la libertà di elaborare, ricredersi e avere compassione per ciò che è stato e che non è più.
Un romanzo delicato, toccante e d'una immaginazione che incanta, stravagante e originale nella forma che, come un questo libro dai colori dorati, custodisce il cuore di un popolo sepolto dal tempo.
Kiš ci accompagna a osservare e a nasconderci tra i dettagli della sua infanzia e i lineamenti della figura paterna.
Ci invita a non dimenticare, a non chiudere gli occhi davanti all'immensa eredità che diviene la storia per un popolo che non può rinnegarla, che non può nemmeno sperare di salvarsi. Ci ricorda, infine, che porre limiti alla propria fantasia è come chiudersi tra le mura di un interminabile silenzio, che impedisce così di ritrovare la libertà di elaborare, ricredersi e avere compassione per ciò che è stato e che non è più.
Un romanzo delicato, toccante e d'una immaginazione che incanta, stravagante e originale nella forma che, come un questo libro dai colori dorati, custodisce il cuore di un popolo sepolto dal tempo.
June 9, 2018
My first experience with Kiš was A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, a collection of seven stories that was very good. Garden, Ashes, a novel, centers on the childhood of Andi Scham during WWII and explores in particular his relationship with his eccentric father. It was at least as good as Tomb—if not better. I have a copy of The Encyclopedia of the Dead, which will be my next Kiš.
March 7, 2017
Fragmenti sećanja koji su mučili Danila Kiša - tako bih ukratko opisao ovu knjigu.
Ovaj bildungsroman je drugi deo trilogije Porodični ciklus kojim autor sprovodi potragu za sopstvenim identitetom u mračnim hodnicima memorije. Opčinjenost smrću i večnošću protagoniste Andreas Sama daju knjizi posebnu, somnambulnu atmosferu, negde između jave i sna.
Figura Eduarda oca protagoniste dominira celom knjigom kao lajt motiv, kao želja da ga ne zaboravi, i zapamti i romantizuje. Od blatnjave odiseje preko vojvođanskih polja bežeći od zle kobi vremena u kojem su živeli do filozofko - boemskih avantura Eduarda, sve upućuje na pokušaj da se osvetle mračne slike prošlosti.
Lirski efekat je posebno zastupljen u poslednjem delu romana, gde asonanca dolazi do izražaja, dajući nežnu, poetsku boju ne baš lepim događajima.
Ovaj bildungsroman je drugi deo trilogije Porodični ciklus kojim autor sprovodi potragu za sopstvenim identitetom u mračnim hodnicima memorije. Opčinjenost smrću i večnošću protagoniste Andreas Sama daju knjizi posebnu, somnambulnu atmosferu, negde između jave i sna.
Figura Eduarda oca protagoniste dominira celom knjigom kao lajt motiv, kao želja da ga ne zaboravi, i zapamti i romantizuje. Od blatnjave odiseje preko vojvođanskih polja bežeći od zle kobi vremena u kojem su živeli do filozofko - boemskih avantura Eduarda, sve upućuje na pokušaj da se osvetle mračne slike prošlosti.
Lirski efekat je posebno zastupljen u poslednjem delu romana, gde asonanca dolazi do izražaja, dajući nežnu, poetsku boju ne baš lepim događajima.
August 30, 2024
Intriguing book. The central character is the strange Eduard Sam, genius-bombastic-embittered-depressive "wandering Jew", seen through the eyes of his hypersensitive son Andi. The story is divided into 12 pieces, with shifting perspectives and corresponding styles. Kis begins with a delicious piece of proustian prose, including meandering sentences. But later his language becomes more poetic, dreamlike, reminding me of Bruno Schulz. But then my attention dropped a bit: Kis (like Schulz, by the way) loses focus and becomes a little bit too exuberant for my taste. In retrospect, it is perhaps more a kind of Bildungsroman, about the genesis of a young author (thus autobiographical)? Rating 2.5 stars.
January 24, 2025
Büyük bir hayalkırıklığı oldu bu roman benim için. Bu kadar kötü hissettiren, boğan, adeta fırlatıp atma hissi uyandıran bir kitaba az rastlamışımdır. Diğer eserleri de böyle mi bilmiyorum ama Danilo Kiş’in çok ağdalı, ağlak, gösterişli, bıktırıcı bir üslubu var. Proust özentisi izlenimi uyandırıyor. Jaguar hayranlık duyduğum bir yayınevi ama bu kitapta, özellikle de çevirisiyle beni yanılttı.
Roman zaten dediğim gibi ağdalı, bir de çevirisinin gereksiz Osmanlıca kelimelerle bezenmesi, kitabı iyice sevimsizleştirmiş. Üstelik 2021 basımı kitabı Sırpça aslından çeviren Özge Deniz 1997 doğumluymuş! 20’li yaşların başında bir çevirmenin kelime tercihlerinden alın size birkaç örnek: zuhur, şamil, tezahür, mecmua, mütevellit, cezbe, asabiyet, muhteva, ahval, müdafaa, mukabil, mukayese� vs. Metinde lakin, nezdinde, bittabi, halihazırda gibi kelimelerden geçilmiyor zaten. “Terakkiperver burjuva”da koptum artık! Bu çeviri yüz yıl önce yayınlansa eyvallah da, bu devirde olmamış. Türkçe tam ve yerleşik karşılıkları varken Özge kardeşimiz niye böyle bir tercihte bulunmuş, Jaguar gibi bir yayınevi de niye buna göz yummuş anlayamadım doğrusu. Daha şiirsel ve lirik bir çeviri hedeflenmiş ise, bu hedefe de ulaşılamamış.
Sözün özü bu kitaba ayırdığım zamana yandım. Siz yanmayın.
Roman zaten dediğim gibi ağdalı, bir de çevirisinin gereksiz Osmanlıca kelimelerle bezenmesi, kitabı iyice sevimsizleştirmiş. Üstelik 2021 basımı kitabı Sırpça aslından çeviren Özge Deniz 1997 doğumluymuş! 20’li yaşların başında bir çevirmenin kelime tercihlerinden alın size birkaç örnek: zuhur, şamil, tezahür, mecmua, mütevellit, cezbe, asabiyet, muhteva, ahval, müdafaa, mukabil, mukayese� vs. Metinde lakin, nezdinde, bittabi, halihazırda gibi kelimelerden geçilmiyor zaten. “Terakkiperver burjuva”da koptum artık! Bu çeviri yüz yıl önce yayınlansa eyvallah da, bu devirde olmamış. Türkçe tam ve yerleşik karşılıkları varken Özge kardeşimiz niye böyle bir tercihte bulunmuş, Jaguar gibi bir yayınevi de niye buna göz yummuş anlayamadım doğrusu. Daha şiirsel ve lirik bir çeviri hedeflenmiş ise, bu hedefe de ulaşılamamış.
Sözün özü bu kitaba ayırdığım zamana yandım. Siz yanmayın.
November 22, 2020
Giardino, cenere è il miglior libro dell'Europa postbellica per I. Brodskij e il secondo volume di una trilogia ideale che comprende Dolori precoci e Clessidra, «tre sguardi � si legge in Homo poeticus � tre approcci alla stessa realtà, al centro della quale si trova Eduard Sam, E.S., lo scomparso, figura centrale di un mondo anch'esso scomparso. Il mondo dell'Europa centrale.»
Un romanzo dal sapore proustiano ma anche schulziano, una narrazione lirica dell'infanzia nella quale realtà e illusione si mescolano nella dimensione letteraria e trovano voce nel racconto del piccolo Andreas Sam che ci parla della sua famiglia e soprattutto del suo strano padre e della sua opera ancora più strana, un "Orario delle comunicazioni tramviarie, navali, ferroviarie e aeree, un libro-mondo in continua trasformazione («Era una Bibbia sacrale, apocrifa, nella quale si rinnovava il miracolo della Genesi, ma nella quale erano corrette tutte le ingiustizie divine e l’impotenza dell’uomo»).
Eduard Sam incarna la figura dell'ebreo errante, un fallito che spinge la famiglia a seguirlo nelle sue peregrinazioni, un pazzo che vive in un delirio di idee assurde e sogni irrealizzabili, votato a «un'indefinita rivolta contro la società e l'ordine del mondo», un uomo convinto che il suo ruolo sia quello di adempiere al proprio destino in modo da realizzare così il proprio personale riscatto e anche quello di riscattare attraverso il suo sacrificio l'intera umanità.
Kiš ci restituisce alla perfezione il punto di vista del ragazzino, lo stupore e la curiosità dei suoi occhi che guardano e interpretano la realtà e lo fa attraverso un linguaggio dai toni soffusi, ricco di descrizioni, particolari e sensazioni. È una prosa lirica che esprime alla perfezione la malinconia per il trascorrere inesorabile del tempo, per un'epoca � quella dell'infanzia � dalla quale il protagonista sta per uscire ma anche per un mondo che volge al declino.
Giardino, cenere è un libro sulla mitologia infantile e sul mistero del tempo di rara eleganza formale ma anche un'opera ricca di contenuti e riflessioni di indubbio spessore.
Un romanzo dal sapore proustiano ma anche schulziano, una narrazione lirica dell'infanzia nella quale realtà e illusione si mescolano nella dimensione letteraria e trovano voce nel racconto del piccolo Andreas Sam che ci parla della sua famiglia e soprattutto del suo strano padre e della sua opera ancora più strana, un "Orario delle comunicazioni tramviarie, navali, ferroviarie e aeree, un libro-mondo in continua trasformazione («Era una Bibbia sacrale, apocrifa, nella quale si rinnovava il miracolo della Genesi, ma nella quale erano corrette tutte le ingiustizie divine e l’impotenza dell’uomo»).
Eduard Sam incarna la figura dell'ebreo errante, un fallito che spinge la famiglia a seguirlo nelle sue peregrinazioni, un pazzo che vive in un delirio di idee assurde e sogni irrealizzabili, votato a «un'indefinita rivolta contro la società e l'ordine del mondo», un uomo convinto che il suo ruolo sia quello di adempiere al proprio destino in modo da realizzare così il proprio personale riscatto e anche quello di riscattare attraverso il suo sacrificio l'intera umanità.
Kiš ci restituisce alla perfezione il punto di vista del ragazzino, lo stupore e la curiosità dei suoi occhi che guardano e interpretano la realtà e lo fa attraverso un linguaggio dai toni soffusi, ricco di descrizioni, particolari e sensazioni. È una prosa lirica che esprime alla perfezione la malinconia per il trascorrere inesorabile del tempo, per un'epoca � quella dell'infanzia � dalla quale il protagonista sta per uscire ma anche per un mondo che volge al declino.
Giardino, cenere è un libro sulla mitologia infantile e sul mistero del tempo di rara eleganza formale ma anche un'opera ricca di contenuti e riflessioni di indubbio spessore.
«Ci sono uomini» continuò mio padre «che sono nati per fare l’infelicità propria e altrui, vittime di macchinazioni celesti che non possiamo comprendere, cavie della meccanica celeste, ribelli ai quali è assegnata la parte di ribelli, ma che sono nati, per la crudele logica della commedia celeste, con le ali tagliate. Titani senza la forza dei titani, piccoli titanucci gracili che di grande hanno ricevuto solo una dose eccessiva di sensibilità nella quale la loro futile forza si scioglie come in alcol. Essi seguono la loro stella, la loro sensibilità malata, portati da progetti e da propositi titanici, e si infrangono come onde sugli scogli della banalità quotidiana. Ma la cosa più crudele riservata loro è la lucidità, la coscienza dei propri limiti, la dolorosa facoltà di distanziarsi. Io vedo me stesso nella parte impostami dai cieli e dal destino, consapevole di essa ad ogni istante, ma al tempo stesso assolutamente incapace di oppormi ad essa con la forza della logica e della volontà... Per fortuna, come ho detto, questa mia parte volge al termine...»
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June 18, 2018I read The Tomb of Boris Davidovich ages ago, and it felt all wrong. But I kept hearing the name Danilo Kis again and again. Fuck it, I thought. I'll give him another shot.
And I'm very, very glad I did. This doesn't feel like shitty Borges, this feels like a bunch of other wild-ass Middle European writers -- people like Bruno Schulz, Herta Muller, and Gunter Grass -- who set their novels in a world that seems still to be under the influence of pre-Christian forest spirits, no matter how industrialized it gets. This is more my speed. And like many of those titans, it's a world in which unspeakable violence is always around the fray.
And I'm very, very glad I did. This doesn't feel like shitty Borges, this feels like a bunch of other wild-ass Middle European writers -- people like Bruno Schulz, Herta Muller, and Gunter Grass -- who set their novels in a world that seems still to be under the influence of pre-Christian forest spirits, no matter how industrialized it gets. This is more my speed. And like many of those titans, it's a world in which unspeakable violence is always around the fray.
August 30, 2017
For me, this was one of those books that change your (literary) life, a book after which you can't read the way you've read books before. The melancholy, the superbly controlled and somewhat baroque, ostentatious style, the well-crafted sentences, the pathos, the irony, it has it all.
I have always been a voracious reader and I don't have too many literary "sacred cows". Kiš was one of them from the moment I first finished reading this book, and more than a decade afterwards, he remains perhaps the only one.
I have always been a voracious reader and I don't have too many literary "sacred cows". Kiš was one of them from the moment I first finished reading this book, and more than a decade afterwards, he remains perhaps the only one.
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