On vacation, desperately trying to escape from everyday life, I usually read whatever I can find, as long as it's not the newspaper. This summer, for this purpose, while browsing the shelves of the "Radoslav Ljumović" National Library, I chose, as I often do when I don't have a clear idea, two books at random by writers whose names and works are completely unknown to me.
This kind of experiment is often a high-risk undertaking, especially for someone who adheres to the principle that perhaps the last sentence holds the key to understanding the author's hidden, often inscrutable, key message.
Rarely, I admit, do these expectations come true, but that's no reason to give up. If my literary companion, I reckon, made such a spiritual effort to come up with and write it all, the least I can do, when I have already embarked on this adventure, is certainly not to give in before the very end, driven by some kind of personal desires and affinities.
Although in this summer's specific case it is not very easy, I will not complain, nor will I give up my modest contribution to the creative enthusiasm of all those who are writing new pages of our literary history at this very moment. Instead of whining, I remembered one evening, way back in 1993, and a conversation with Miroslav Josić Višnjić, one of the first winners of the prestigious "Borisav Stanković" award.
There was, of course, the most talk about Bora, who, should we say, was also among the most important Yugoslav writers for Josić Višnjić. We were all fascinated by Višnjić's knowledge and interpretation of Bora's poetics, but we were all surprised by the question of what the term "kožder" actually means. I'm not sure how well-known it is, but the people of Vranje knew their most famous fellow citizen as "Bora Kožder". That nickname, actually an untranslatable localism in literary language, denoted people of difficult character, of course by the standards of the then Vranje bazaar.
This, it will turn out, too general and too conventional explanation did not satisfy Josić Višnjić. He interrupted us with a slightly reproachful "I know that" and repeated the question, politely warning us that he knew that Bora and the people of Vranje were, to put it mildly, never overly in love and that there was no need to mask this mutual relationship with some kind of local patriotic snobbery.
A little embarrassed, we then tried, each from our own angle and knowledge, to expose what a "kožder" is, but we soon realized that all our subsequent explanations were not even on the trail of Višnjić's expectations. He himself, waving his hand with a benevolent smile, stopped our torture at the moment when, I'm sure, everyone had the same thought: this is a bigger furrier than Bora! And then came Višnjić's story, which clarified the "kožder" sequence for us as well, and I believe it will also be useful for those two writers from the beginning, whoever they were.
In the middle of writing a short story, Miroslav Josić Višnjić realized that he had to describe the demolition of a house, and that he knew almost nothing about what it actually looks like. For help, he turned to an architect friend who, himself a little surprised, recommended a textbook on Statics for students of Civil Engineering and even indicated the chapter in which he would find what he was interested in.
Of course, Višnjić read those twenty pages, but he was still not convinced that it was enough for a true description of the scene of the demolition of the house. He concluded that it would be best to read the entire textbook. It took some time, but Josić Višnjić did not give up, even though the book had, no less, about 700 pages.
In the end, that part about the demolition of the house was not included in the final version of Višnjić's story.
That's it, and now I'm off to continue reading my mandatory summer literature.
Bonus video:
