Saša Stanišic: How The Soldier Repairs The Gramophone

[Stewart]

Saša Stanišic's How The Soldier Repairs The Gramophone seems tipped to be this year's translation success. Not bad for a young author and his first novel. It's been getting a lot of pre-release hype and English PEN has it selected as one of the titles they have chosen to put their support behind for this year.

I was lucky enough to receive a proof copy of the novel way back at the start of the year, thanks to Waterstones, and I read the first hundred or so pages. It's probably just me and a lack of grounding in its setting and the history that inspires the wider events, but I found it to be quite an annoying book and didn't finish it.

I don't have it to hand at the moment, but my thoughts about it were it was a bit rambly with forced quirkiness. Chapter names rambled, citing pieces here and there within the chapter and, within the never ending swirl of lengthy paragraphs I eventually realised I was wandering lost. All that said, it's not outwith the realms of possibility that I will try again and I suspect it will make the longlist for next year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. I just can't see myself wanting to, but, contradictingly, I do want to.

So, if there's anyone who has read the book (and it's released shortly) then I would appreciate some words in its favour, to weigh up whether I was too hasty in abandoning it. Of course, a voice joining my lonely dismay is also welcome, if that's what you felt too on reading it.

[Bjorn]

I haven't read it, but I thought the premise sounded interesting - and the critics have either savaged it or loved it, which is often a good sign. The two major Swedish newspapers said this:

26 pages into [the book] I start to despair. I'm choking on the Balkan kitsch and the chatter is making my ears bleed. Imagine Emir Kusturica on cheap speed. It's weddings and funerals, colourful fat aunts here and drunken uncles in frayed black suits there. They play the tuba, drink plum brandy and fire guns in the air. (...) On page 27, I abandon all hope. (...) The silence that sets in when he's done is a blessing.

It's an awful thing to say, but as a critic I rarely read books. Instead I scan them, automatically; an inner literary search engine starts up and decodes the text looking for style, genre, perspective and literary similarities. The only ones who can make me stop scanning (...) are those who continuously strive to invent literature. (...) [How The Soldier] is simply a book that continues to rewrite itself, in new forms, with the sense of magic and drastic humour of a child and containing all the absurdity and grief of war. It's a book that quickly makes me read, and sometimes even cry.

[Stewart]

Thanks, Bjorn. I suppose I'm going to have to side with the first quote. That reviewer, with his mention of Balkan kitsch and observations on weddings and funerals, hits the mark as far as I'm concerned. I'll try and post up an example or two from the book over the weekend.

[Katy]

OK, here's my advice. Finish the book. Then decide.

Really, it's two books in one. Yes, the first half is Balkan kitsch, enjoyably done, from the point of view of a boy who is suddenly shocked by the outbreak of war. Everyday dramas, gun shots at weddings, Cold War politics, tables groaning with food. I've only read the German, not the translation, but this half really lives from the language, which is playful and humorous. And then the sudden horror of violence only half understood. I really enjoyed it, basking in the atmosphere of a happy childhood and then terrified by the cruelty of war.

But then the second half deconstructs everything you've read in the first part. Once you pass the crescendo in the middle, Stanisic starts to reflect on stories and truth and self-deception. He presents letters to a girl who may well be imaginary (as in fact the letters may be), essays the narrator couldn't possibly have written, utterly implausible stories. Some of them are classics of urban (or rural) legend - the one that got away on a fishing trip, the football match between the lines - and some are a nod at magical realism. Part of what he tries to do, I think, is to poke fun at his own pathos as a storyteller. He constantly refers back to the first half, so you'd do well to read it in as few sittings as possible. And the narrator confronts his own memories, ostensibly put down on paper in the first half, by going back to Bosnia.

I've been racking my brains for a suitable analogy, and all I can think of is that it's like a bizarre piece of knitting that keeps picking up stitches and getting more and more complex. So while it starts off as a fairly straight-forward Balkan-childhood-shattered-by-war-story kind of scarf (and a nice cosy one at that), it ends up challenging the reader so much more, subtly asking questions about what we expect to read and growing into something much less comfortable and wearable. Not everybody's cup of tea, though, and I agree that it could have been better structured.

I just have to add that Stanisic himself seems a lovely bloke. I've seen him reading a few times and he's very twinkly and charming, with a slightly silly haircut. I think he might be one of those people who can sell books by just being incredibly nice. Not that it isn't worth reading on its own merit - it is. Just don't expect to understand the Balkan war afterwards.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by Katy

OK, here's my advice. Finish the book. Then decide.

Katy, I've been convinced by the man himself to give it another shot. Hearing him talk about it and talk about the context, especially in light of the capture of Radovan Karadžić.

I just have to add that Stanisic himself seems a lovely bloke. I've seen him reading a few times and he's very twinkly and charming, with a slightly silly haircut. I think he might be one of those people who can sell books by just being incredibly nice

I can certainly agree with that. At the Edinburgh Book Festival he was smiling throughout, making jokes, and his reading was nicely done, peppered as it was with little idiosyncracies in pronounciation, such a pronouncing the silent k.

[Mirabell]

Originally Posted by Katy

I've only read the German, not the translation, but this half really lives from the language, which is playful and humorous.

This, I think is worth remarking on. The novel is written in German, not in Bosnian.

I think it's awfully impressive if a writer writes (very) well in an acquired language. Kudos for that, M. Stanišic.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by Mirabell

I think it's awfully impressive if a writer writes (very) well in an acquired language. Kudos for that, M. Stanišic.

He talked about that, actually. He says that he went to Germany when he was fourteen and German is now his first language and, since he never had many Bosnians to talk with, the language sort of stopped developing for him. His parents only stayed in Germany for five years, before moving on to the United States, so their German isn't as good. (And he hopes, when the book gets translated and released in Bosnia, that a lot of people don't recognise themselves in it. )

As I was leaving I was giving a flyer for the Goethe-Institut in Glasgow, as they are presenting readings later in the year (in English and in German) by authors who came to live in Germany and write in German. Stanišic is one, the others being Tawada Yoko and Mora Terézia.

[Mirabell]

Originally Posted by Stewart

authors who came to live in Germany and write in German. Stanišic is one, the others being Tawada Yoko and Mora Terézia.

There is a big literary prize for non-natives who came to write in German, the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize. wiki gives this listz of past winners:

• 2008 - Saša Stanišić; Michael Stavarič und Léda Forgó (Förderpreise = FP)
• 2007 - Magdalena Sadlon; Que Du Luu und Luo Lingyuan (FP)
• 2006 - Zsuzsanna Gahse; Sudabeh Mohafez und Eleonora Hummel (FP)
• 2005 - Feridun Zaimoğlu; Dimitré Dinev (FP)
• 2004 - Asfa-Wossen Asserate und Zsuzsa Bánk; Yadé Kara (FP)
• 2003 - Ilma Rakusa; Hussain al-Mozany (FP), Marica Bodrozic (FP)
• 2002 - SAID; Francesco Micieli (FP), Catalin Dorian Florescu (FP); Harald Weinrich (Ehrengabe)
• 2001 - Zehra Cirak; Radek Knapp (FP), Vladimir Vertlib (FP); Imre Kertész (Ehrengabe)
• 2000 - Ilija Marinow Trojanow; Terézia Mora (FP), Aglaja Veteranyi (FP)
• 1999 - Emine Sevgi Özdamar; Selim Özdogan (FP)
• 1998 - Natascha Wodin; Abdellatif Belfellah (FP)
• 1997 - Güney Dal und José F. A. Oliver; Jiří Gruša (Ehrengabe)
• 1996 - Yōko Tawada; Marijan Nakić (FP)
• 1995 - György Dalos; László Csiba (FP)
• 1994 - Dante Andrea Franzetti; Dragica Rajcić (FP)
• 1993 - Rafik Schami; Ismet Elci (FP)
• 1992 - Adel Karasholi und Galsan Tschinag
• 1991 - Libuše Moníková; SAID (FP)
• 1990 - Cyrus Atabay; Alev Tekinay(FP)
• 1989 - Yüksel Pazarkaya; Zehra Cirak (FP)
• 1988 - Elazar Benyoëtz; Zafer Şenocak (FP)
• 1987 - Franco Biondi und Gino Chiellino
• 1986 - Ota Filip
• 1985 - Aras Ören; Rafik Schami (FP)

[Eric]

Review about him:

The Naïve Fiction of Saša Stanišić - April 23, 2008 - The New York Sun

The very last paragraph is interesting, in the light of recent events.

[Katy]

Mini-review in, ahem, Sainsbury's Magazine:

"An imaginative boy's life changes when war comes to town in the wonderful debut How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, §12.99) by Bosnian-born Sasa Stanisic (translated by Anthea Bell). First he and the other town children are herded into a cellar; then his parents whisk him away in the middle of the night."

And that's Terezia Mora, Stewart, not the other way round.

[Katy]

Originally Posted by Mirabell

There is a big literary prize for non-natives who came to write in German, the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize. wiki gives this list of past winners:

The amazing transmogrifying Mirabell, eh? You know, I find the whole concept of the Chamisso Prize a bit patronising. Many of the writers on the list grew up speaking German (Özdogan, Zaimoglu, etc.) and merely have a "non-German cultural heritage". And most of them compete on equal terms with the rest of the the German-speaking literary world (especially Özdamar, Trojanow, Stanisic, Bank, Mora, etc. who I think have all been translated into English).

I suppose it's similar to the Orange Prize. Not that I want to open that up for debate again...

[Katy]

So glad you've been convinced, Stewart, by the way.

[Mirabell]

Originally Posted by Katy

The amazing transmogrifying Mirabell, eh?

?

But amazing sounds like me all right ;P

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by Katy

And that's Terezia Mora, Stewart, not the other way round.

I know, but since she's Hungarian, I'm in the habit of using the eastern name order here.

[fausto]

I just don't get this "balkan kitsch" thing. What the hell is it supposed to mean? I can only guess...

It could be that the reviewer think the way life is shown is clichéed. If so, I would like to know how he thinks he is in a position to decree those are indeed clichés? Is he Bosnian? After all, if there is one thing I learned each time I discovered a new culture / country is that the clichés we have about them, behind sometimes a thick veneer of exagerations, are actually not clichés: they do correspond, up to a certain extent, to the reality.
It could also be that the reviewer think local customs are kitsch. Now, how patronizing is that?

Anyway, I have to disagree whatever he means. All the traits and customs are shown in a much less hysterical fashion than in a Kusturica film. Moreover, we have here a story told through the eyes of a kid. Pray tell me what would appeal to a kid if not the flashy, noisy, celebratory aspects of his culture? As for what is written in the mind of the 20 sth years old narrator, don't you think most migrants thinking about their country from afar have a view that tends to blow some things out of proportion? Isn't that Stanišic whole point? Isn't the reviewer showing his shortcoming by failing to see this?

To answer Katy, I don't think the second part "deconstructs" the first. I think the second part is actually the rough material Stanisic put together to write the much more cohesive story of the first part. How he got there. What he picked up on the way. The travel back home that lead him on the way back to his childhood. The first part is the result of the second part. I would say that if Stewart doesn't like "quirky" (what is it with you and quirky by the way? Are you exclusively reading traditional novels?), he won't like the second part better than the first.

I still have ten pages to read and I don't know if I really like the book. I enjoyed the ride so far, in spite of it's numerous imperfections.